Paul Brock, a writer struggling with the realities of getting his first novel published, approaches his old friend Mel Steiner for assistance.

Mel, a music-business mogul and a modern-day Barnum, decides to package Paul as a celebrity, since books by celebrities often become bestsellers. Paul writes an act of comic songs about the concerns of the middle class in America and is trained in “celebrity” by a troupe of media specialists; he emerges as a phenomenon.

He is now a concert star and of course a bestselling author. Although Paul gets everything he wants, there are some things that fame brings that he never counted on. Corman is back again on the funny side of the street; the side he claimed as his own with Oh, God!

The Big Hype is a madcap look at our celebrity-hungry culture and a delightful fruitcake of a novel.