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antisocial_auntie's review against another edition
3.0
The audiobook was good for the first part - her voices added to the experience. But later when she's drooling over Tom Jones I think it would be less annoying to read it in print.
kaylielongley's review against another edition
4.0
This isn't a masterpiece but instead an insider's look into the world of Springfield, USA and the countless talented individuals who make it happen. From animators to musicians to voice actors to painters, behind-the-scenes Simpsons is serious business. Readers will be polarized by this memoir as Nancy Cartwright focuses on vignette-type stories of celebrity encounters and life lessons. I studied film in college and believe animation has profound influence on culture, especially within the colorful, curious history of television, so I enjoyed Cartwright's rambling, fan-girlish writing. As she self describes, Cartwright is not particularly funny, but she tells a good story about working hard to achieve one's dreams and the strange successes that come from voicing, and sometimes living, Bart Simpson.
erin_oriordan_is_reading_again's review against another edition
3.0
A quick and mildly entertaining read. The behind-the-scenes part don't tell you much more than you'll learn from the DVD commentaries (which, if you're an obsessive Simpsons fan like me, you'll have listened to at least a few times). The best parts are when Nancy talks about her personal life. I liked this book, but I wouldn't recommend it to someone who wasn't a fellow Simpsons nut.
stiricide's review against another edition
1.0
Do you want to read about your favourite cartoon series through 300 pages of your mom telling stories via Facebook posts? Then this is the book for you!
Cartwright is a great VO actress, and I would even believe that she's simply a great orator. However, she is not a particularly good writer. This book is stitched together through several uneven, rambling journal entries, some banal minutia of the day-to-day production of The Simpsons (which reads more like an award acceptance speech that never gets gonged out), and a truly incredible amount of Cartwright fawning over her various guest stars. (Her reaction to Mel Gibson in particular is pretty rough to read. He hadn't gone over the edge when he was on The Simpsons, and frankly, i'm surprised he managed to be such a good sport.)
While this might be vital reading to a Simpsons megafan, you don't really learn much about the show as a unique entity, or even the experience of working on the show for so many years. I understand that the VO work for it is fairly routine, and the cast isn't much of a "family," but surely, there's more to her experience with the show than her pink Miata and several cases of getting starstruck.
Hard pass on this one.
Cartwright is a great VO actress, and I would even believe that she's simply a great orator. However, she is not a particularly good writer. This book is stitched together through several uneven, rambling journal entries, some banal minutia of the day-to-day production of The Simpsons (which reads more like an award acceptance speech that never gets gonged out), and a truly incredible amount of Cartwright fawning over her various guest stars. (Her reaction to Mel Gibson in particular is pretty rough to read. He hadn't gone over the edge when he was on The Simpsons, and frankly, i'm surprised he managed to be such a good sport.)
While this might be vital reading to a Simpsons megafan, you don't really learn much about the show as a unique entity, or even the experience of working on the show for so many years. I understand that the VO work for it is fairly routine, and the cast isn't much of a "family," but surely, there's more to her experience with the show than her pink Miata and several cases of getting starstruck.
Hard pass on this one.
dommdy's review against another edition
2.0
There was nothing wrong with this book, I just wasn't as interested as I thought I would be...
leaton01's review against another edition
3.0
This review is focused on both the book and audiobook. It can’t be said that Nancy Cartwright, the fantastic voice behind the infamous Bart Simpson, doesn’t love her job. To help emphasize her devotion to her career, she has written, “My Life As a 10-Year-Old-Boy.” In this autobiography of both her and Bart’s life, Cartwright gives you the intimate details of what goes on behind the animation curtain. This audiobook fits perfectly into the canon of Simpsons literature that includes episode guides (authorized and otherwise), comic books, social impact books, religious influence books (no joke—“The Gospels According to the Simpsons.”), and other books on the topic of America’s favorite animated family.
Cartwright, an established voice over talent before “The Simpsons”, spends the first few chapters of this audiobook on the topic of her pre-Bart years. Her tale begins in elementary school in a school-wide story-telling competition and follows through her high school years winning state competitions and ultimately college scholarships for her vocal abilities. Once in college, she apprentices under Dawes Butler, and her career takes off. By the time she steps foot on the set of “The Tracy Ulman Show,” she has already done work for various cartoons such as Galaxy High School, Pound Puppies, The Snorks, My Little Pony & Friends, and Richie Rich. For those non-Simpsons devotees, “The Simpsons” was first created as a series of animated shorts to serve as segues to and from commercials for “The Tracy Ulman Show.” These shorts were so popular that the Fox Network approved the plan for a series.
As the title implies, the meat of this autobiography revolves around Cartwright and Bart’s experience during the run of 11-season show (Currently, the show proceeds into its 15th season). She takes the listener step-by-step through the whole process of an episode from the brainstorm sessions by the writers to voice recordings to the post-production editing and revising.
The audiobook retells Cartwright’s experiences meeting famous actors and actresses who have lent their voice to “The Simpsons” such as Elizabeth Taylor, Mel Gibson, Michael Jackson, and Danny Devito. Her excitement borderlines on hero-worship as she goes over in detail about these encounters. While the enthusiasm is understood, her emphasis on celebrities at the expense of listeners having no clue about work politics or her personal life for that matter left a small pit in this story.
Cartwright published the book in 2001 but has only published the audiobook this year with no real explanation to the time lapse. And with such a time lapse, listeners might regret that she has not updated the material beyond a singular footnote. Not that much needs to be updated, but in the last three seasons, the show has received more awards, and more famous actors have lent their voices to the show.
An arguable flaw of this audiobook pertains to this year’s talent strike by the six major voices of “The Simpsons”—Hank Azaria, Nancy Cartwright, Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Harry Shearer, and Yeardley Smith. The golden voices of the show demanded a raise that resulted in $360,000 per person per episode. Nancy Cartwright brags about the fact that nowadays the time needed to tape each episode takes an average of six hours. That’s $60,000 an hour of work for each of the 22 episodes in a season. This again would not be anything too exceptional, but while detailing how the show is made, she explains that the story is sent out to Korea for the animation cells to be painted by Koreans. This helps lower the cost of the show because they only get paid a few dollars an hour; a point that doesn’t seem to bother the voice talent who is being paid $1,000 a minute for her work.
But she certainly gives credit where credit is due. Throughout the audiobook, she lists off the names of various people involved with the show as their position comes up in her discussion. She pays respect to Mike Groening and James L. Brooks, the creators of the show, and of course, her co-workers whom she certainly adores.
Cartwright narrates this audiobook with a natural talent that is fantastic. Her overall exuberance for the show, the celebrities, and her life in addition to the fact that she plays a 10 year-old-boy, gives her voice the feel of a child at an amusement park. She has so much to say and is completely awestruck by her environment. You hear it in her voice. Her narration not only makes it better than the book form, but also no other narrator could have performed this audiobook better. Readers may have appreciated the upbeat style of the book and quirky asides and other narrators might have given those asides some justice—but only Cartwright can deliver an authentic Bart Simpson belting out, “Aye, carumba!” Nor do readers hear all the other times that Cartwright breaks into character (whether Bart or other animated characters). She superbly keeps listeners involved with these variations. Cartwright reads her materially so well, it’s next to impossible to imagine how this audiobook would work grammatically in a book. It seems so much more natural in audio format.
In addition to her excitement, Cartwright gives the listeners some sentimental and private moments with her. Cartwright’s feelings and sadness overwhelm the listener when she talks about the day Phil Hartman, a regular voice on “The Simpsons,” died. The sentiment in her voice can be quite touching at times throughout the audiobook.
“My Life As a 10-Year-Old Boy” is a must for any die-hard Simpsons’ fan Even occasional watchers of the show will receive some interesting insights from America’s most famous fourth grade bad boy. Filled with various anecdotes and details, this audiobook provides great insight to a show that has outlasted almost every other sitcom and cartoon show out there.
Cartwright, an established voice over talent before “The Simpsons”, spends the first few chapters of this audiobook on the topic of her pre-Bart years. Her tale begins in elementary school in a school-wide story-telling competition and follows through her high school years winning state competitions and ultimately college scholarships for her vocal abilities. Once in college, she apprentices under Dawes Butler, and her career takes off. By the time she steps foot on the set of “The Tracy Ulman Show,” she has already done work for various cartoons such as Galaxy High School, Pound Puppies, The Snorks, My Little Pony & Friends, and Richie Rich. For those non-Simpsons devotees, “The Simpsons” was first created as a series of animated shorts to serve as segues to and from commercials for “The Tracy Ulman Show.” These shorts were so popular that the Fox Network approved the plan for a series.
As the title implies, the meat of this autobiography revolves around Cartwright and Bart’s experience during the run of 11-season show (Currently, the show proceeds into its 15th season). She takes the listener step-by-step through the whole process of an episode from the brainstorm sessions by the writers to voice recordings to the post-production editing and revising.
The audiobook retells Cartwright’s experiences meeting famous actors and actresses who have lent their voice to “The Simpsons” such as Elizabeth Taylor, Mel Gibson, Michael Jackson, and Danny Devito. Her excitement borderlines on hero-worship as she goes over in detail about these encounters. While the enthusiasm is understood, her emphasis on celebrities at the expense of listeners having no clue about work politics or her personal life for that matter left a small pit in this story.
Cartwright published the book in 2001 but has only published the audiobook this year with no real explanation to the time lapse. And with such a time lapse, listeners might regret that she has not updated the material beyond a singular footnote. Not that much needs to be updated, but in the last three seasons, the show has received more awards, and more famous actors have lent their voices to the show.
An arguable flaw of this audiobook pertains to this year’s talent strike by the six major voices of “The Simpsons”—Hank Azaria, Nancy Cartwright, Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Harry Shearer, and Yeardley Smith. The golden voices of the show demanded a raise that resulted in $360,000 per person per episode. Nancy Cartwright brags about the fact that nowadays the time needed to tape each episode takes an average of six hours. That’s $60,000 an hour of work for each of the 22 episodes in a season. This again would not be anything too exceptional, but while detailing how the show is made, she explains that the story is sent out to Korea for the animation cells to be painted by Koreans. This helps lower the cost of the show because they only get paid a few dollars an hour; a point that doesn’t seem to bother the voice talent who is being paid $1,000 a minute for her work.
But she certainly gives credit where credit is due. Throughout the audiobook, she lists off the names of various people involved with the show as their position comes up in her discussion. She pays respect to Mike Groening and James L. Brooks, the creators of the show, and of course, her co-workers whom she certainly adores.
Cartwright narrates this audiobook with a natural talent that is fantastic. Her overall exuberance for the show, the celebrities, and her life in addition to the fact that she plays a 10 year-old-boy, gives her voice the feel of a child at an amusement park. She has so much to say and is completely awestruck by her environment. You hear it in her voice. Her narration not only makes it better than the book form, but also no other narrator could have performed this audiobook better. Readers may have appreciated the upbeat style of the book and quirky asides and other narrators might have given those asides some justice—but only Cartwright can deliver an authentic Bart Simpson belting out, “Aye, carumba!” Nor do readers hear all the other times that Cartwright breaks into character (whether Bart or other animated characters). She superbly keeps listeners involved with these variations. Cartwright reads her materially so well, it’s next to impossible to imagine how this audiobook would work grammatically in a book. It seems so much more natural in audio format.
In addition to her excitement, Cartwright gives the listeners some sentimental and private moments with her. Cartwright’s feelings and sadness overwhelm the listener when she talks about the day Phil Hartman, a regular voice on “The Simpsons,” died. The sentiment in her voice can be quite touching at times throughout the audiobook.
“My Life As a 10-Year-Old Boy” is a must for any die-hard Simpsons’ fan Even occasional watchers of the show will receive some interesting insights from America’s most famous fourth grade bad boy. Filled with various anecdotes and details, this audiobook provides great insight to a show that has outlasted almost every other sitcom and cartoon show out there.
wellington299's review against another edition
2.0
Part of me expected the book to be more about Nancy than Bart. I really enjoyed the first chapters as Nancy bursts into the scene and I now appreciate more the job of the world of animation.
But then she started pulling things from her journal ... *gasp* I'm far from the biggest Hollywood fan, so it came across as immature and superficial.
This book should only be read by a die-hard Simpsons fan.
After reading a biography (or auto biography), I often use the "Would I want to hang out with this person?" as a measuring stick. For Nancy, she didn't offer a whole lot for me to admire. She's not an evil or even a bad person.
She just seems out of touch. She acts as a ten year old boy ... maybe she acts like a ten year old in real life.
cer1572's review against another edition
2.0
Dry but an excellent reference source. Provides a thorough background, well-sourced and showcases the opinions of those involved as well as the legal battles. Not an interesting read though.
meganmargoking's review against another edition
1.0
I read this book on audio because it seemed like the perfect book to be on audio. I mean come on, the voice of Bart Simpson, Nancy Cartwright, reading about her experiences as Bart. Seemed like a fantastic idea. Apparently... not. If you read this one, you might wanna skip the audio book and go for the printed word. Cartwright's voice is downright annoying. It's very high-pitched and squeaky sounding. She is very over-excited when she is doing the read for her book (so with her high voice... you make the call). She also laughs and giggles throughout the book. It's kind of unprofessional if you ask me.
This book is sectioned off into four parts.
Part one: her humble beginnings. Cartwright goes on about how in her opinion she was a child prodigy and excelled in high school. In college she realized she wanted to be a voice actor so on a whim she contacted Daws Butler (famous voice actor who was the original voices for Yogi Bear, Quick Draw McGraw, Elroy Jetson and many more) and the two hit it off (she dropped out of college for him and to pursue her budding career). Butler takes Cartwright under his wing and she is able to start her voice acting career using him as a reference. But then in 1987 her agent gets her an audition for a bumper on the Tracey Ullman Show and the rest is history... right?
Part Two: fame (I'm gonna live forever... I'm gonna learn how to fly). Once Cartwright was on the Simpsons was she able to meet celebraties and earn the fame she had craved all her life. A majority of the book, and believe me I am not exaggerating this one, is Cartwright fangirling over his celeb, and that celeb. She goes on and on about how she met people like Mel Gibson, Mickey Rooney, Tom Jones, Meryl Steep, Michael Jackson (and many more) and how they became best friends with her and how they fangirled over meeting her, the voice of Bart Simpson. Ego and reality check please.
Part Three: research. Cartwright even admitted that she had to do tons of research write this part of the book - the Simpsons. She explains in depth about the process to make an episode. I had three problems with this. First off, she didn't sound like she had any idea what she talking about. Like she had stated she did tons of research to write it in her book. In my opinion she didn't have a clue what went into making the Simpsons except her 2-6 hours a week (yes, Cartwright says in the book she only works 2-6 hours a week for the Simpsons) and wanted to sound knowledgeable for the book so she asked around. My second issue is that all this information was not new to me. All of her information can be found if you watch the Simpsons commentaries (yeah, that's how hard her research was). My last issue? Her research was old. Cartwright goes on this high and mighty rant about how the Simpsons is the only cartoon around to still be hand painted. And I mean she goes on and on about it. In the audio book, it had updated material (updated in 2004). Cartwright makes a note that the Simpsons have now gone digital and she seems bitter about it. I wonder why?
Part four: I'm an angel. In the final section she goes on about how charitable she is. I am not saying it's bad to donate your time and money to causes but after 5 hours of her ego and than a slew of stories how she helped kids with cancer brighten their lives... It makes me a little annoyed.
I was disappointed that Cartwright did not talk about her personal life beyond the death of her mother. I wanted to know, maybe know how her personal life has been affected by Bart's fame. But she never went into those details.
Who would I recommend this book to? To those who do not already know any insider knowledge about The Simpsons. But make sure not to read the audio book.
This book is sectioned off into four parts.
Part one: her humble beginnings. Cartwright goes on about how in her opinion she was a child prodigy and excelled in high school. In college she realized she wanted to be a voice actor so on a whim she contacted Daws Butler (famous voice actor who was the original voices for Yogi Bear, Quick Draw McGraw, Elroy Jetson and many more) and the two hit it off (she dropped out of college for him and to pursue her budding career). Butler takes Cartwright under his wing and she is able to start her voice acting career using him as a reference. But then in 1987 her agent gets her an audition for a bumper on the Tracey Ullman Show and the rest is history... right?
Part Two: fame (I'm gonna live forever... I'm gonna learn how to fly). Once Cartwright was on the Simpsons was she able to meet celebraties and earn the fame she had craved all her life. A majority of the book, and believe me I am not exaggerating this one, is Cartwright fangirling over his celeb, and that celeb. She goes on and on about how she met people like Mel Gibson, Mickey Rooney, Tom Jones, Meryl Steep, Michael Jackson (and many more) and how they became best friends with her and how they fangirled over meeting her, the voice of Bart Simpson. Ego and reality check please.
Part Three: research. Cartwright even admitted that she had to do tons of research write this part of the book - the Simpsons. She explains in depth about the process to make an episode. I had three problems with this. First off, she didn't sound like she had any idea what she talking about. Like she had stated she did tons of research to write it in her book. In my opinion she didn't have a clue what went into making the Simpsons except her 2-6 hours a week (yes, Cartwright says in the book she only works 2-6 hours a week for the Simpsons) and wanted to sound knowledgeable for the book so she asked around. My second issue is that all this information was not new to me. All of her information can be found if you watch the Simpsons commentaries (yeah, that's how hard her research was). My last issue? Her research was old. Cartwright goes on this high and mighty rant about how the Simpsons is the only cartoon around to still be hand painted. And I mean she goes on and on about it. In the audio book, it had updated material (updated in 2004). Cartwright makes a note that the Simpsons have now gone digital and she seems bitter about it. I wonder why?
Part four: I'm an angel. In the final section she goes on about how charitable she is. I am not saying it's bad to donate your time and money to causes but after 5 hours of her ego and than a slew of stories how she helped kids with cancer brighten their lives... It makes me a little annoyed.
I was disappointed that Cartwright did not talk about her personal life beyond the death of her mother. I wanted to know, maybe know how her personal life has been affected by Bart's fame. But she never went into those details.
Who would I recommend this book to? To those who do not already know any insider knowledge about The Simpsons. But make sure not to read the audio book.
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