Mary Jo Pehl: Employee of the Month and Other Big Deals

This book was recommended to me as really uproarious, which I thought oversold it; It was a one-guffaw read for me. It’s a series of pseudo-autobiographical essays, recounted with some verve, but with not a lot to distinguish them from other amusing pseudo-autobiographical essays about mildly dysfunctional upbringings and somewhat stressful employment and dating experiences. I didn’t remember where I know Pehl’s name from until relatively late in the book, when MST3K enters the picture: she played Dr. Pearl Forrester. The skits were never my favorite part of MST3K (I’ve always suspected that they were present as much to bolster MST3K’s ability to use fair use as a defense against copyright infringement as for their intrinsic merit). If I’d made the MST3K connection upfront my expectations might have been exceeded — but then, I might have been disappointed that the show plays such a small role.