Naked Pictures of Famous People

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.

Austin Chronicle

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

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."

From The Critics

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.