"The ride was pretty bumpy at first, until I stopped shaking the briefcase. I have these nervous habits."

Sometimes you just need a stupid book, full of stupid jokes. Jokes that you try to explain to your roommate who only stares at you in response, as if to say: where's the joke? . Yes the plot isn't that great, and the characters aren't that special either, but it is a special book indeed - if you're in the mood for it.

John Swartzwelder, notoriously reclusive Simpsons scribe, is known for penning some of that show's funniest and most culturally pointed episodes. He is capable of being absurd without succumbing to plot-driven idiocy and able to nestle high-brow-rising humor next to the goofiest of puns without skipping a beat. Few of the show's current writers can boast his kind of output, whether you're measuring it by episode or by how many gags he can fit into any given minute.

His books (four so far) don't try to follow coherency as much as his work on The Simpsons. Instead, he uses the medium as a forum for his stream-of-consciousness wise-cracking. Mass by volume, these slim tomes have the same silly density as his episodes, even if they sprawl ten times as much. For the most part, Swartzwelder sticks to the same basic formula that made his shows a success: a fat and idiotic central character gets into all manner of monkey-shines and comes out mostly unchanged. Instead of Homer, though, our main man is called Frank Burly.

THE TIME MACHINE DID IT
Frank Burly introduces us to his unlikely career as a private eye. Although his primary talents are screwing things up and getting beaten on a regular basis, he ends up with a fairly important case. A bum claims that he used to be a millionaire, but criminals with a time machine retroactively stole his wealth. Burly's in over his head (heck, this guy gets in over his head just trying to tie his shoes), but that doesn't stop him from barreling headfirst into the mystery and subsequently making it messier and harder to solve. Quickly written, hastily plotted, and genuinely funny, this is one of the few books I've ever read that's gotten me to laugh out-loud, and on a regular basis. 5 Stars. FAVORITE LINE: Frank Burly, on his imprisonment and torture by the criminals -- "I held up under all this pretty well. I was sleeping like a baby -- waking up every three hours screaming and crapping my pants."

DOUBLE WONDERFUL
Swartzwelder makes a mistake. Instead of one central character with the brains of a dusty cactus, he creates an entire town of them. The citizens of the Wild West town of Slackjaw are having economic troubles. Part of their problem is that the "wild" in their western town is missing; it's a pretty boring place, plus it exists in the shadows of the world-renowned Double Wonderful ranch, run by a wealthy couple who are so perfect, God owes them favors. They try desperately to bring fame and/or notoriety to their little corner of the world, but most of their ideas are pretty lame (encourage bandits to rob them, hang the mayor, etc.). They eventually get their wish, and it's mildly amusing, but the scattered scope of the story's lunacy and its slap-dash conclusion are pretty harried. You won't laugh as much as you'll roll your eyes. Not bad; not great. Notable mainly because the story's central theme (the horrifying price of fame) gives you some real clues as to why Mr. Swartzwelder himself so adamantly chooses to stay out of the spotlight. 3 Stars. MOST SELF-REFERENTIAL LINE: "...Buntline said that short books were the best selling kind ... That's what the reading public wanted in a book these days, he said. They wanted to get as close as possible to not reading at all."

HOW I CONQUERED YOUR PLANET
Swartzwelder, catching on, brings Frank Burly back to the fore. He's still a private detective, he's still pretty bad at it, and he's still stumbling backwards into strange cases (and sometimes plate glass windows). This time the case may have something to do with Martians. Or maybe it's Neptunians. They're both very similar, as far as aliens look, although it's harder to pronounce the word "Neptunians." While going about his daily routine of getting in the way of things, Frank ends up alienating (nyuk, nyuk) all sorts of planetary species. And, of course, he conquers your planet. Not as consistent as "Time Machine," but much sharper than "Double Wonderful." 4 Stars. FAVORITE LINE: Frank Burly, on his new alien secretary -- "...I discovered that I had hired a surprisingly dedicated secretary, who listened in on my phone calls, patted down my visitors, looked through my desk for me each morning before I got in, even appeared in my dreams taking notes."

THE EXPLODING DETECTIVE
Frank Burly's back, this time augmenting his act with a mostly-malfunctioning jetpack. His inability to steer is overshadowed, however, by his ability to withstand multiple explosive collisions, and he becomes something of a superhero. The new title doesn't fit him so well, because it requires that he get up before noon and commit all kinds of acts, most of them selfless and painful. He ends up getting involved in a battle against a super villain, a washed up James Bond type, and another time machine. Although this book is as funny as the previous, it makes it obvious that, while Burly's adventures through time and space are all well and good, Swartzwelder might do well to actually keep his gags confined to the realm of detective work. I doubt it took the man longer than a couple of days to write any of these books, but this is the first time I felt it really showed. 4 Stars. FAVORITE LINE: Frank Burly has infiltrated a Secret Club for Super Villains, searching for his would-be assassin -- "I continued around the room ... making it sound like I was a new member who was just making conversation. "Have you been trying to kill me?" I would ask, casually. "I'm just curious. Or we could talk about the weather, if you like. The weather's been trying to kill me too.'"

A surprisingly good little time-travel detective story, told in the familiar dry comedic stylings of the author of some of everyone's favorite Simpsons episodes. Frank Burly's interior monologue (which I imagine sounds a bit like Sgt. Bosco from Bob's Burgers) can be a bit meandering at times, and sure, I only rated it 3 stars, but I doubt Frank Burly would mind, as I do plan on reading more of these, and using them as little palette cleansers between longer books.

I'm always trying to find more good comedy writers who put out novels at a decent clip--it was never a huge list, the ones I've found tend to have books that age out of humor (only Wodehouse seems to remain entirely ageless in this respect), and many of the attempts I read are more "amusing" or "wry" than actually funny. Simpsons writer John Swartzwelder doesn't have this latter problem--he's good for a genuine laugh at least once per page, and he knows how to use the primary building block of the joke (create an expectation, subvert the expectation) in a way that continues to surprise.

After a few chapters, it becomes clear that he's mostly in it for the jokes, and that everything about the world, from the main character to the other characters to the concepts and story, are all about serving the jokes. Which is fine, good even! As detective Frank Burly himself might say, jokes are an important part of comedy. What's my problem, wanting anything more? I guess that when I know a book is going to be 200% about the jokes and 0 percent about anything else, it becomes a little hard to justify becoming invested in the story, which then tends to sap interest in the jokes. Swartzwelder, wizard of the art of comedy that he is, has anticipated this complaint and answered it with the strategy of making the book very short.

It still took me two months to finish this book. To be fair, I had some stuff going on, and I did finish it. I guess this Swartzwelder guy isn't so bad.

Absurd, ridiculous, nonsensical. Frank Burly is a fantastic character in a whimsical parallel universe full of funny figures, goofy antics and shenanigans. Absolutely hilarious from beginning to end!

John Swartzwelder has written a zillion episodes of The Simpsons, and I'm guessing he's the guy who came up with the gag that Mr. Burns is always making ancient cultural references like "Idlewild Airport" and "Amalgamated Spats," because this entire book is in that vein: a bunch of little gags that are almost funny, but they probably aren't going to make you laugh.

Roughly every other sentence includes a pun or a zinger but I can't say I found any of them... funny. Sort of lightly amusing, maybe, but otherwise I didn't really get interested in the plot part of this time travel story (which is fine, since Swartzwelder doesn't seem that interested in the plot either).

Maybe it's me, maybe my brain has bad comic timing. But I like him better as a TV writer. Because it is self-published (in a fancy way, but still) this book is hard to find used and not really worth $16 on Amazon. I read it in about 90 minutes, but luckily I was able to track down a library copy.

Very funny book. Laughed my little buns off. Can’t seem to find them anywhere. Let me know if they turn up.

A breezy comic detective story by the legendary Simpsons writer. Swartzwelder leans hard into noir tropes, mining pretty well-worn comic territory as his inept PI, Frank Burly, bumbles into a criminal conspiracy involving time travel and proceeds to get kicked around for a good half the novel until he finally figures out that there's a criminal conspiracy involving time travel going on. For the majority of the novel, plot and character are only really important for setting up punchlines, which are hit-or-miss, but Swartzwelder pulls out a surprisingly satisfying ending.

Swartzwelder's first book is a masterpiece of a con job. Using the searing iron of television, the writer of my favorite Simpsons episode (the Kafkaesque Homer's Enemy) successfully branded his comic visions, the imagery and timing, the very seal of his humor, onto the inchoate brains of the show's fans, which now span generations--generations that bear his deep-seated mark. As the creative talent ages, perchance the artist seeks less collaborative commerce with those that have appreciated her art or in this case absorbed it like nourishment. It is no surprise then that Swartzwelder would eventually shed the cartoon medium and propose that his Swartzwelded audience cooperate in the creation of his vivid fantasies alongside him, to behold his raw wordplay and implement it themselves, rather than have them huddle around a TV, gaping at the finished product, mere spectators. What better partners than the old receptacles of his countless gags, ironic eruptions, and fanciful associations? Is there any choice but to laugh along with this man who showed them how to recognize what is funny in the first place? Swartzwelder's punchlines strike like a hard fist into the legions of gloves well-worn by his shtick. He harnesses a childish self-scrutiny, straps it with an impish delight, and has it plow through an absurd dream scape, like the God of Deuteronomy, with few rests, less filler, pausing only for violence, for streaks of elegance, from beginning to end. As with all fiction of this sort, the reader is required to imagine it herself, so it may prove overwhelming for viewers accustomed to animators and voice actors creating the scenes for them and like a mountain of crack for readers already cursed with rampant imaginations.

The anti-hero Frank Burly is a hapless private detective hired by Thomas Dewey Mandible The Third, a hobo with delusions of grandeur, to investigate a robbery in which a crook used a time machine, invented by one Professor Groggins, to relieve Mandible of his large inheritance, including his mansion and its staff, in an alternate time line whence Mandible is rich. How Mandible is aware of his true nature as a millionaire in an alternate time line, when he is in fact a raving homeless person in the current one, is never explained, nor are his proclivities toward living affluent despite being derelict, but the reader should be advised not to dwell on these kinds of technicalities, for they will unavoidably pile up in revolt against any good sense. Swartzwelder will create an entire scene to serve up a most irrelevant joke. His whole style is backwards and ramps up in reverse. For example, only 50 pages in, the reader arrives rather abruptly at the close of Chapter Seven and is subjected to a Wile E. Coyote pratfall, a.k.a. Homer @ Springfield Gorge. A book with a complete lack of gravity will no doubt find a way to employ a lack of gravity. Check the technique. The author has Burly go over a cliff under the flimsiest of pretexts, not to further the story, but for the sake of the gag. This gag works the humiliation angle in the same manner as a moron complaining about her lost glasses only to have a stranger point out that the glasses were atop the moron's head the whole time. Losing the ground you're walking on is the most logical backward extreme to losing any handy item. All Swartzwelder needed to do then was choose the treacherous mode of conveyance, devise the improbable cause, and backtrack to it firing one-liners all the way.

To prove that you can't go wrong going off a cliff, here's another classic from one-liner extraordinaire Jack Handey:

I bet a funny thing about driving a car off a cliff is, while you're in midair, you still hit those brakes! Hey, better try the emergency brake! (DEEP THOUGHTS, 1992)

Speaking of one-liners, whenever Swartzwelder is not describing an awkward/unfortunate/radical situation, he is fond of using anachronistic phrases, descriptors, and old-timey expressions that I like to imagine as being delivered by Burt Ward, such as:

Looks like trouble at the old Groggins place. (Chapter 4, Page 28)

I will now round out this review by publishing excerpts of the parts I found most memorable under the ruse that I am examining Swartzwelder's bag of tricks. Take the following bit as an example of sarcastically saucing up the narrative with words and actions that directly contrast the image created by the text. In this scene, Burly attempts to locate Mandible, the hobo who hired him, after discovering that his case of the 'time machine theft' starts to hold water:

Mandible was still living in the gutter when I got there, but now he had a tramp butler. So I guess things were looking up for him. The butler stepped in front of me and asked me my business. I told him I came to see Mandible.

"I'll see if he's in, sir," said the butler.

"I can see him sitting in the sewer."

"I'll see if he's in, sir," repeated the butler firmly.

The butler announced me to Mandible, who waved regally for me to approach him. He was using a couple stray dogs as a table, and had his feet up on some crud. I sloshed over into his august presence and told him he might not be so crazy after all. (Chapter 4, Page 30)

Sarcastic yet innocent in purpose. Take the next excerpt as an example of Greek chorus/hoi polloi usage to highlight the self-consciousness of the protagonist, the attribution of lines to various characters to mimic the author's fancy along a single train of thought, and social commentary for the under appreciated. In this scene, Burly finds himself stuck in the 50's with no means to return to the present:

Most of my leisure time was spent in bars, where I would regale the locals with my exciting tales of the future.

"In the future," I informed my slack-jawed audience, "there will be gas pumps that talk."

"What will they talk about?" hushed voices would ask.

"Gas."

This didn't seem so much unbelievable as boring to them.

"So?" asked one of them.

"So, that's something that I know and you don't know. Advantage, me."

This got them confused. "But you just told us all about it," said one.

"Everybody in the place knows it now," said another.

"We can't stop thinking about it at this point," added a third.

My superior grin faded into an equal scowl. They were right. I vowed not to tell them any more about the future. Why should I give away my advantage? But it's hard not to show off how smart you are. All smart guys know this. (Chapter 15, Page 98)

I forget what goes in between here, but it must not have been that funny or else I would not have cut it. Check the continuation of this scene for a brief personification of time:

The more I talked about the future, the more interested they got. "What's going to happen in 1977?" asked one.

"I forget."

"How about 1978?"

"Forget. Wait, I think I remember something... no, it's gone."

"Gee, the future sounds real exciting," one of the drunks sneered.

"Hey, lay off the future," I warned him. "It's all right."

Sometimes I got competition from other drunks in the bar who claimed they were from a more interesting future than I was.

"In the future I'm from,' said one drunk in the back, "everybody is movie stars. And we're all married to Carole Lombard. And our dogs crap money."

I didn't remember any of that, and doubted that this man had ever traveled to the future at all, but he certainly had a more riveting story to tell than I did. After awhile I found myself making up stuff too. I didn't feel good about that, but I didn't want to lose my audience. Once you've been the center of attention, it's hard to go back to being one of the guys in the corner. (Chapter 15, Page 99)

And finally, a sort of apology:

During our prolonged chase through time we accidentally altered the chronology of world history a little bit, I'm embarassed to report. For example, the Civil War now happened BEFORE the Civil War. And when the Titanic sank it landed on the Bismarck. With Noah's Ark on top of the pile. Don't ask me how these things are possible. I just wreck history, I don't explain it. But I do know that this is what happens when sophisticated machinery like that is operated by unqualified personnel, like me. (Chapter 19, Page 127)

This book is the first of a series. The adventures of Frank Burly continue in HOW I CONQUERED YOUR PLANET (2006) and THE EXPLODING DETECTIVE (2007). No rush.

P.S. I borrowed this book from the Library because it is almost $20 on Amazon and it's never on sale. This book is too skinny, the print too large, not to wait for the omnibus.

Swartzwelder is a comedic genius who wrote some of the best Simpsons episodes sitting by himself in a diner and chain-smoking (when the diner banned smoking, he bought the booth and sat in it at home). You can see it in his first novel too; the whole thing is basically a series of excellent one-liners that surprisingly cohere into a plot, although that really wasn't necessary for the book to be enjoyable.

The jokes are pure and abstract, with almost no political or moral content—the opposite of 'clapter comedy' where the audience claps to indicate that they agree with you.

I didn't know about Swartzwelder, but my curiosity was sparked when I read his interview in The New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the...

I must stay that his book is quite unique, as it has a very over the top, farcical and absurd style, with a insanely stupid hero as narrator. It reads more as constant stream of jokes rather than a novel, but it gains on you. It helps to just picture the action as a cartoon in your head. It is also quite short with a sustained rhythm, which contribute to its appeal. I will definitely read the other books in the series.

I guess the best way to describe it is just a random quote:

"I headed downtown in my car.

I never got there. Somebody had been doing some major league tampering to my car. The brake lines were cut. The tires were on fire. There was carbon monoxide coming out of everything. And the radio was tuned to a station I didn’t like. I had to tip my booby-trapped hat to whoever tampered with this car.

I was late with my payments on the car anyway, and it looked like a lot of repair work was going to have to be done no matter how this came out, so I figured let the finance company worry about it. I called them up on my cell phone, told them where the car was, and jumped out.

I was going over sixty at the time, but luckily I didn’t hit the ground. There was a cliff there and I just went harmlessly over that. But just when you’re sailing along, thinking everything is going to be okay, something unexpected comes along to jar you out of your complacency. For me, in this case, it was the bottom of the cliff. I got bruised up pretty bad – they say I bounced for an hour - but luckily no bones were broken. That’s where that protective layer of fat I was telling you about comes in."

This series is notoriously difficult to find copies of locally, so having just received my copy from the US I sat down to read and finished it in one sitting. I loved it, every bit of it, but I can say that while completely understanding why other people don't.

Swartzwelder seems to have written "The Time Machine Did It" with the full intent of hitting you with a new joke or gag every sentence or so. Written from the mind of the main character, Frank Burly, it follows a story in his life as a PI. A life caught somewhere between mundane and exciting, or the pace of exciting with all the thrill of the mundane. Some of the most inane things you've ever read are played off completely seriously, before being replaced with another almost equally hilarious and intentionally hamfisted gag - like being punched in the stomach before you can get your wind back from being punched in the stomach prior.

This is all by design, of course, Frank is a Homer Simpson-esque simpleton down to the "Max Power" style rationale behind the name - a book from the perspective of a character like that can only be written this way. From Homer Simpson's perspective written like Ulysses would be dishonest to the character, and nowhere near as good.

If you like jokes having time to breathe, long build ups with a thoughtful pay off, you might find this quite frustrating - maybe beneath you - but I can't say that I agree. If you want high art, read In Search of Lost Time. If you want to average a laugh a page, if not paragraph, pick this up and start reading about Frank Burly. You won't regret it, and hey, it's only about 2 hours worth of reading to regret anyway.