Bootleg Betty
Bette Midler Gives A Shout Out To Bruce Vilanch’s New Upcoming Book
By Mister D
Feb 1, 2025
Mister D: Bruce Vilanch‘s new book is titled It Seemed Like a Bad Idea at the Time, and it will be available March 4, 2025. It is available for pre-order now at all your favorite bookstores online: Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, etc. So don’t wait! Order your copy now!
“Bruce Vilanch, a storyteller without peer, has written a tell-all . . . on himself! And it’s hilarious! He’s finally coming clean and owning up to his part in creating some of the worst television of the twentieth century, and that’s saying a lot. There’s no one like him. As they’ve been saying since I discovered him as a cub reporter at the Chicago Tribune, when you’re in a pinch . . . Get Bruce!” —BETTE MIDLER
Bruce Vilanch is the go-to comedy writer for award shows, sitcoms, and top-heavy variety specials. Still, he has also been responsible for quite a few of the worst shows ever put on television—legendarily immoral 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?”
