WHO LIKES THIS BOOK?
David Letterman, Steve Carell and more amazing talents love Finding the Funny!
David Letterman attends the SNL50: The Anniversary Special at Rockefeller Plaza on Sunday, Feb. 16, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
“Madeleine Smithberg was a talent coordinator for my earliest television shows. She had a fine eye for all things strange and startling. She proved the “what” was more important than the “who.” Or maybe it was the other way around. Either way, it was Madeleine’s unique guest bookings that got people’s attention in those searly days. We all loved her brain and her energy and her Rolodex (Google it). Turns out she’s also a good storyteller. I know you’ll enjoy this book.”
— Dave Letterman
“Madeleine's pioneering life in comedy is a lot like her laugh: full-throated, uncensored, involves real tears - wait, is she actually crying? - messy, totally unladylike and absolutely glorious.”
— Mo Rocca
“It wasn’t enough that Madeleine Smithberg was a key player in the breakthrough comedy that was David Letterman’s “Late Night” show on NBC, nor that she co-created “The Daily Show,” the most significant innovation on the late-night comedy landscape since the invention of “Tonight” in 1954. Now she has written a book about all of that. And the life she’s lived before and after and in between.
No surprise: it’s revealing and insightful, personal and playful, and bust-a-gut hilarious on every page. Madeleine never had to look far to find the funny. It’s always been right there in her own creative hands.”
— Bill Carter, author, The Late Shift, editor-at-large, LateNighter
Steve Carell in "Rooster".Credit : Katrina Marcinowski/HBO
“Smithberg took a chance, hiring an unknown, untested, aspiring actor from the Chicago Theater scene. It was his biggest break and it changed his career forever. But enough about Stephen Colbert. She hired me right after that, and I owe her a lot.”
— Steve Carell
“[Madeleine] changed my life — and now she’ll change yours. Reading her book is like getting a job on The Daily Show, but funnier.”
— Lauren Weedman, Emmy-winning Actor on Hacks
“I was there at the beginning and this is a story I didn't know. How The Daily Show came to be and what went on behind the scenes. It’s a story worth telling. And Madeleine tells it well. And it’s funny.”
— Lewis Black
“Madeleine‘s rise from affable and effective staffer on Letterman to the creator of one of the most influential television shows in the history of political comedy is the stuff of legend. “How did she do it?“ one might ask. In this marvelous book, we finally learn the answer. It’s legendary!”