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Frank Burly #8
The Million Dollar Policeman
One of a series of comedy/science fiction novels featuring slow-witted detective Frank Burly. By John Swartzwelder, the writer of 59 episodes of The Simpsons.
136 pages, Paperback
First published June 19, 2012
8 people are currently reading
289 people want to read
About the author
John Swartzwelder
18 books313 followersJohn Joseph Swartzwelder Jr. is an American comedy writer and novelist, best known for his work on the animated television series The Simpsons. Born in Seattle, Washington, Swartzwelder began his career working in advertising. He was later hired to work on comedy series Saturday Night Live in the mid-1980s as a writer. He later contributed to fellow writer George Meyer's short-lived Army Man magazine, which led him to join the original writing team of The Simpsons, beginning in 1989.
He worked on The Simpsons as a writer and producer until 2003, and later contributed to The Simpsons Movie. He wrote the largest number of Simpsons episodes (59 full episodes, with contributions to several others) by a large margin. After his retirement from the show, he began a career as a writer of self-published absurdist novels. He has written more than a dozen novels, the most recent of which, The Spy with No Pants, was published in December 2020.
Swartzwelder is revered among comedy fans and his colleagues. He is known for his reclusiveness, and gave his first-ever interview in 2021, in The New Yorker. Per Mike Sacks, "Swartzwelder’s specialty on The Simpsons was conjuring dark characters from a strange, old America: banjo-playing hobos, cigarette-smoking ventriloquist dummies, nineteenth-century baseball players, rat-tailed carnival children, and pantsless, singing old-timers."
He worked on The Simpsons as a writer and producer until 2003, and later contributed to The Simpsons Movie. He wrote the largest number of Simpsons episodes (59 full episodes, with contributions to several others) by a large margin. After his retirement from the show, he began a career as a writer of self-published absurdist novels. He has written more than a dozen novels, the most recent of which, The Spy with No Pants, was published in December 2020.
Swartzwelder is revered among comedy fans and his colleagues. He is known for his reclusiveness, and gave his first-ever interview in 2021, in The New Yorker. Per Mike Sacks, "Swartzwelder’s specialty on The Simpsons was conjuring dark characters from a strange, old America: banjo-playing hobos, cigarette-smoking ventriloquist dummies, nineteenth-century baseball players, rat-tailed carnival children, and pantsless, singing old-timers."
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 4, 2020
The cover doesn't lie.
It says right on the front that the author also wrote 59 episodes of The Simpsons, and when reading this book, that is pretty much what you get.
In fact, it's easy to imagine Homer Simpson in place of the main character, tossing off throwaway gags as he meanders aimlessly through a very cartoonish plot.
Entertaining, but not really my thing.
It says right on the front that the author also wrote 59 episodes of The Simpsons, and when reading this book, that is pretty much what you get.
In fact, it's easy to imagine Homer Simpson in place of the main character, tossing off throwaway gags as he meanders aimlessly through a very cartoonish plot.
Entertaining, but not really my thing.
May 5, 2017
Because this book chronicles the exploits of the worst policeman ever, I thought it would be fun to look at some real police blunders.
2010: A woman is arrested for possession of methamphetamine. It turned out that what the police thought was meth, a black substance crusted on a spoon, was really Spaghetti-O's. What I find truly disturbing about this is that A) Spaghetti-O's rot until they look like cooked meth, and B) Someone had a spoon that once held Spaghetti-O's in their CAR for SO LONG that the substance turned black.
2004: A DEA agent, doing a classroom demo on gun safety, accidentally shoots himself in the leg. You might've seen the video. It's not terribly gruesome or anything. All I could think about was how the officer at my junior high always refused to show us his gun, and then you've got this guy waving one around. Some kids get all the fun.
2013: An officer arrives to do an anti-drug presentation at a school. The officer comes on a motorcycle with a mounted machine gun, which was loaded, and a student walked up, pulled the trigger, and the gun fired. No one was shot, but a couple students were hospitalized after injuries they got in the panic. This one's got me saying, Hold the phone, there is such a thing as machine guns mounted on motorcycles? That seems irresponsible and awesome. Look, police, if you want to recruit people, I'd say start with motorcycle machine guns, then talk about shoulder-mounted missile batteries, and then maybe finish off with some nonsense about fingerprinting or whatever.
2010: A woman is arrested for possession of methamphetamine. It turned out that what the police thought was meth, a black substance crusted on a spoon, was really Spaghetti-O's. What I find truly disturbing about this is that A) Spaghetti-O's rot until they look like cooked meth, and B) Someone had a spoon that once held Spaghetti-O's in their CAR for SO LONG that the substance turned black.
2004: A DEA agent, doing a classroom demo on gun safety, accidentally shoots himself in the leg. You might've seen the video. It's not terribly gruesome or anything. All I could think about was how the officer at my junior high always refused to show us his gun, and then you've got this guy waving one around. Some kids get all the fun.
2013: An officer arrives to do an anti-drug presentation at a school. The officer comes on a motorcycle with a mounted machine gun, which was loaded, and a student walked up, pulled the trigger, and the gun fired. No one was shot, but a couple students were hospitalized after injuries they got in the panic. This one's got me saying, Hold the phone, there is such a thing as machine guns mounted on motorcycles? That seems irresponsible and awesome. Look, police, if you want to recruit people, I'd say start with motorcycle machine guns, then talk about shoulder-mounted missile batteries, and then maybe finish off with some nonsense about fingerprinting or whatever.
January 18, 2022
Wow, this may be my favorite Frank Burly book yet. A quite hilarious skewering of TV tropes from cop shows to cartoons and lots in between. Just the right length and all the jokes landed (at least for me). Got me excited again to keep reading them!
October 24, 2025
Super silly Frank Burly filled with Roger rabbit/looney toons antics mixed with the utter stupidity of a Homer Simpson/Clancey Wiggum character. I want to read them all!
January 3, 2013
another great burley adventure. usually they are quite cartoonish, so it's a good thing that wonder witch sent him to cartoon land.
August 13, 2013
I want to be a Frank Burly Information Ranger.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews