Alan Zweibel start­ed his com­e­dy career sell­ing jokes for sev­en dol­lars apiece to the last of the Borscht Belt stand-ups. Then one night, despite bomb­ing on stage, he caught the atten­tion of Lorne Michaels and became one of the first writ­ers at Sat­ur­day Night Live, where he penned clas­sic mate­r­i­al for Gil­da Rad­ner, John Belushi, and all of the orig­i­nal Not Ready for Prime Time Play­ers. From SNL, Zweibel went on to have a hand in a series of land­mark shows‚ from It’s Gar­ry Shan­dling’s Show to Curb Your Enthu­si­asm.

In Laugh Lines, Zweibel weaves togeth­er the sto­ries of his influ­en­tial career, from writ­ing for a gen­er­a­tion of Jack­ies and Mortys and Dick­ies to meet­ing Gil­da while hid­ing behind a pot­ted plant. He goes deep into the ori­gins of famous SNL sketch­es, as well as how the show evolved in the wake of mete­oric suc­cess, and the projects‚ not all of them so endur­ing‚ that fol­lowed. And Zweibel writes ten­der­ly about his friend­ships‚ with Shan­dling, Bil­ly Crys­tal, Lar­ry David, and oth­ers. Woven through­out are also words from oth­er come­di­ans and writ­ers, includ­ing Richard Lewis, Eric Idle, Judd Apa­tow, Dave Bar­ry, Carl Rein­er, Mike Bir­biglia, Sarah Sil­ver­man, and more. This is a warm­heart­ed cul­tur­al mem­oir from a tal­ent­ed, award-win­ning writer.