This Week on Comedy Central
This week, Jon Stewart gives rare attention to a novelist (who happens to be well-known as the creator of Family Guy and director of Ted). The rest of the week, he returns to his interest in politics and the future. Colbert should have fun on Tuesday with “the rockstar of the Internet,” Jaron Lanier.
Monday, March 3, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Seth MacFarlane, A Million Ways to Die in the West, (RH/Ballantine; RH Audio; BOT; March 4).
Billed as MacFarlane’s debut novel, this actually began life as a screenplay. A movie of the same title, starring Charlize Theron, Amanda Seyfried, Liam Neeson, as well as MacFarlane himself, premieres on May 30th.
The Wall Street Journal interviewed MacFarlane last week, saying, “In an inversion of the usual adaptation process, Mr. MacFarlane reverse-engineered A Million Ways to Die in the West from a script he co-wrote with his friends and frequent collaborators, Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild.” Guess they never heard of a novelization. Describing the book, the article adds, “The novel is likely to be polarizing—with some finding it bitingly funny and fresh and others dismissing it as juvenile—much like his animated shows and his blockbuster 2012 comedy Ted.”
The trailer for the movie, below (warning, NOT for the squeamish and also NSFW):
The rest of the week:
Tuesday, March 4
Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Jim DeMint, former South Carolina senator, a leading tea partner, and now CEO of conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation. His new book is Falling in Love with America Again, (Hachette/Center Street, March, 2014).
The Colbert Report
Jaron Lanier, Who Owns the Future?, (trade pbk reprint, March 4, S&S) — Originally published last year, The New York Times called this “brilliant” and “daringly original.”
Thursday, March 6
Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Paul Taylor, The Next America: Boomers, Millennials, and the Looming Generational Showdown, (Perseus/PublicAffairs, Feb. 11) — The Washington Post calls this a “masterful synthesis of polls.”