Naked Pictures of Famous People by Jon Stewart

From Barnes & Noble

The Barnes & Noble Review
December 1998

Like the many creative geniuses who frequent the pages of his book — Vincent van Gogh, Lenny Bruce, Martha Stewart, Hanson — Jon Stewart teeters on the divide between the brilliant and the insane. Nowhere has that been clearer than in print. Naked Pictures of Famous People, Stewart's ode to all things random, is an inspired work of enlightened lunacy, and a hilarious one at that. Stewart's comic imagination rears its gnarled head in such pieces as "Adolf Hitler: The Larry King Interview" ("So I'm planning furiously and snapping at people — as my therapist says, 'playing the dictator.' "); "The Last Supper, or The Dead Waiter" ("Jesus spent most of the time asking people whether or not a beard would make him look smarter. There was a bit of a scuffle when Paul liked the idea but Judas thought it was trendy. I say cut the hair. Please. You're not a musician and it's very B.C."); and "Vincent and Theo on AOL" ("VincentVG: Once again, only the blackness that is me can halt the work I am called upon to do. Today was a good day. I am still not able to eat, but stood twice and hope soon to wave to the young nurse who comes frequently to give Messerlich his enemas./TheTodster: Is anyoune her e naughty?/Lever180: u look great ffrom here."). As Naked Pictures of Famous People further confirms, Jon Stewart might well be the defining humorist of his generation. God help the poor bastards.

From the Publisher

He's the MTV generation's master of modern humor, a star of film, TV, and the comedy stage. This sultan of savvy serves up a whip-smart, utterly original collection of comic essays in Naked Pictures of Famous People. And as of January 11, 1999, you can enjoy the intelligence and self-deprecating charm he brings to contemporary comedy on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show." In his first book, he translates that unique talent to the page, with humorous forays into a vast array of subjects: fashion, urban life, fast cars, cocktail culture, modern Jewishness, politics, and dating. A seethingly irreverent wit, Stewart has a genius for language and brilliant timing that makes his up-to-the-minute collection a must-have for humor lovers in search of a Woody Allen for the 90s.

Entertainment Weekly

"Brutally witty...On a par with Woody Allen's Without Feathers and Steve Martin's Cruel Shoes... Naked Pictures reveals a basic truth that's too often forgotten by the shock-for-shock's-sake satirists of the South Park era: You've got to be smart to be a smart ass."

Austin Chronicle

"Terrific night table reading for lovers of intelligent satire... smart... refreshingly offensive... unapologetically un-PC... a gift for just about anyone."

Book Magazine

Gerald Ford and Martha Stewart are but two of the newsmakers undressed, with some startling results, in comedian Jon Stewart's new collection­a romp through, among other things, the imagined private lives of renowned artists, a groveling despot and two ex-presidents. Readers familiar with Stewart's TV work already know his sense of humor: a brand of self-deprecation that falls somewhere on the good side of the tracks running between Woody Allen and Richard Lewis.
He goes much further here, with a mutt of a book (18 shorts taken from secret transcripts, cyber dialogue, pencil sketches and lost letters) that's full of unexpectedly heavy laughs. Highlights include Vincent Van Gogh's adaptation to AOL porn-chat, Larry King's landmark interview with Hitler (who has decided to stop "playing the blame game" and is plugging his new book Mein Comfortable Shoes), and even a visit to the room-under-the-stairs where the Kennedys keep their less successful children. The brevity of the pieces combined with the flow of wit make this a buoyant read.
­Eric Wetzel

Bruce Fretts

Naked Pictures reveals a basic truth that's too often forgotten by the shock-for-shock's-sake satirists of the South Park era: You've got to be smart to be a smartass. --Entertainment Weekly

Elle

Laugh-out-loud hilarious.

Product Details

• Interviews & Essays
• Read an Excerpt
• Read a Sample Chapter

Interviews & Essays

Jon Stewart: Thanks! Pleasure to be here, as the bombs fall around me.

Jon Stewart: No, I received written permission from Duchovny and the Smoking Man.

Jon Stewart: Luckily, when I saw her at CBS this morning, her vagina wasn't with her, so I was able to dodge a bullet. Hopefully, she will be entertained by it, and I will continue to receive my weekly supply of homemade plum tarts.

Jon Stewart: I'm pretty sure they canceled it, because every time I show up to tape one, no one is there but Alan Hunter.

Jon Stewart: Tremendous! It was tremendous. He allowed us to go out with our heads held high, as opposed to spending our last show interviewing a guy that once had a friend that was once on "Welcome Back, Kotter..." Dave did us a great service.

Jon Stewart: No, I'm officially toilet humor. My book was officially designed to be read over 18 to 19 trips to the bathroom.

Jon Stewart: I figured it was the most searched-for phrase on the Internet. So in between getting those pictures you needed of Bea Arthur washing her car naked, you'd also get my book.

Jon Stewart: [laughs] No. Unfortunately, it's my head on Abe Lincoln's body. Actually it's just a guy we knew that looked a lot like Lincoln in a creepy way.

Jon Stewart: [laughs] We do. And there's often violence between the two groups. Much like in "West Side Story."

Jon Stewart: As long as I have Tom Waits, cigarettes, and Budweiser, I could do "A Christmas Story" and still feel like the grumpy man that I am.

Jon Stewart: I'm Switzerland: I just want to hold their money and make them chocolate.

Jon Stewart: I'd have to say...go back to Letterman because of the timing and how much it meant to us at the time.

Jon Stewart: Yes, I take my inspiration from all of Woody Allen, including his personal life.

Jon Stewart: A bit. But we all reach our 30s sometime. I'm just glad that VH-1 has been there to help me cushion the fall. MTV is a bit like "Logan's Run" -- once you hit 30 you head to carousel.

Jon Stewart: Well, probably not, since instead of writing for The New Yorker he was having a wildly successful film and stand-up career. I imagine that softens the pain of not ending up in "Shouts and Murmurs."

Jon Stewart: I believe he enjoys seeing his name in print. I'm not sure that he got to the Hitler part...but he's been very supportive.

Jon Stewart: We're working on a new show, "Stewart's Pond," about an old creepy Jewish guy in his mid-30s who hangs around Dawson's Creek trying to get a look-see at the young hotties.

Jon Stewart: I was not aware of that. But now that I am, I must get thee to a modem.

Jon Stewart: I tried that once, and the memory still wakes me up at 3:00 in the morning, my pajamas soaked with sweat...well, I hope it's sweat.

Jon Stewart: Living up to the high expectations set by such a fine show. That, and keeping me off the sauce.

Jon Stewart: Yeah, I'd love to. It got a little hectic this year when they were doing it, but I would love to go back.

Jon Stewart: Well, on the old show -- they have modern studios here -- the old show we had one bathroom for three guests, myself, and the band. So I don't imagine I'll be seeing Lorenzo Lamas standing in line to pee behind the guys from Van Halen.

Jon Stewart: The audience eye-line. I'm a foot and a half shorter. For the first two weeks I'm sure that all they will see is "The Daily Show" logo until they look down and see there is a new host.

Jon Stewart: "World's Funniest Attacking Animals," "Secrets of the Jews Revealed," and a live-action "Simpsons."

Jon Stewart: On January 11th at 11pm ET, on Comedy Central.

Jon Stewart: I'd love to write something that sort of had a David Russell flavor. I think he's great. And I think for years I felt that I am the real Patch Adams. That, or "Police Academy" for the '90s.

Jon Stewart: That's funny 'cause the single woman I live with asked me the same thing. And I believe the answer is...gettin' there.

Jon Stewart: Thank you all for your patience and your participation.

Jon Stewart: I'd love to.

Jon Stewart: Goodnight to you.

Read an Excerpt

December 15, 1996

HEY Y'ALL!

Greetings and happy tidings to all, in this the beautiful season to celebrate the Savior's birth. The tree is up and the Christmas Ham is awaiting my apricot glaze, so once again it's time to check in for our yearly Hanson Family update. A promise from the heart to keep this year's news-letter as brief as possible (I hear you sighing, Uncle Jack! Just kidding, I can't hear you!). It's hard to believe that a year has passed since my last correspondence. Time sure flies when Jesus is flying the plane! It's a crisp afternoon here in Sooner Country. Gary and the boys are off hunting snow rabbits so the girls and I broke out the old Smith-Corona to fill everyone in, Don't worry, Peg, there's a Pumpkin Pie waiting for my men when they return -- hopefully with a fresh kill.

We're awaiting a wonderful Christmas. As is our family tradition, no gifts are exchanged but all the chil-dren will prepare a drawing, poem or play. This year's theme is Genesis. The girls are painting a beautiful mural of God's creation of man, using only the juices of fruit they grew themselves. Isaac and Taylor are preparing a heartwarming skit on the Garden of Eden (Taylor makes a beautifully innocent Eve) and little Zach, well, let's just say shouting "Let there be light" and Clapping the Clapper on and off doesn't show great inspiration. It doesn't matter. We love all our children equally, and still believe greatly in last year's Christmas theme, "Abortion Is Murder."

Some Hanson Highlights: Gary's working on a book about our methods of teaching the children called All I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, at Home with My Parents; Who Taught Me Better Than Any Government-Run Public School That Denies Prayer Could. The girls once again won the yearly Hanson Home School Science Fair. They de-vised a method for testing the bacterial content of foods using only Litmus Paper, Paper Clips and a homemade Centrifuge. These girls are going places! The boys did well too. They built a mobile depicting the fallacy of ev-olution. As for Zach, well, let's just say sneaking some-thing into our dinner and waiting to see if anyone would eat it and become ill didn't impress these judges. But we love all our children equally and hope one day Zach will tell us what it was, and why I can no longer hold down solid foods.

In Hanson Sports News, it was a very good year. The Hansons played a very strong schedule, going head to head with the only other Home School Team in the area, the Jurgensons. It was great fun.

Oh, before I forget, the boys continue with their little music project. They recently played the Devlin County Pan-Asian Wet and Wild Jamboree for Vietnamese Exiles. I don't want to go into too much detail, in this, the season of good tidings, but the crafty little Asian gentleman who organized the fair tried to cheat the boys out of their $50 performance fee. We nearly came to blows over the mat-ter, but eased off when both parties quoted the same piece of foreboding scripture at the same time. I can't say I con-done the boys' interest in this pursuit of popular music, but as I always say, "Encouragement is next to Charity, which is next to Faith, which is next to Cleanliness... and we all know what that's next to."

Jesus loves you,
Eileen and Gary Hanson and the Hanson Family

P.S. Any donations to the charity to help that poor boy in our neighborhood with the cleft lip would be greatly ap-preciated. We've raised some money, but he still looks odd when he eats in public, which is often. Remember, Charity begins at home, which, as you know, is where we have our school.

December 25,1997

Dear Hanson Super Fan Friends and Family,

Hey everybody! It's that time of year again! And what an amazing year it's been. I apologize for the Fan Club stationery, but it's all I could find. Normally I would just ask Carmen where she put the newsletter paper, but I gave her the day off. Most of her family is somewhere in South America, but bless her heart, she still seemed set on not working the holiday. Although I'm sure you could make a case that that's when I would need her most.

I feel bad about the stationery even though I'll bet none of you care. I'll bet you're just impressed that with all the amazing things happening to our family I still make a point of personally sending out the yearly holiday update. I agree! That is exactly what I told Gary, who was of the mind that if you all really need information, you can visit our official Web site like everybody else. But that's crazy. Being stars doesn't mean we can't take the time to stay in touch with our friends and family. By the way, the unofficial sites are not sanctioned and contain a great deal of fabricated information. I can't stress that enough. Our official site has received over two million hits to date!!

You're probably saying to yourself "Wow, that must be making them a fortune!" You would think!! Although perhaps you are not taking into consideration a poorly negotiated contract that paid a one-time up-front fee and neglected any back end or merchandising considerations.

But you know our Gary. I think when the Lord was passing out business acumen, Gary was downstairs getting good hair. Of course you can't tell that to Gary. I guess he figures his year and a half of technical school and previous work experience selling homemade knickknacks at mall art fairs qualifies him to manage a world-famous band.

A big "I'm sorry" on behalf of Gary, the boys and myself for not being at Ned and IreneÆs annual family reunion picnic. The girls told Carmen it was a hoot. Unfortunately that was the weekend before the Grammys and as you might imagine we were swamped. While the boys were sad to miss Irene's annual mock apple pie, their dinner with Fiona Apple softened the blow. I had heard through the grapevine that Irene was a little bent out of shape. I'm sure that's not true because Irene and Ned are God-fearing people and very aware that envy is a sin.

Ooops! Please excuse the sloppy penmanship. I'm jotting this update from the back of a Limousine the boys bought me for Christmas, and the slick leather interior doesn't offer great stability. Lincoln, my driver, and I have developed a very funny joke where he calls me Miss Daisy and I pretend that's my real name.

Well, enough chatter, I better have Lincoln take me home. The boys and Gary are in Dnsseldorf, but Zach still likes me to spend at least six hours a day in his room, cleaning the shag carpet, strand by strand, with my teeth. Anything for my little angel, because, as I always say, I love all my three boys equally.

It's been a wild year. The Lord sure works in mysterious ways, or as I like to say, "What a long strange trip it's been!"

Jesus loves us,
Eileen, Gary, Zach, Taylor and Isaac
(collectively known as Hanson)

P.S. You can stop sending money for the gimp boy with the Cleft Lip. It turns out we had enough money left over from just one mall show to ship him and his entire family off to Nebraska.

December 28, 1999

To Whom It May Concern,

HO, HO, HO! Zach has Herpes. There. Are you Happy now? You try controlling an eleven-year-old multi-millionaire with a hard-on for strippers. For those of you wondering about last year's newsletter, there wasn't one. If you must know, I was at a retreat in Hazelden, Minnesota, and they didn't allow pens, pencils or any other sharp implements for that matter. It's been quite a ride... quite a... I sit here, alone in my Hotel suite. Pen in one hand, bottle of Glenlivet in the other. A gun at my feet. Darkness all around me...

First of all, to all you Nosy Parkers in the crowd, I did not embezzle money from my family, I don't give a rat's ass what that judge says. I am their manager... co-manager... was their co-manager. I had every right to that money. I gave birth to those boys. What did Gary do? His three minutes of dirty business? Foreplay?! Please. Whispering "The Bible says be Fruitful and Multiply" before ejaculating and passing out isn't foreplay. Seven times I allowed that man to sully me... seven times.

I'm tired ... so very tired. Someone had to have some fiscal responsibility. Christ! Do you know what Taylor and Isaac did on their big "Africa Tour"? Sat in a hotel restaurant ordering Lasagna made from 1,000-dollar bills and White Tiger's Blood. Not all the time, of course. No, sometimes they would lock themselves in their hotel rooms doing what looked and tasted like high-grade Brazilian Heroin. Where was their father, you might ask? Oh I don't know, maybe shacked up in some Backwater Indonesian Fuckee Suckee bar. Maybe it's just me, but I still believe in a thing called Statutory Rape Laws.

You think I'm bitter? You think I'm beaten? You think I might take the pills I have in my hand, wash them down with Scotch and glide off into a world of euphoria where all my pain will cease? HA! No, this old girl has some fight in her yet. Believe it!! I know things. Things that would be worth a lot of money if they got out. And not the usual bullshit, the "Taylor is fucking Naomi Campbell" shit. I could put a lot of people in jail... Think I'm bluffing? Try me... I dare you... I... I miss my angels. I just want to talk to them. To tell them Mommy loves them... to ... tell them... I could fucking kill Gary with my bare hands and not blink. I could stare into his eyes as he begged for my mercy and forgiveness and I could snuff out his life and then go back to my lunch as though nothing happened. I miss them so much. Do they care? Of course not.

Hey, some crude garage mix of the little bastards rehearsing Christmas music just went to No. I on the Holiday Charts. Think Kenny G is choking on his own cock over that one? I believe these tiny ingrates, who I gave life to, could sing into a bag of their own shit and ten million girls whose life ambition is to someday get breast implants would spend their hard-earned abortion money just to cradle it in their arms.

But hey! It was a great run, huh? Better to burn out than fade away! What do I care? I still have more money than any of you will ever have in a lifetime of being paid by the government not to grow corn.

Merry Fucking Christmas,
God is dead,
Eileen Hanson

Read a Sample Chapter

ONE OF THE beautiful aspects of our culture is the capacity we have to forgive, especially those in the public eye. There is little a tearful mea culpa on "60 Minutes" or a tell-all confession in the pages of People magazine won't rectify. This grand compassion was put to the ultimate challenge when in the fall of 1999 an astonished world watched as a historical figure long thought to have died in World War II resurfaced. This disgraced dictator, swayed by a beautifully arranged fruit basket and handwritten note, went on CNN's "Larry King Live." The Hitler interview, as it became known, aired on October 23, 1999, at 10:00 P.M. Eastern Standard Time. That night King's ratings tripled, allowing his show to narrowly defeat all other cable entries airing in that time slot, as well as the WB sitcom Whassup Skinnybones Jones, the story of a skinny black man living among fatter, funnier black men. The following is an uncensored transcript of that historic interview.

KING: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Tonight we bring you perhaps the most controversial show in the history of "Larry King Live." He began his career as president of the fledgling National Socialist party, the Nazi party, in Germany. After a failed coup, some prison time and a bestselling book, he re-established himself in the German hierarchy, first as chancellor... then as Fuhrer. The next ten years under his watch saw Germany's return to power, shame at the Munich Olympics, a failed marriage and finally, one helluva World War complete with what was thought to be a cowardly demise by his own hand. Tonight, risen from the proverbial dead, we welcome Adolf Hitler.

HITLER: (biting into a bagel) First of all, Larry, I don't know what I was so afraid of. These are delicious!!!

KING: Well, Chancellor Hitler, I have--

HITLER: Please call me Adolf.

KING: Adolf. First of all, I have to say... quite frankly, we were very reluctant to have you on.

HITLER: I can't say I blame you for that. I mean, you hear the name Hitler...

KING: Well, in the end we decided this show is about newsmakers. That's been my mottothrough forty years of broadcasting and critics be damned, I'm not about to stop now.

HITLER: I don't know what you're talking about.

KING: What do you say to all the people out there, the people who view you as a demon, the perpetrator of the most vicious--

HITLER: Guilty as charged, Larry. Look, I was a bad guy. No question. I hate that Hitler. The yelling, the finger pointing, I don't know... I was a very angry guy.

KING: And this ... new Hitler?

HITLER: I get up at seven, have half a melon, do the Jumble in the morning paper and then let the day take me where it will. Some days I'll fish, maybe hit the mall for an Orange Julius. The other day I spent seven hours in the park watching ants cart off part of a sandwich. Me!! The inventor of the Blitzkrieg... When you stop having to control everything, it's very freeing.

KING: Why did you do it?

HITLER: Whooo boy. The $64,000 question. I don't know... I wasn't a happy kid. I mean, I'm not trying to make excuses, but you go through high school with one testicle and the nickname Shitler... I'm sorry, they can bleep that, right?

KING: It's fine.

HITLER: After a while you get sick of it. One day you just snap. It started out as the typical "Someday you guys will be sorry," and then...I don't know. It just got away from me.

Naked Pictures of Famous People. Copyright © by Jon Stewart. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.