You probably know H Jon Benjamin from his voice. He voices some of my favorite animated characters and some of my favorite cinematic cans of vegetables.
He’s Archer:
He’s Ben, the disinterested and lazy son of Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist.
He’s also Mitch, the philosophical can of mixed vegetables from the Wet Hot American Summer stuff.
(And yes, I know he’s also Bob Belcher, but I have yet to watch Bob’s Burgers. Please don’t hurt me.)
His voice is a god damned delight, and his dead panned delivery never fails to kill me.
So, now he has a memoir about the many failures in his life. And…I thought it was fine. It was like a 10 hour long episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, where HJB’s choices made me so uncomfortable, I often had to turn the audiobook off. I didn’t want to know what ended up happening when he let burglars into his neighbors house or when he lost control of his bowels in a rental car. It was just too much and I couldn’t take it sometimes.
But, there were some AMAZING moments in here, including:
*A short tale about why Jews don’t do much farming.
*An excerpt from his post-graduate thesis on the Holocaust, including his take on the Eriq Lasalle movie Biker Boyz and the outlandish ending of St. Elsewhere.
*The story about how he ended up in an amateur porn video with an ex-con and the ex-con’s cousin, which he titled “A Room with a Jew”.
*His dad’s INSISTENCE that PF Chang’s is simply a local “gem in the rough” Chinese restaurant in his neighborhood and refusal to believe it is a mega-chain.
Sadly, the uncomfortable bits outweighed the funny for me. I cringed more than once and his poor decision making skills really made me like him less as a person.
But his voice is still pure gold, so I’m not sorry I listened to this book. I just wish I had enjoyed it more.
Two stars for the book. 5 stars for the making of the porno and the St. Elsewhere rant.
I’m including this review for #CBR10bingo. For those interested, HJB hails from Worcester, MA. I was born and raised in Newton, MA and went to college in Worcester. #Homesomethinghome
Bob’s Burgers is a pinnacle of human television, juuuust so you know :)
I’m in the middle (well, actually really near the end) of an ER rewatch, and then will make my way to Queen Sugar (my friend is one of the directors/producers and I keep promising!) and then swear Bobs Burgers is next. I know I’m going to like it. I’m ashamed it’s taken me so long.
You have so much good TV ahead of you! Well, except maybe the last several seasons of ER. I used to be a superfan, and then I just was over it and stopped watching I think somewhere in the middle of season ten? Supposedly it got good again after that, but I was just so exhausted with it. I started a rewatch when it came to Hulu but it was so daunting, I stopped. There is so much other TV! I do not blame you at all for not having gotten to Bob’s Burgers yet.
I’m on season 14 and pretty much every episode is tough. I’m practically yelling at poor Stanley Tucci, wondering just what in hell im watching. At least Frank is still on it, so I can be sure it’s the same show. Frank the clerk is my ER touchstone.