It Seemed Like a Bad Idea at the Time

It Seemed Like a Bad Idea at the Time
It Seemed Like a Bad Idea at the Time

It Seemed Like a Bad Idea at the Time

By Bruce Vilanch

BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY

256 Pages, 6 x 9

Formats: Cloth, EPUB, PDF

Cloth, $28.99 (US $28.99) (CA $38.99)

ISBN 9780914091929

Rights: WOR

Chicago Review Press (Mar 2025)

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Overview

“Bruce Vilanch, a storyteller without peer, has written a tell-all . . . on himself! And it’s hilarious! He’s finally coming clean and owning up to his part in creating some of the worst television of the twentieth century, and that’s saying a lot. There’s no one like him. As they’ve been saying since I discovered him as a cub reporter at the Chicago Tribune, when you’re in a pinch . . . Get Bruce!” —BETTE MIDLER

Bruce Vilanch is known as a go-to comedy writer for award shows, sitcoms, and top-heavy variety specials, but he has also been responsible for quite a few of the worst shows ever put on television—legendarily bad productions.
Some of his work lives in infamy—The Star Wars Holiday Special, The Paul Lynde Halloween Special, Rob Lowe dancing with Snow White at the Oscars, and The Brady Bunch Variety Hour. How did these ever seem like a good idea?
Well, everyone has screwed up a few times, or had their work screwed up by others. It Seemed Like a Bad Idea at the Time is a lifetime reflection of what Vilanch has experienced, learned, forgotten, dismissed, and embraced in decades of working in show business, specifically the south forty acres known as comedy. It involves very famous people and people who were not very famous but should have been.
And it explains to the person in the audience who says to himself, once he has gotten his jaw off the floor, “’How did this ever get made?”
Don’t we all want to know?


 

Reviews

“Bruce is the name, the man, the person, who steadied the Oscars for a hundred years. The go-to genius we all relied on.” —STEVE MARTIN

“It’s often been said you learn a lot more from failure than you ever do from success, and in master comedy writer Bruce Vilanch’s hilarious new book, It Seemed Like a Bad Idea at the Time, he has created a screamingly funny encyclopedia of show business failure that takes the joy of schadenfreude to new heights. A laugh-out-loud autopsy of fiascos from television to film to Broadway, all told with Bruce’s impeccable wit and huge heart, from The Paul Lynde Halloween Special to The Ice Pirates, it must be read to be believed. And despite the subject matter this deeply funny debacle chronicle proves to be an unqualified hit.” —NATHAN LANE

“Turns out that all those TV specials I watched as a kid—the ones that not only delighted me but made me wince, groan, and squirm with embarrassment—had Bruce Vilanch’s name on them. And he lived!” —JANE LYNCH 

“These tales are not only hilarious but often shocking that they took place at all. Bruce tells each with wild detail and an incredible amount of heart. You may come for The Star Wars Holiday Special, but you’ll be thrilled you stayed for The Ice Pirates and Charo!” —ANDREW RANNELLS

Author Biography

Bruce Vilanch is an actor (occasionally an actress), writer (occasionally a rewriter), and comedian (occasionally for money, often for causes). He has coauthored 25 Academy Award spectacles, winning two writing Emmys in the process, and has been nominated for seven more. In addition to the Oscars, he has cowritten many Tonys, Emmys, Grammys, People’s Choice, American Comedy Awards, TV Land Awards, SAG Awards, and a ton of other pageants, roasts, tributes, and various trumped-up reasons for people to strut a red carpet. He has coauthored dozens of variety television shows and actually put words in the mouth of Cher. He’s also a lyricist, scoring gold and platinum records for disco songs he wrote for Eartha Kitt and the Village People. And musical theatre geeks will remember him as the coauthor of the Broadway misfire called Platinum, which was revived off-Broadway for reasons that continue to mystify Bruce.