Just finished a splendid YA novel by R.D. Stevens. Good science fiction is never really about the future: it is a funhouse mirror to the present. Some writers use this to poke fun at contemporary mores; others, more serious minded, issue warnings. Such is the case with R. D. Stevens’ magisterial The Freeze. Set in […]
Los Angles Times Feature Story
The Los Angeles Times Huntington Beach edition was gracious enough to do a story on SPIKED! and yours truly. This is a terrific article by Matt Szabo, and I’m very grateful to have it out there. You can find it here: https://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/news/story/2022-12-02/huntington-beach-author-challenges-stereotypes-in-new-novel
Bob Madison on The Carbon Arc
Delighted to have appeared on The Carbon Arc podcast to talk about King Kong, Thanksgiving, James Bond Rankin/Bass, Christmas specials, Mr. Magoo, movies, Santa Claus, Scrooge and all manner of pop culture bliss. And plug my new book, SPIKED! Listen here: https://lnkd.in/dSANaTuW
Groucho: The Life and Times of Julius Henry Marx by Stefan Kanfer
Few figures throw a mightier shadow over the 20th Century cultural landscape than Groucho Marx (1890-1977), born Julius Henry Marx to assimilating German Jews in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. With three of his four brothers – Chico, Harpo and Zeppo – he created several of Hollywood’s greatest comedies, and, as a single […]
SPIKED! My Young Adult Novel Sold to Vulpine
Delighted to share that SPIKED!, my first Young Adult novel, has been contracted by editor Rowan Thomas at Vulpine Press. Here’s a preview: Things are confusing for Thom Wilcox and they are not getting any simpler. Thom has lived next door to his best friend A.J. Lopez all his life. Ever since they were put […]
Bob Madison on The Carbon Arc!
Film scholar extraordinaire Toby Roan has graciously asked me to appear on his second-ever episode of his new podcast, The Carbon Arc. We both love many of the same movies, and after some discussion selected one of my favorite comedies, The Son of Paleface, to be the focus of our talk. Son of Paleface is […]
When Something You Write Gets Nominated for a Daytime Emmy
Well … that was an unexpected delight! Last year producer and director Mary O’Leary asked me to write her upcoming documentary, Dark and Shadows and Beyond: The Jonathan Frid Story. Mary was just the person for the job; she is a multiple Daytime Emmy winner for her career producing soap operas. But … she also […]
The Party with Peter Sellers
I had so much fun reading American Cornball: A Laffopedic Guide to the Formerly Funny, by Christopher Miller, that I decided to briefly write about some of my favorite comedies. So it was a double bit of serendipity to learn that the 1968 cult hit The Party recently made its way to Blu-Ray and DVD. […]
American Cornball: A Laffopedic Guide to the Formerly Funny, by Christopher Miller
American Cornball: A Laffopedic Guide to the Formerly Funny, by Christopher Miller came as a delightful surprise. Arranged alphabetically, Miller enumerates the countless tropes so frequent in American comedy circa 1900-1966, and why they were funny and what they tell us about Americans of old. Miller creates an artificial cutoff of 1966, citing anecdotally that […]
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, by Bill Bryson
William McGuire “Bill” Bryson (born 1951) has written several amusing books on language, science and travel. He has also been a fixture on television and radio, and is one of the smartest and funniest men on the contemporary scene. However, the Bill Bryson that I enjoyed the most was the gentle memoirist who […]