A magnificent display of heroes, scoundrels, statesmen and moguls from times past. Utterly hilarious and even credible, it draws you back again and again for another look. Where is the next edition!!

M.Poncelet's "aristochiens" are hilarious and skillfully and, yes, artistically well done. There are about 70 paintings shown in the book and is a delight. But the diamond-studded collar on this book is the wonderfully creative writing by Bruce McCall. His little vignettes on the subject of each painting are a falling down delight. A grand sense of humor and an even grander sense of history and literary styles of the past make his contribution to this book a true masterpiece. While dog lovers will appreciate the book, even lowly cat people will enjoy the wit, style and imagination of Sit!: The Dog Portraits of Thierry Poncelet. Move over Poirot; Belgium has a new and better representative!

If F. Scott Fitzgerald had been a satirical cartoonist, half of this book would be the result. The real author used to be an automobile advertisement illustrator in the '50s, which accounts for the other half of the book. See, what the other reviewers were laughing too hard to explain, is that this is a book of spoof illustrations, taken from various publications. Blueblood nostalgia for the Jazz Age is sent up in gags on conspicuous consumption like "Indoor Golf", "Autogiro Jousting" and such. The clever, name-dropping text of those pieces is very funny, also. The auto ad gags feature parodies of 1950s layouts, featuring vehicles that look like they came off the proverbial wedding cake, and double-talking sales copy, like "...with twin-lock dual-fade brakes!" Anyone who's read old copies of Popular Science will scream at the parody of the articles (the automatic nose-blowing device) and the ads (I quit, boss! There's plenty more money in ACCORDION REPAIR these days!) included here. It's hard to believe that the author of this, well, zany book is the same as the author of the painful memoir _Thin Ice: Coming of Age in Canada._ Get this book by hook or by crook!

I've had this book since 1978 and still take a look at it now and then. It's a happy pill for folks who might be feeling low. I always show zany to friends who might be depressed. Usually works. If you really look at it, you could believe that some of the things in this book were fantastic,failed inventions! Has Bruce McCall written more books like this? A few people I know want to get a copy of "Zany" "Humour makes the world go round" I think my favorite from this book is " the desiel typewriter" but there's many greats in here.

If you are visiting this item in the Amazon.com online catalogue, then something special brought you here. You already know of the book, perhaps already own it, and you want to see what other say about it -- or you know nothing about it. If the latter is the case, something lucky and/or magic brought you here, and you owe it to yourself to BUY THIS BOOK NOW. Maybe you heard some snippet about it, or glanced at a copy while visiting a friend. Whatever the case, SOMETHING in your psyche drew you to this fantastic volume of fantasy and art, and you absolutely need to have a copy in your home. People drawn to Zany Afternoons, regardless of the reason, have bigger, funnier, more open and creative minds than everyone else in the world, and the common bond we all share is the book itself. Detachable pants cuffs, five-in-one food paste, tank polo -- these are the creative/artistic concepts embraced by those of us who have been chosen by nature to live on Earth and put the "life" in "lifetime." If you're here, buy it now. You'll know why, after it arrives.

The brilliant satirist and illustrator who gave us a billion terrific and memorable laughs in the pages of National Lampoon and "Zany Afternoons" is now, it seems, on autopilot. Bruce McCall hasn't lost his edge in the technical department, but this anti-paean to the 1950s reads less like a parody of car advertisements and more like a screed against the Evil Consumption Tendencies Of Straitlaced Anti-Communist Americans And Their Depletion Of Natural Resources, Curse Them! It is not, in a word, funny. On the flip side, if you're not familiar with his brilliant "Zany Afternoons" and don't feel like being gouged by the vultures who are charging $250 + for a good-condition copy, then this is a fair sampling of McCall's stuff. To get a real glimpse into his rapier wit, check out http://www.jamesgoodmangallery.com/mccall/pages/exhibframez.html for a gallery of his pieces shown about four years ago in New York. If the taste and style of the '50s and '60s are not your cup of tea and you want to see some hilarious spoofs, check out James Lileks and "The Gallery of Regrettable Food." But don't waste your money on this latest, weak offering from McCall.

I always looked for Bruce McCall's brilliant work in the National Lampoon and loved the reprinted work in 'Zany Afternoons' (I bought two copies, just in case) and it confirmed that here was an unusual humorist, as good with a paint brush or typewriter.

This latest book though I found a bit disappointing. The material does not really stretch to 128 pages, lots of these (especially the text ones) have far too much white space and the illustrations I found lacking in detail. In 'Zany Afternoons' there are three hilarious parodies of Detroit car brochures, 1934, 1946 and 1958 Bulgemobiles, all have paintings of fantasy cars with backgrounds full of detail, it is this detail that I found missing in so many of the paintings in 'Dream-O-Rama'

Still, the text is very funny and if you are new to Mr McCall's work try and get 'Zany Afternoons' and 'Sit!', he wrote the wonderful words to accompany the dog paintings of Thierry Poncelet.

Bruce McCall's "The Last Dream-O-Rama" is a wickedly clever satire of the 1950's dream car phenomena.

If you've seen McCall's "Bulgemobile" advertisements from the 1970's vintage National Lampoon magazine, you already know he's a gifted artist with a droll sense of humor about automotive excesses. He has a talent for writing that comes close to real advertisements but just pushes it a little bit further such as "Fireblast! Twice the car you'll ever need - and that goes double for the new four-door FunTop!"

In this colorful book, after some pages spoofing dream car shows ("It's un-American to miss the Cavalcade of Chrome"), the bulk of the book has delightful full-page drawings of outrageous concept cars. Each has a half page history on the facing page.

One is the "Silver Sabre Patriomatic Funfighter, 1957" which looks only slightly more like a jet airplane than Pontiac's actual Firebird dream cars. Another is the "Armageddon Mk1, 1958" for the fallout shelter crowd. And there are many, many more with great variety. A few may be too silly for some tastes, but they are all wonderfully drawn.

The book wraps up with "Name Your Own Dream Car - the Detroit Way" and finally "Dream Cars Around the World" with yet more drawings and descriptions.

This book is a satisfying satirical, or perhaps all too true, look into the fifties and a great value even if you're only going to look at the drawings.

Wanting to know more about Canadian perspectives on the United States, and attracted by quotes indicating that P. J. O'Rourke and Peter Jennings found it very humorous, I bought this book. Unfortunately, I was once again reminded not to attribute too much credit to quotes from reviews printed on a book's cover. This is a far from humorous work; rather, it is a painful read.

McCall's memoir is a bitter reflection on his childhood in Canada. His depiction of the Canada in which he was raised seems to arise from inductive reasoning: since his was a poor, emotionally uncommunicative, and disfunctional family he attributes those same attributes to the entire nation. Since McCall's personal life only took an upturn upon his immigration to the United States in retrospect everything American in his youth was bright, colorful, luxurious and exciting; things from Canada on the other hand were grey, utilitarian, and boring. Americans were fun and vigorous; Canadians dour and laconic.

McCall's memoir constitutes an unrelenting denunciation of his parents' rearing of their children. His mother is depicted as a tragic, downtrodden, alcoholic who withdrew into alcohol as an escape from the burden of six children and a domineering, unsupportive husband. His description of his father is severe: mean, tyrannical, selfish, belittling. The denunciations are so excessive that about two thirds through the book the one wonders whether McCall doesn't regret missing the opportunity to drive a stake through his father's heart. He describes a stark childhood entirely devoid of love, happiness, or material comforts and attributes all his failures and personality quirks and those of his siblings to their upbringing.

This was a hard book to plow through, much less finish. It is a sad, depressing memoir which would have been better kept within the McCall family; the writer makes an apt observation in the beginning of the book when he expresses concern about how his siblings will receive this recollection of their childhood.

I really regret buying this book and the time I invested in reading it. Under no circumstances would I recommend it to others.

It helps to appreciate this memoir if you have an idea of who Bruce McCall is. The best way of doing that at one stroke is to read his cartoon collection, _Zany Afternoons_, which is out of print. _Thin Ice_ is a tale of a joyless family ruled by a loveless, inconsiderate father, seen from the viewpoint of the artistic child. By all rights, I should dislike this book, as I think giving one's parents the "Mommy Dearest" treatment is ungrateful, unless they were downright abusive. As the psychiatrist said to the centaur, "Stop blaming your parents." Yet he recreates his childhood homes and family climate so winningly that the story overcomes such resistance, and we are transported back with him. All those witty zingers about how dull Canada was are entertaining, too. The book ends just as he is on his way to revive his career in the States. Since that is where, by his own definition, the "good part" of the story lies, let's hope he produces the next installment soon.

Thin Ice is one of the best books I have ever read. I also grew up in a large, dysfunctional family in southern Ontario in the fifties and sixties with a tyrannical, alcoholic father in a tense, cold emotion-starved environment. It wasn't until I was in therapy many years later for an anxiety disorder that I even realized that my childhood was far from normal, and all the feelings of inadequacy and inferiority I had carried all my life stemmed from my childhood.

Thin Ice was a very painful book for me to read, because it is a tearful, emotional trip back in time, but a journey that was necessary for me to understand what happened to me and to finally stop blaming myself. Thin Ice is also uproariously funny, and I am reading it a second time. I, too, yearned to leave Canada behind and move to the United States. I left Canada over a decade ago to raise our children here and have never looked back. After therapy and Bruce's book I can finally leave it emotionally behind, also.

Canadians get very upset when they are poked fun at, and Bruce does it like a pro. If you are a Pierre Burton nationalist, prepare yourself to be indignant. Bruce "tries to create a time when things were very different indeed - a time when a Canadian, certainly this Canadian, felt himself to be two thirds American, with the other third composed of a grayish ball of chaff: hockey/plaid/butter tarts/earmuffs/CBC/Mounties/toques/wheat/fish/lumber/God Save the King/Queen".

I bought Thin Ice to be entertained and I not only laughed until I cried, I also really cried and gained a priceless insight into my complex childhood and the key to my personality today.

found most of this material to be on the dry dull humor side. Some interesting insight, but otherwise I would of waitied till the book ended up in the local goodwilll store.

Dropped on an unsuspecting public, Viagra, the little blue pill that can, has done wonders for (a) the love lives of elderly men, (b) Pfizer Corp. stock and (c) the bad-joke industry. Now, in the second wave of Viagra humor, comes a hilariously clever book that addresses issues we thought we'd never have to ponder, like what to do in the case of a Viagra overdose, the effects of Viagra on pets and how to fill your prescription without the whole town knowing.

Eisenberg, an editor for creative development at TIME, and McCall, whose humor has brightened the pages of The New Yorker, took only two months to crank out this amusing gem. Give it to a male friend who's having a significant birthday.

In the post-Viagra universe, every Leaning Tower of Pisa can be a Washington Monument. Or at least that's the premise behind this laugh-out-loud- funny book celebrating the wonder drug that gives new meaning to the phrase "Magic Johnson."

The authors dispense with the so-called hard facts about Viagra--so people are dying from it. What a way to go!--and go right for the big shtick. How "Viagran" are you? Take their quiz and find out. Glimpse the Viagran bachelor pad. (Hint: It comes equipped with air bags.) And see what the swingin' Viagran wears to bed. How about breakaway pajamas--extra baggy.

This is the perfect book to give to your Dad, your grandfather, your husband, the guy in the next office, and most of all that ex-boyfriend who used to experience, well, technical difficulties. Viagra Nation kept me up all night. . .laughing.