Mr. Mike

the long version

Michael O'Donoghue was a comic genius who once said, "Making people laugh is the lowest form of comedy." His widely influential style of humor spared no one's feelings or sensitivities and often left his audience questioning the nature of comedy itself. Now, critic and humorist Dennis Perrin offers the first detailed examination of the times that formed this singular sensibility and the outrageous creative work that constitutes O'Donoghue's legacy. From his early days devising confrontational theatre pieces to the brilliant underground comic Phoebe Zeit-Geist that made the eccentric young writer's reputation to an unprecedented string of famous and infamous pieces in National Lampoon (including "How to Write Good," "Tarzan of the Cows," "Children's Letters to the Gestapo," and "The Vietnamese Baby Book"); from O'Donoghue's breathtaking stint as the key founding writer of Saturday Night Live to his tumultuous adventures in Hollywood, the author skillfully takes us behind a mercurial public personality for an incredibly revealing portrait of the man inside.