Henry Raddick

December 12, 2002 12:56 PM

Henry Raddick's Amazon Reviews are among the most insidiously hilarious works I've seen in some time. From his review of "McDonald Happy Meal Toys From The Nineties: With Price Guide": "An essential guide for the fast food promotional toy collector, this fine book lists each and every one of the toys given away with Happy meals in the 90s. If you choked on it, it's in here. It even had listings and recent auction prices for some of that weird "McCrying Game" merchandising. A must. " Indeed.
posted by effugas (28 comments total)

Flamenco is the dust of the bull-ring, the flounce of the gypsy's skirt and the crazy clatter of castanets. Flamenco swaggers. Flamenco pleads. Flamenco is the beating heart of Andalusia. Flamenco is NOT a tanked-up Englishwoman embarrassing her husband in a hotel bar in Seville.

I don't quite understand this. It's like the terrible love-child of poor grammar and profound wit.
posted by hughbot at 1:08 PM on December 12, 2002

I mean the link itself, not the quote. The quote seems structurally sound to me.
posted by hughbot at 1:09 PM on December 12, 2002

Also mentioned here. I read these last week and I love the fact that he has (most likely invented) a family and a dog that he constantly references in his reviews.
posted by Frank Grimes at 1:11 PM on December 12, 2002

NO! A DOUBLEPOST! Now no one will ever see my beautiful comments. They were so exquisitely crafted.
posted by hughbot at 1:21 PM on December 12, 2002

Register story regarding Henry
posted by matteo at 1:22 PM on December 12, 2002

Also,

A spokesman for Prince Charles has scotched rumours that the heir to the British throne is the real author of a series of mysterious Amazon.com reader reviews that have perplexed and entertained Internet users over the past eighteen months.
posted by matteo at 1:26 PM on December 12, 2002

Here's a radio interview with Mr. Raddick (preceded by a radio interview with me).
posted by blueshammer at 1:28 PM on December 12, 2002

Fabulous -- thanks effugas. The legendary fake Family Circus reviews, in which Bil Keane's "Family Circus" is subjected to ever-rococo flights of literary theory fancy, are also spectacular (there's a link to the archive in the earlier thread, I believe.)

Also, there was recently a series of hysterical reviews posted as if they were written by Andrew Lloyd-Webber, detailing how useful he found various books on cleaning his colon, learning taxidermy now that Starlight Express was no longer playing, etc. It was yanked down after about a day or two... anyone know if it was archived anywhere as well?
posted by scody at 1:34 PM on December 12, 2002

I don't know if it counts as a double post since it was not an FPP the first time. Check out Henry's favorite people on Amazon for similar hijinks.
posted by Frank Grimes at 1:45 PM on December 12, 2002

Review of The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for women-

Not well-received April 30, 2001
Be careful and think long and hard before you give this book to your wife or girlfriend as a gift. As I learnt to my cost, if she looks at it in horror you won't be able to tell her that you are a little drunk and just slipped.


Jesus.
Thanks for this link.
posted by bradth27 at 1:48 PM on December 12, 2002

This is hilarious; but I'm wondering how these manage to get such high 'helpful' ratings from other Amazon users.
posted by carter at 1:59 PM on December 12, 2002

This seems similar to the David Hasselhoff reviews which also all seemed to have 5 star reviews. if the only people who bother to review the reviewer are those who "get it", then voila! Instant top 100 reviewer. Of course it makes you wonder who bothers to review reviewers anyway, people with a *lot* of time on their hands.
posted by jeremias at 2:09 PM on December 12, 2002

There are sites which archive fake or otherwise humorous eBay auctions. Are there any which archive, generally, fake Amazon reviews? (I have seen the Bil Keane archive.) It would be great if there were. Of course, they're not nearly so hilarious when subjected to the panopticon of identification as satire, versus being found in the wild -- but still. Some of this creativity should be preserved.
posted by dhartung at 2:16 PM on December 12, 2002

I don't like this system. If only there was some way of ranking people who vote for reviewers, so that you could be sure that the reviewer ranking was more accurate. Perhaps some kind of voting system, with reviews?
posted by Pretty_Generic at 2:25 PM on December 12, 2002

The utterly straight-faced effusiveness, and the lack of spelling and grammatical errors, remind me of Neal Pollack. Neal, if it's you, say so now. Don't go all Joe Klein on us.

Man, what a loser, that Joe Klein.
posted by soyjoy at 2:54 PM on December 12, 2002

Man, what a loser, that soyjoy.

What I meant was: Neal Pollack.
posted by soyjoy at 2:55 PM on December 12, 2002

WOW! You sure can learn a lot about someone from their Amazon reviews. I think Old Hank is a divorced, turbo-charged writer whose dog has bowel troubles and he plays classical guitar to help on his weight problem.
posted by lsd4all at 3:11 PM on December 12, 2002

What a great link. I'm laughing so hard I'm crying...


My personal favorite has got to be for that classic text The Guide to Bovine Clinics:

May serve a purpose April 16, 2002
Protein diets were a waste of time, eat yourself thin diets were never going to work with my wife Marjorie and so I bought this book as a final attempt to shame her into tackling her obesity. Oh, and I put that it came from the children.
posted by jasper411 at 3:26 PM on December 12, 2002

I love this one:

An outrageous laugh-til-it-hurts video-blunderama of bariatric bloopers and outtakes. With priceless footage of hapless laparoscopies and catatstrophic gastroplasty this cavalcade of ham-handed stomach staplings is guaranteed to make you both laugh and launch your lunch.
posted by milnak at 3:31 PM on December 12, 2002

Here's my fav:

Serendipity: Accidental Discoveries in Science by Royston M.
An excellent book on the breakthroughs in science which have in some way been fuelled by chance. Inspiration came to Archimedes while sitting in the bath and to Isaac Newton under an apple tree, as we all know; but Roberts offers other less well-known yet fascinating tales of scientific discovery. I was intrigued to read that Bill Gates invented the left-handed mouse while "working on something else" - according to the Microsoft guru himself.

I ♥ Neil Pollack
posted by elwoodwiles at 4:22 PM on December 12, 2002

OK, here's my favorite.

On Clare Maxwell-Hudson's "Pocket Massage for Stress Relief":

A tremendous book to help soothe and relax. I tried a little "pocket massage" on a train recently - it certainly relieved the stress, but do remember to chose your venue with care, especially if you are using essential oils.
posted by Zonker at 4:41 PM on December 12, 2002

Colloquial Afrikaans : The Complete Course for Beginners

The quality of this cassette is marvelous and I felt like checking my ears for accumulated phlegm when I took off the headphones. Side one deals with the basics of conversational Afrikaans and side 2 sets out a variety of expressions of belligerent condemnation.

I'm not ready to declare a favorite yet -- still 100 or so to go -- but this one made me laugh hard enough to kick my previously-crushed-by-five-gallon-can-of-paint toe into the wall.

Bastard.
posted by ook at 5:56 PM on December 12, 2002

Nothing expresses the brutal grandeur of rectal polyps and anal fistulae quite like the mother-tongue of Goethe.

Genius.
posted by normy at 7:27 PM on December 12, 2002

When Dave Eggers' first book came out, there was a contest on mcsweeneys.com to see who could post the most over-the-top five-star Amazon review. I wish they were still up there, as there were some real beauts.
posted by Vidiot at 11:11 PM on December 12, 2002

Oh my God. I am *sick* with laughter.

Could Henry Raddick be a tip of the cognomen to Henry Root?
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:56 AM on December 13, 2002

My favourite:

Surviving Divorce: A Handbook for Men by Gay Search

A well-written and challenging book which I bought for my Uncle Sandy as he attempts to cope with the aftershock of divorce. Unfortunately he thought the author's name was a coping strategy being suggested and he refused to read it.
posted by salmacis at 1:58 AM on December 13, 2002

Does anyone have a contact for Henry Raddick? Has he another alias? A website? A blog?
posted by skylar at 5:08 AM on December 13, 2002

Heh. I also like these reviews by a fella called Leon over at Epinion.
posted by hot soup girl at 6:06 AM on December 13, 2002