As a fan of Bob Odenkirk, I was really excited to read this one. I quickly realized after starting that I actually didn't know much about his acting background at all. The title is perfect because his career has been "Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama." I loved hearing about his start in comedy and writing. It's clear that Mr. Odenkirk is intelligent, funny, and humble. He's an extremely likeable person and I enjoyed getting to know his personality better. I highly recommend if you enjoy celebrity memoirs.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for allowing me access to the ebook in exchange for my honest review.

3.5 stars! We recently started Season 6 of Better Call Saul and I want to read more memoirs this year, so this book seemed like the perfect pick. I was surprised to hear how short lived and not that positive Bob’s SNL experience seemed to be. Overall, I found this to be a fun and quick read. Thanks to NetGalley for the free copy in exchange for my honest review!

It’s hard to precisely pin down or define a Bob Odenkirk performance. Most know him best as one of the comic visionaries of HBO’s Mr. Show with Bob and David (HBO, 1995-1998) or as Saul Goodman/Jimmy McGill in Breaking Bad (AMC, 2008-2013) and its spin-off, Better Call Saul (AMC, 2015-). Mr. Show brought the underground fringe comedy scene just above ground, attracting a niche viewership to the premium channel. In contrast to the wacky school play vibe (and budget) of Mr. Show, Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul are prime artifacts of the Golden Age of Prestige Programming, populated by quality dramas that critics call “cinematic,” “literary,” and “ooh fancy.”

That Odenkirk is the heart of these shows is not only a testament to his range, but also to his unique star persona that is both Midwestern Nice (polite but with an edge) and Midwestern Happy as well (smiling to mask the misery). Whether he is playing a smarmy sad-sack on I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson (Netflix, 2019-) or an infuriatingly small-minded cop on the first season of Fargo (FX, 2014-), Odenkirk thrives when he is rupturing the conventional boundaries of genre in our post-network, post-television, “I guess it’s all just content now?” age. His dramatic performances cannot help but reveal the absurdity of human suffering, while his comedies unearth the very human pain that gives humor its power.

This makes the name of Odenkirk’s book, Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama: A Memoir (Penguin Random House, March 2022), all the more appropriate. On its surface, the book traces Odenkirk’s start in the alternative comedy scene, through his work on Mr. Show, The Ben Stiller Show (MTV, 1992), and as a writer on various sitcoms and comedy projects, up to the present, in which Odenkirk has, in many ways, conjured up an equally impressive career in dramatic film and television. But this title also articulates the arc of an on-screen Odenkirk turn (funny until it is devastating)—except when it’s more like Drama Drama Drama Comedy. Cut to: the sly, oddball twinkle in Odenkirk’s eye as he plays Father March-as-Bronson Alcott in the 2019 Little Women.


And in accordance with the comedy “rule of threes,” Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama is three books in one. It is, at once, the story of Odenkirk’s life, a vision into his comedy nerd brain, and an anti-self help book for professional success, the latter being the only kind of manual a self-proclaimed cynic like Odenkirk could write. “Here’s what I can admit to right out of the gate, and it’s tragic,” he writes at the start. “I tried just as hard at the stuff that didn’t work as I did at the stuff that worked.”

Of these three modes, the biographical component is handled with the lightest touch. A native of Naperville, Illinois, Odenkirk was one of seven kids raised, mostly, by a single mother. His father, who left the family when Odenkirk was still young, was an explosive and mean-spirited man, exhibiting a mercurial humor that underpins many of his characters but that Odenkirk himself avoided in life, stepping into the role of happily married man and doting father. (His wife, Naomi Yomtov, is also his manager and a comedy power broker in her own right.) In telling his life story, Odenkirk draws up a series of colorful characters, social butterfly (and ex-girlfriend) Janeane Garofalo, pothead improv legend Del Close, and foul-mouthed super-agent Bernie Brillstein being a few of the highlights.

But, ultimately, Odenkirk’s professional trajectory—coming up in Chicago, hating his time as a writer on Saturday Night Live while maintaining a profile in the fringe comedy scene, moving between passion projects and paychecks in Los Angeles—is not the volume’s strongest hook. His hustle and drive, conducted along the well-trod Chicago-NY-LA pipeline, makes his story not so different from that of his friends and compatriots, only some of whom went to Harvard (Conan O’Brien yes, David Cross no).


Odenkirk’s memoir is at its most unique and compelling when he geeks out on his first love, comedy. His philosophy of hard work and harder laughs marks him as a tenured professor of absurdist gags, with graduate mentees including Tim Heidecker, Eric Wareheim, and all of The Birthday Boys. His point of view is uncompromising: Odenkirk snidely describes “observational comedy [as being] performed by nice young men in polo shirts wearing a jacket with the sleeves pushed up,” explaining, elsewhere, that “fringe comedy lives on the fringes for a reason, and it’s where I would aim for, never the middle.” And while he may joke about his real-life “Daddy issues,” these play out, quite earnestly, in his admiration for his comedic godfathers. “Monty Python was the hip-hop that saved my life,” he crows, further listing Steve Martin, Albert Brooks, Beyond the Fringe, and The Credibility Gap as primary influences for developing his own voice. Of the sketch group The Kids in the Hall, Odenkirk raves that “they were able to bring Canadian niceness to the brain-warping comic mayhem. How much maple syrup do I have to drink to become that nonthreatening? There isn’t enough in the world.” Theirs is the notable exception to Odenkirk’s general rule: “To me, the best comedy has an anger in it, and I still don’t like comedy that lacks a touch of that anger.”

The Gospel According to Odenkirk emphasizes collegiality, collaboration, and what he calls a “shared sensibility.” For a television show to work, “a lot of brains… need to line up”; without this synchronization, programs like The Ben Stiller Show and The Dana Carvey Show floundered, and due to this magical chemistry, Mr. Show endured. While he writes of his newfound dramatic roles with a great deal of humility, his opinions on comedy writing and performance are confidently issued: everyone involved must be united in a common purpose, or the project will fail. And it might fail anyway! Throughout, Odenkirk thinks deeply not just about when comedy works, but how and why.


Odenkirk is clearly working through his legacy in this memoir, acknowledging how he is white, male comedian who has mostly worked with those benefiting from the same set of privileges and whose work has, on occasion, punched down. If his apologies feel shoehorned in at moments, credit is due to the author for never calling his coming-up “ a different time.” (As Jeff Garlin and Jay Johnston feature prominently in his story, the issue of who Odenkirk isn’t and how he doesn’t want to be seen makes for unintentional subtext.)

Odenkirk’s recollection of writing Mr. Show, though, makes for an inspiring anecdote, a reckoning with his past that feels authentic and not awkward. As he recalls: “Instead of beating ideas up, especially weak ones, this gang would build them up—especially weak ones… I would ask, ‘It’s kinda funny—what was the funniest moment in there for you?’… Our writing process, ‘make it work,’ transformed many a half-assed notion into hard laughs.” It is in this spirit of generous, professional reciprocity that Odenkirk looks back at his own career while offering a vision of the industry that is inclusive not just in name, but in shared sensibility as well.

https://www.pastemagazine.com/comedy/bob-odenkirk/bob-odenkirk-memoir-review

I had only know bob Odenkirk from breaking bad and better call Saul which I liked both.
In this book you learn so much more about how he started in stand up Comedy to writing on Saturday night live. If your a fan pick this up

I’ve been a Bob Odenkirk fan since I discovered Mr. Show in the late 90’s while I was in college. The things that he and David Cross came up with was hilarious and much of it was smart as well. I honestly kind of lost track of him for a good while prior to him popping up in Breaking Bad, but apparently he kept busy with a lot of writing work. I rekindled my love affair with his work through that show and the subsequent show, Better Call Saul as well as the great movie, Nobody. Odenkirk didn’t stay in the public eye as much as his contemporaries because he didn’t (and still doesn’t) do traditional stand-up but his fingerprints are on a lot of stuff I’ve seen between Mr. Show and Breaking Bad. I can see it now, looking back and his involvement with Check it Out with Dr. Steve Brule and Tim and Eric are pretty obvious now.

Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama focuses a lot more on the comedy than his dramatic work because that’s Odenkirk’s true love. This should really be obvious just from the title but it seems that a lot of people are disappointed with the lack of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul information contained in the book. I would’ve enjoyed more on those shows as well, but the comedy parts are where his passion lies and you can tell from his writing that it’s what he really enjoys doing. The interesting thing about Odenkirk is that he can act in either genre and totally kill it. There aren’t many that can accomplish that and it’s one of the things that really stands out about him. I’ve also read other reviews complaining about the lack of personal information and self-reflection in this particular memoir. Odenkirk is a private person, which he admits in these pages and doesn’t use a lot of personal information in his other work either. Even so, there is a lot to love about this little book, not the least of which is the stories about breaking into the comedy business and anecdotes about other comedy legends (The bits pertaining to Chris Farley are especially heartbreaking).

Honestly, if you only know Odenkirk from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul and that is your only interest in him, you might be better off skipping this one. But, if you are interested in his comedic history or comedy/showbusiness in general, then this should entertain you thoroughly. I’m giving it 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 since I can’t use half stars here. There are points where the narrative slows down a little bit, but I chalk this up to Odenkirk’s lack of experience as an author and this was overall a great read. It’s not going to change your life, but it should entertain. Thanks to Netgalley and Random House Publishing for providing me with an ARC of this book.

This was a fairly solid memoir. I could hear Odenkirk's personality throughout the writing and I'm glad that was preserved, but the comedy sections of this book seemed to really drag on. I found myself wanting to skip certain parts of this to get on to the interesting parts.

Though Bob Odenkirk is probably best known for playing the character Saul Goodman on the two TV series 'Breaking Bad' and 'Better Call Saul,' Odenkirk is a comic at heart. In this book Bob traces the arc of his career, starting with childhood skits written on his mom's typewriter, to his radio show in college, to open mics, to writing for 'Saturday Night Live' (SNL), to writing/producing sketch comedy shows, and more. If you're interested in a show business career, especially as a comedian, this book could put you on the right track. And even if you're not a budding performer, the book is still very entertaining.

In his introduction, Odenkirk writes, "I will attempt to identify the 'big breaks,' wormholes of opportunity that allowed me to move ahead five or ten spaces, or that simply sent me in the right direction." It wasn't all breaks though. Bob admits to numerous projects that didn't succeed: pilots, outlines, presentations, stumbles, misfires, dead ends, etc. Projects that failed, but taught Bob valuable lessons.

Odenkirk grew up in Naperville, Illinois with six siblings, a distant father, and a Catholic mother who was the family's rock. Bob's siblings - gifted with good senses of humor - were his initial audience, his first open mic night, in front of whom he'd act out 'some idiocy from the day, make fun of people he'd met, or just be a clown.'

As a middle schooler Odenkirk was mesmerized by the comedy troupe Monty Python, which took 'a hilarious, undermining, smart-silly swipe at humanity, at false dignity, and rules.' To Bob, this and other offbeat funniness was the best kind of humor. Bob's interest in comedy eventually sparked a compulsion to make it a career, and after honing his skills at comedy clubs - and meeting umpteen talented young comics (a literal laundry list of now famous entertainers) - Odenkirk got hired at SNL. Bob observes, "Everything I would learn about sketch writing and how to do it, everything that would someday help me write and produce the best show I had in me - all of that I learned in my three-and-a-half seasons at SNL.

In between seasons of SNL, Odenkirk worked at Chicago's 'Second City Theatre.' One fellow comic at Second City was Chris Farley, who was 'undeniably funny, undeniably likable, and undeniably mesmerizing.' When Bob was asked about the best time he ever had doing his job, he said it was "doing a scene with Chris Farley seven times a week at Second City."

Sadly Chris was headed for tragedy with his drinking and drug use. Odenkirk notes, "The worst part of watching Chris's downfall....was the inevitability of the whole damn thing. His rise to fame, blazing moments, assured destruction - it played out just as everyone said it would. Said it to his face."

After SNL Odenkirk worked on other offbeat shows, and collaborated with such comedy greats as Ben Stiller, David Cross, Margaret Cho, Patton Oswalt, Greg Behrendt, Dana Gould, Judd Apatow, Andy Dick, Kathy Griffin, and others. Odenkirk writes, "Slowly, an audience began to coalesce around all this more personal, idiosyncratic, semi-serious stuff we were all doing....it was shocking to find audiences were willing to show up to these out-of-the-way 'comedy nights' looking to be surprised by our unpredictability and exploration."

Odenkirk credits Janeane Garofalo with this comedy reinvention. He writes, "Off-the-cuff, real, impromptu, personal, disarming, sloppy, meandering, intimate....she did it first. She made it cool."

Odenkirk's next big break was 'The Ben Stiller Show' - filmed in Los Angeles - which Bob recalls as being great fun. The show was on for a few years in the early 1990s, and Bob notes, "I think we made some good stuff, some very good - but also for a very targeted audience. If Ben hadn't been such a committed actor and great director, it would have been nothing but a strange indulgence."

Odenkirk's next major partnership was with David Cross, whom he'd known for some time. Bob remembers, "To me, the best thing about David Cross was.....the funny funny funniness of the man." Bob describes some of his early skits with David, which involve things like farting and Bob getting naked in front of the audience (with a sock over his junk). This ultimately led to the 'Mr. Show' program on HBO.

Odenkirk describes many of the 'Mr. Show' sketches, such as 'Popemobile Chase' - a riff on the O.J. chase - where "the pope has clearly murdered some dude, leaving behind his papal staff, ring, and hat, and then instigated a police chase in the popemobile....and the subsequent trial is an exploration of TV trials and random jokes."

Odenkirk recollects, "Mr. Show was built for cultish love, and it succeeded. We wanted only the 'out-crowd,' the few, the proud, the misanthropes. Our greatest impact was in inspiring young performers and writers to like sketch a little more, and mislead them into following their passions."

'Mr. Show' was on for four seasons, after which - for the next ten years - Odenkirk tried many new ventures with little success. In the meantime Bob married 'great, smart, beautiful' comedy producer Naomi Yomtov' and they quickly had two children, Nathan and Erin.

Odenkirk's next lucky break came when producer Vince Gilligan invited him to play the sleazy but lovable lawyer Saul Goodman (aka Jimmy McGill) on the cable TV drama 'Breaking Bad.' Saul's dialog was filled with 'wisecrackery and louche swagger,' and Saul's costume, 'outrageous, showy suit, loud tie, big cuff links, neon socks, and comb-over hair with highlights in it' told Bob everything he needed to know about the role. And the rest is history. 'Breaking Bad' was followed by the spin-off prequel 'Better Call Saul,' and Odenkirk ended up playing Saul Goodman for thirteen years.

Odenkirk has also had parts in a few movies, including well-received films like 'Nebraska (2013),' 'The Post (2017),' and 'Little Women (2019).' Afterwards, following two home break-ins that left him furious, Bob suggested himself as the lead in an action film called 'Nobody (2021).' In the movie Bob plays a family man who, after his house is robbed, goes on a vengeful rampage. Odenkirk provides a lot of details about the making of 'Nobody', which was quite a departure for the actor.

Odenkirk suffered a serious heart attack on the set of 'Better Call Saul' in July 2021, but the incident isn't covered in the Netgalley manuscript I read. In any case, Bob got an outpouring of well-wishes from his colleagues and fans, and recovered to do more great work.

I skimmed the surface in this review, but Odenkirk elaborates on many aspects of his oeuvre and the people he worked with, plus a little about his personal life. The narrative is never catty and there's no salacious or mean-spirited gossip....which seems to affirm that Bob is a really nice guy.

The book has photos and an index.

I enjoyed Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama and highly recommend it to fans of Bob Odenkirk as well as aspiring performers.

Thanks to Netgalley, Bob Odenkirk, and Random House for a copy of the manuscript.

I was interested in reading Bob Odenkirk's memoir because I am familiar with his comedy (I did not watch Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul). My favorite parts of the book were his days in Chicago just starting out and meeting the legendary Del Close at Second City. His passages on writing for Saturday Night Live was also interesting particularly because my favorite sketch of all time is Chris Farley as the motivational speaker who lives in a van by the side of the river. I also liked hearing about his collaborations with other great comedians (David Cross, Ben Stiller and Janeane Garofalo to name a few). This is an honest and poignant memoir (particularly about this relationship with his father) and is an interesting parallel to his new series "Lucky Hank" which I am currently watching and enjoying He definitely uses self deprecating humor throughout the book which I also really appreciate.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for an ARC and I left an honest review voluntarily.

I found Bob Odenkirk's book entertaining. He had a whole life before he played Saul Goodman. I don't understand all of the negative reviews just because he talks about that life before getting to Breaking Bad. I've always thought of him as one of the decent celebrities and this book just confirms that for me. He's a humble individual and it's quite refreshing.

David Cross and Jack Black also seem to be great people. I must now at Mr. Show to my watch list.

It was depressing reading about the sadness of Chris Farley. How he felt humiliated during the famous sketch with Patrick Swayze. How it was obvious he was going to die suddenly but no one could do anything to stop it.

Thank you to NetGalley, Bob Odenkirk, and Random House Publishing Group for letting me read a copy of this memior.

A quarter of the way through this book I came upon a memorable quote: “ There was one more lesson, one I’d been learning my whole career: get your stuff in front of the right audience.” certainly good advice and undoubtedly why this memoir didn’t resonate with me.
I came to Bob Odenkirk late in his career. In fact I didn’t even realize he was best known for his comedy. As it happened, at the same time I began reading Comedy,Comedy, Comedy, Drama, I was also reading Mel Brooks’ memoir, All About Me. The difference between the two books is significant. Brooks writes for an audience who wants some chuckles, some nostalgia and some good riffs of Jewish stand-up comics of the 50’s. Any term or character he introduces ,he makes sure to get his audience up to speed. Odenkirk, in contrast writes for the student of comedy, each page densely packed with the names of performers, venues and routines that he seems confident his readers will recall and embrace. In the interest of research, I watched a number of his skits on YouTube and barely cracked a smile. As I said, it is clear I am not the “right” audience.
I did find the chapters about his dramatic work more interesting. The paragraphs are not so overloaded with the names of his favorite writers and performers and the story seems to move a little faster. The book ends before the final season of Better Call Saul wraps and there is no mention of his newest venture Lucky Hank, an academic satire well suited to his ironic style.
If you are a fan of comedy writing and like Odenkirk in all his variations,you will enjoy this chronicle. For the less serious scholar, it may be more than you bargained for.

Bob Odenkirk fans may not need any new reasons to love him, but they'll get them in his thoughtful, immensely readable memoir. (But don't expect hot Breaking Bad gossip.)

I already liked Bob Odenkirk and after reading this I like him even more. Relatable, hilarious and frank, this is a great biography from a beloved comedian.

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley..

As a huge fan of comedy, I could not wait to read this book and learn about Bob's rise in the comedy world. His writing style makes me feel like we are having a conversation. While I have not seen most of his work outside of BB - I look forward to delving into some of these shows/movies so that I can relate more of what he discusses in his book.

The moment I heard Bob Odenkirk was coming out with a book I was so excited. I'm a huge Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul fan. So I regardless of getting accepted or not, I was picking this book up. However, I'm sad to say this book didn't love this book as much as I hoped.

I think the main thing I didn't like from this book was that it felt kind of all over the place. I felt that there was a lot going on and it wasn't as structured. I also wish I got more behind the scene about Breaking Bad. He did end up bringing up Nobody which was another amazing project he did. I did get to learn some things I didn't know about him. It did have some funny moments. I definitely wish I could have had a little video to watch with this because there were so many skits and things he mentioned that I would have loved to see.

Bob Odenkirk is amazing. I'm so sad that I didn't enjoy this as much as I would have liked. I'm going to continue supporting him.

I slept so long on this and I don't know why! Bob Odenkirk is wildly funny and has such brilliant stories. I kept texting my husband who introduced me to Mr. Show with all these anecdotes from the book.

I was very excited to read about Bob Odenkirk's life because of my familiarity of his work on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. What I didn't expect was all the work he did to prior to those shows, specifically his work on Saturday Night Live. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with his sketches while on SNL, or his work with other comedy shows such as The Ben Stiller Show or Mr. Show. It seems like a lot of the work he was extremely proud of, I wouldn't have had an opportunity of seeing because I was too young. However, his ability recount all the details of his early work in comedy was amazing. With that said, I was anticipating and I must admit to paying closer attention to the chapters involving Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. These shows are what made me want to read him memoir. Overall, it's a good read and I expect it to be great on audio.

3.5 stars.

I love Bob Odenkirk - he’s an incredibly talented comedian and [drama] actor (hence the title of his book). I can honestly say I’ve loved almost everything he’s been in over the last decade - including, but not limited to, “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul.” So I really was excited to read more about how he got his start back in the days of “Mr. Show” and how he became the star he is today - and I did get a lot of that. However, his writing did seem to get a little bogged down in parts, making some chapters go by a little more quickly than others. But I really did love the last few chapters when he got up to the last decade - I just wish he would have provided a little more in the way of BTS stories. But besides that, I still thought it was a pretty enjoyable memoir - just make sure you’re a fan of Bob Odenkirk, otherwise you probably won’t like it much.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for providing me with a copy of the e-book in exchange for an honest review.

I was, unfortunately, too young to be much of a follower of comedy in the 90s as it was happening. In years since, I've picked up bits and pieces here and there, mostly through memoirs such as this one.

I found Bob Odenkirk's memoir to be very well thought out and approachable, though that seems an odd word. It's clear that he didn't just rely on what could be fuzzy 30+ year old memories, but actually sat down with the people involved if they were available to do so and made sure he got it "right" - or as "right" as memoirs can be.

His love for the craft of comedy truly shines through in this piece. His comedic background was such a surprise for me because of my familiarity only with his dramatic work in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. However, I anticipate a deep-internet-dive to find some of his old comedic gems.

Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama is a Hollywood memoir by Bob Odenkirk, who i can tell is a nice man who tries to not say mean things about anyone (except maybe on stage). He has had a very successful and varied career and it was fun to read through his journey and the path he has taken to get where he is. I really enjoyed reading about his time at SNL since it is such a different take than other SNL alums (maybe because they still fear Lorne, or maybe it is just different). You can tell that he is so grateful for the life he has and really shows that you need to make your own luck and your own way, working hard and meeting people.

This autobiography was a fun quippy book that allowed me to find out about the origins of Bob Odenkirks journey in the comedy and then drama acting world. I recently started watching Mr. Show (an absurd sketch comedy show that I’m enjoying immensely) and find his turn into dramatic acting to be really interesting! If you love comedy this is a fun book, if you don’t know a lot of comedians or that’s not your scene you probably won’t enjoy this.