We Got Bruce
Pre-Order Bruce Vilanch’s New Book, It Seemed Like a Bad Idea at the Time, Out March 04, 2025
By Mister D
Sept 28, 2024

Bruce Vilanch is known as a go-to comedy writer for award shows, sitcoms, and top-heavy variety specials, but he has also been responsible for quite a few of the worst shows ever put on television—legendary bad productions.

Some of his work lives in infamy—The Star Wars Holiday Special, The Paul Lynde Halloween Special, Rob Lowe dancing with Snow White at the Oscars, and The Brady Bunch Variety Hour. How did these ever seem like a good idea?

Well, everyone has screwed up a few times, or had their work screwed up by others. It Seemed Like a Bad Idea at the Time is a lifetime reflection of what Vilanch has experienced, learned, forgotten, dismissed, and embraced in decades of working in show business, specifically the south forty acres known as comedy. It involves very famous people and people who were not very famous but should have been.

And it explains to the person in the audience who says to himself, once he has gotten his jaw off the floor, “’How did this ever get made?”
Don’t we all want to know?

About the Author

Bruce Vilanch is an actor (occasionally an actress), writer (occasionally a rewriter), and comedian (occasionally for money, often for causes). He has coauthored 25 Academy Award spectacles, winning two writing Emmys in the process, and has been nominated for seven more.

In addition to the Oscars, he has cowritten many Tonys, Emmys, Grammys, People’s Choice, American Comedy Awards, TV Land Awards, SAG Awards, and a ton of other pageants, roasts, tributes, and various trumped-up reasons for people to strut a red carpet.

He has coauthored dozens of variety television shows and actually put words in the mouth of Cher. He’s also a lyricist, scoring gold and platinum records for disco songs he wrote for Eartha Kitt and the Village People.

And musical theatre geeks will remember him as the coauthor of the Broadway misfire called Platinum, which was revived off-Broadway for reasons that continue to mystify Bruce.

The post Pre-Order Bruce Vilanch’s New Book Out March 04, 2025 first appeared on We Got Bruce!.