Okay, let’s get this straight: You’re going into this already knowing why Bo Burnham and BoJack Horseman are funny. I’m not going to pretend like I’m some film analysis critic, analyzing how Bo and Raphael cracked the secret “funny” code to why and how we humans are innately created to laugh at sadistic rather than slapstick. Then again, you probably weren’t expecting that either. I’m just an 18-year old that watched too many Bo Burnham specials and read one book and now is pretentious enough to think that the world wants to hear what she has to say about it. Yeah, call me a comedy connoisseur, if you will.

Again: you’re probably tired of every comedy film analysis video telling you that “authenticity” and “realness” is the root of a funny joke or “just be the real you” and the jokes will come drooling from the side of your mouth. Well geez Conan, what if when I dig into the internal depths of my being, I’m just as boring? There’s food for thought.

I’m going to be doing a brief book review on Someone Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg and just fangirling over Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s and Bo Burnham’s comedic delivery – whether it’s in a theater or through a pirated PDF version of their book. 

Someone Will Love You and All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg is a collection of bittersweet love stories that will make you want to stare at a wall for 10 minutes after you finish. After finishing, I left a probably too-high GoodReads rating (not too high as in undeserving, but too high as in my GoodReads rating is definitely on the spectrum leaning towards inflation) and then went to compose and collect my brewing thoughts on if love is worth the hassle.

Now, if you don’t know who Bob-Waksberg is, he is the creator of Bo-Jack Horseman: A sadistic comedy about a burnt-out television star who is also a horse. I will just assume that my short description either a) made enough sense for you to guess the vibe of the show and its creator or b) convinced you enough to watch the show for yourself. 

The show is pretty fantastic and I’m not saying that because I share the same last name as one of the main characters. But you’ve got to admit, it’s pretty hard to see a Nguyen on screen especially with some white guy writing it in..

From the initial story of the book Salted Circus Cashews, Swear to God, I immediately knew I was going to love this book; I have to get into the syntax of the book.

I’ve got to make a reference to Spike Lee’s movie She’s Gotta Have It. This is going to be a very surface-level connection, but hear me out:

While I was watching I’m Thinking of Ending Things on Netflix and the dance scene came up, I was like what is this? If I wanted to watch a romantic choreographed dance number in high school, I would just watch I Don’t Dance HSM2. 

Last week, I was watching Spike Lee’s movie She’s Gotta Have It, and mind you: almost the whole movie is black and white.

And I’m sitting here, sort of asleep, and then BAM! My retinas are stimulated at last! The dance scene comes on (in color!), and I watch with pure fascination as I never knew colors could look this beautiful on my television as if it was 1953. And then it goes back to black, and while I’m high on the color cannabis that I just witnessed, I continue watching the movie.

Not that anyone asked, but Do The Right Thing was Spike Lee’s better movie in my opinion. 

Anyways, the point of me bringing that up was when you’re reading, you get reading fatigue with the same black-to-white text-to-page ratio that continues for a something hundred pages. So when Raphael starts to minimize the text as a visual to the speaker going into a long tangent (similar to the Star Wars text exposition), it almost makes you feel, as a reader, in on a secret. It’s the little things that make reading so enjoyable.

Although this trait is only used for the first few short stories, it’s a perfect introduction to how Bob-Waksberg makes use of whatever medium he’s given.

It reminds me of the style of Bo Burnham specials: How he utilizes the entire theater to create layers on top of a single joke. Call them gimmicks and gizmos like Ariel, but slapstick comedy paired with jokes that force you into introspection is a powerful antecedent. Wow, she watches one Bo Burnham special and.. Okay! Enough with the mockery!

Bo Burnham also once said in an interview, when asked about his unique approach in his stand-up sets, how his love for theater inspires the production of his comedy specials such as Make Happy and what.

Similar to how Bob-Waksberg too uses different typography. 

I enjoyed the sci-fi elements he uses in the stories whether it’s weird marital customs of sacrificing goats at the altar or the Coraline-inspired “other world” but with more adultery.

I feel that love is taken too seriously these days in entertainment. Like, was Titanic even good? F*ck it, throw in some aliens and goats and let’s see if they still love each other in the end!

My favorite story was the A Most Blessed and Auspicious Occasion where a young couple is in a dilemma about whether they should conform to outlandish wedding customs or do it their own conventional way. Bob Waksburg does a great job in using comedic timing- writing-wise. 

Without giving spoilers, a technique I noticed is that he will introduce a new thought/detail, continue writing until the end when you’ve already forgotten the detail, and then he will bring it back around to make you laugh 10x as harder than if he stuck the joke right in the middle. 

My least favorite story is probably the rufus. One: I’m not sure if it’s because I’m not a dog person or because I was getting annoyed with reading “ManMonster” so many times. It started to feel like I was reading the script to a Sesame Street episode. I don’t doubt that Bob-Waksberg put care and heart into every one of his stories, just some didn’t hit home for me as much as others did.

I can’t help but notice the stylistic similarities between Ralph and Bo Burnham’s comedy. 

When you’re a seasoned watcher like moi, you notice patterns and how heavily they rely on allusions to satisfyingly conclude the deeper meaning which makes their content so re-watchable or re-readable. 

A part of this is, warning! This will sound pretentious, is how vulnerable they become on stage. 

Whenever I watch Bo Burnham on stage, I always have the same grimace or look of concern on my face. And how do I know, cause when the Youtube Video shuts off: I see my own hideous self facing back at me. Just kidding, I’m a handsome mofo-

But truly, Bo Burnham on stage is like watching someone angry-scribble in their diary and you’re reading it, knowing you shouldn’t be here. Of course, when I’m watching Kevin Hart or Fluffy, I don’t grimace, yet I’m not rewatching Kevin Hart nor Fluffy. The same goes for Bob-Waksberg: it’s like all of the characters crawled out of his brain and started writing their own stories into that book. 

This reminds me of something I read in The Picture of Dorian Gray, “We live in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of autobiography.”