[1] His father, Louis, was a vaudeville comedian, singer and dancer, performing under the stage name of Lou Murphy, who gave up his career and a film contract to please Brenner's grandfather, a rabbi, who objected to his working on the Sabbath.

[6] After high school, Brenner spent two years in the U.S. Army, serving in the 101st Airborne and as a cryptographer of the 595th Signal Corps in Böblingen, Germany.

The title arose from a gag in the album wherein a fellow passenger on a subway asked Brenner if he was reading a newspaper on which he was sitting.

Brenner also penned five books[1] including Soft Pretzels With Mustard (1983), Revenge is the Best Exercise (1984), Nobody Ever Sees You Eat Tuna Fish (1986), If God Wanted Us to Travel... (1990), and I Think There's a Terrorist in My Soup: How to Survive Personal and World Problems with Laughter—Seriously (2003), which was also released as an audiobook.

Brenner was the star of the 1976 TV series Snip, which was inspired by the film Shampoo and set in a hair dressing salon.

"[11] In 1986, King World Entertainment gave Brenner his own 30-minute syndicated late-night talk show, Nightlife, in an attempt to compete with Carson, but it was cancelled after one season.

[13] Filmed in Manhattan and featuring a casually dressed Brenner,[13] it was unique among the late night talk genre for not having a monologue.

[1] From 1994 to 1996, Brenner hosted a talk-radio program, inheriting the 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. timeslot of the daytime Larry King Show on the Mutual Broadcasting System.

Because family courts would have regarded him as an absentee father if he were away from home more than 50 nights a year, Brenner substantially reduced the number of appearances in his stand-up comedy work, including performances on the Tonight Show, in order to secure and maintain custody of his son.