Mary Jo Pehl is a writer and cast member on the twice Emmy-nominated and Peabody Awarding winning Mystery Science Theater 3000. She's been published in magazines, websites, and numerous anthologies, and her commentaries have been heard on NPR's All Things Considered. As a comedian and storyteller, Mary Jo has appeared on stages and at comedy festivals throughout the land, and with the Mortified and Risk! storytelling shows. Mary Jo lives, loves, and laughs in the Twin Cities.

Getting our hands on this source material was dangerous, legally questionable, and career-threatening, but I felt it was worth the risk–these aren’t just Hollywood outtakes, folks, these are far-out-takes. Did Duke and JFK have a reckoning in the Oval Office? Did Yoda have anger issues? Did Sean Connery struggle with crappy dentures? The answers to these–and many more unanswered questions–lay within the treasure trove of The Lost Recordings, Vol. 1: Hollywood.

The Cool Side of My Pillow is a collection of essays. Don’t let that fancy word fool you. I’m not trying to get highbrow or rant myself blue, but there are experiences and observations outside of the entertainment industry that I feel are worth sharing. What’s it about? Mostly, things that matter to me, like putting in the effort, being honest, and not treating the environment like it’s the enemy.

Even by the standards of the 1970s, even compared to Jar-Jar Binks, the legendary 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special is a peerlessly cringeworthy pop-culture artifact.

Surely You Can’t Be Serious is the first-ever oral history of the making of Airplane! by the creators, and of the beginnings of the ZAZ trio (Zucker, Abrahams, Zucker) – charting the rise of their comedy troupe Kentucky Fried Theater in Madison, Wisconsin all the way to premiere night. The directors explain what drew them to filmmaking and in particular, comedy.