Tasteless

Truly Tasteless Jokes, a series of slim paperbacks that became a publishing juggernaut in the 1980s, is the subject of a new documentary feature just acquired by Virgil Films.- Tasteless, directed by Jeff Cerulli and Matt Ritter, traces the history of not only the books themselves but the way the material - much of it crude and controversial - has aged over the decades. The author of the books, Ashton Applewhite (who used the pen name Blanche Knott), later became a feminist and activist. She conceived of the original volume while making $8,500 a year as an entry-level employee in book publishing.