Sex, a lot of drugs and  jokes.

Wild and Crazy Guys follows a lot of my comedic idols, almost all ex Saturday Night Live cast members and stars of the biggest movies of the 80s.

I cannot lie, I totally picked this up because Steve Martin was on the cover. Steve Martin has been an idol for me since I was a young teenager (he was actually my first crush) and I will take any excuse to read books by him or about him.

Wild and Crazy Guys is a wonderful retelling of those golden years of 80s Hollywood comedies and some of the stories behind how they came about. The book mostly focuses on the biggest stars: Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, John Belushi, Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy. Subsequent sections are given to smaller stars who were in their orbit; those being John Candy, Rick Moranis and Martin Short.

If you’re a fan of any of these people, or of comedy in general, I would absolutely recommend this. This book gives a nice general summary of their lives and work at the time, skipping between comedians and movies, some they did alone and many in which they co-starred together. If you’re an extremely big fan of any of these men you may have heard some of these stories before, but this is a nice narrative collection of the beginning up until Groundhog Day’s release in the early 90s. You learn that Chevy Chase was (unsurprisingly) a dick to most people, Dan Ackroyd was never really the same after losing Belushi, and pretty much every weird rumor you’ve heard about Bill Murray is true. It’s a nice collection of cool stories that I raced through and read in one sitting. There’s sex, a LOT of drugs, rock and roll, movie fights and behind the scenes looks at landmark films. What’s not to like?

Title: Wild and Crazy Guys
Author: Nick de Semlyen
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 336
ISBN: 9781984826640

Three Descriptors: Informative, Humorous, Engaging