National Lampoon was a ground-breaking American humor magazine which started in 1970 as an offshoot of the Harvard Lampoon.

Parody of every kind was a mainstay of the magazine, but sick humor, black humor and surrealist humor were also central to its appeal. Almost all the issues included long written humor pieces, shorter written pieces, a section of actual news items (dubbed "True Facts"), cartoons, and comic strips. Most issues also included "photo funnies" or fumetti.

At its best, the humor was intelligent, imaginative, and cutting edge, and it often pushed far beyond the boundaries of what might be considered appropriate and acceptable. As co-founder Henry Beard described the experience years later: "There was this big door that said, 'Thou shalt not.' We touched it, and it fell off its hinges."

The magazine reached its height of popularity during the mid-to-late 1970s, but it had a disproportionately far-reaching effect on American humor. The magazine also directly spawned films, radio, live theatre, various kinds of recordings, and books.

Many members of the creative staff from the magazine subsequently went on to perform in, or write for, or otherwise contribute creatively to successful films, television shows, books, and other media forms.

The magazine declined during the late 1980s. It was kept barely alive for a number of years for brand name reasons, but it ceased publication altogether in 1998.

The original humor magazine

National Lampoon magazine was started by Harvard graduates and Harvard Lampoon alumni Douglas Kenney, Henry Beard, and Robert Hoffman in 1969, when they licensed the "Lampoon" name for a monthly national publication. The magazine's first issue was dated April, 1970.

After a shaky start for a few issues, the magazine very rapidly grew in popularity. It regularly skewered pop culture, the counterculture, and politics, with recklessness and gleeful bad taste. Like the Harvard Lampoon, individual issues were often devoted to a particular theme such as "The Future", "Back to School", "Death", "Self-Indulgence," or "Blight". The magazine regularly reprinted material in "best-of" omnibus collections.

The magazine took aim at every kind of phoniness, and had no specific political stance, even though individual staff members had strong political views.

Cover art

National Lampoon became infamous for its often acerbic and humorous magazine covers. Some notable cover images include:

• Court-martialed Vietnam War murderer William Calley sporting the guileless grin of Alfred E. Neuman, complete with the parody catchphrase, 'What, My Lai?" (August 1971) ;
• The iconic image of Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara being splattered with a cream pie (January 1972).
• A dog looking worriedly at a revolver pressed to its head, with the famous caption "If You Don't Buy This Magazine, We'll Kill This Dog" (January 1973). In 2005, the American Society of Magazine Editors selected this magazine cover as the seventh-greatest of the last 40 years.
• A replica of the starving child from the cover of George Harrison's charity album The Concert for Bangla Desh, rendered in chocolate and with a large bite taken out of its head.

Staff

The magazine produced and fostered some notable writing and comic talents, including (but by no means limited to) Kenney, Beard, Chris Miller, P. J. O'Rourke, Michael O'Donoghue, Sean Kelly, Tony Hendra, Dick Tuck and John Hughes.

Many important cartoonists and illustrators appeared in the magazine's pages, including Neal Adams, Vaughn Bode, M.K. Brown, Shary Flenniken, Edward Gorey, Jeff Jones, Bruce McCall, Rick Meyerowitz, Joe Orlando, Arnold Roth, Ed Subitzky and Gahan Wilson.

Comedy actors John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner and Bill Murray first gained national attention for their performances in the National Lampoon's stage show and radio show, and subsequently went on to become part of Saturday Night Live's early Not Ready For Primetime Players.

The magazine was art directed in its heyday by Michael C. Gross. The business side of the magazine was controlled by Matty Simmons, who was Chairman of the Board and CEO of 21st Century Communications, a publishing company.

Circulation peak 1973-1975

The Lampoon's commercial heyday was roughly 1973-75. Its national circulation peaked at 1,000,096 copies sold of the October 1974 "Pubescence" issue .

The Lampoon's 1974 monthly average was 830,000, which was also a peak. Former Lampoon editor Tony Hendra's book Going Too Far includes a series of precise circulation figures.

While the magazine was considered by many to be at its creative zenith during this time, it should also be noted that the publishing industry's newsstand sales were excellent during this period. The Lampoon's circulation height coincided with sales peaks for various other magazines such as Mad, Playboy, and TV Guide.

1975 changes

Some fans consider the glory days of National Lampoon magazine to have ended in 1975, when the three founders (Kenney, Beard and Hoffman) took advantage of a buyout clause in their contracts for $7.5 million dollars. At about the same time, some of the magazine's contributors left to join the NBC comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL), notably O'Donoghue and Anne Beatts.

Despite this change, the magazine still made money, and it continued to be produced on a monthly schedule throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. However, from the mid 1980s on, the magazine was on an increasingly shaky financial footing. Beginning in November 1986, the magazine was published only every other month.

Books, recordings, radio and theater

The magazine spun off successes in a variety of media:

Books

Numerous books, including:

*The Best of National Lampoon No. 1, 1971, an anthology

*The Breast of National Lampoon, 1972, an anthology

*The Best of National Lampoon No. 3, 1973, an anthology

*The National Lampoon Encyclopedia of Humor, 1973, edited by Michael O'Donoghue

*The Best of National Lampoon No. 4, 1973, an anthology

*National Lampoon Comics, an anthology, 1974

*The Best of National Lampoon No. 5, 1974, an anthology

*National Lampoon 1964 High School Yearbook Parody, 1974, Edited by P.J. O'Rourke and Doug Kenney

*The National Lampoon Encyclopedia of Humor, 1973, edited by Michael O'Donoghue

*The Very Large Book of Comical Funnies, 1975, edited by Sean Kelly

*National Lampoon The Gentleman's Bathroom Companion, 1975

*The 199th Birthday Book, 1975, edited by Tony Hendra

*National Lampoon Songbook, 1976, edited by Sean Kelly, musical parodies in sheet music form

*Would You Buy a Used War from This Man?, 1972, edited by Henry Beard

*Letters from the Editors of National Lampoon, 1973, edited by Brian McConnachie

*This Side of Parodies, 1974, edited by Brian McConnachie and Sean Kelly

*The Paperback Conspiracy, 1974, edited by Brian McConnachie

*The Job of Sex, 1974, edited by Brian McConnachie

*The Naked and the Nude, 1977, written by Brian McConnachie

*National Lampoon Art Poster Book, 1975

*Official National Lampoon Bicentennial Calendar 1976, 1975, written and compiled by Christopher Cerf & Bill Effros

*National Lampoon Gentleman's Bathroom Companion 2, 1977

*National Lampoon Tenth Anniversary Anthology, 1979

*National Lampoon's Doon, 1984

Recordings

Vinyl record albums including:

*National Lampoon Radio Dinner, 1972, produced by Tony Hendra

*Lemmings, 1973, an album of material taken from the stage show, and produced by Tony Hendra

*The Missing White House Tapes, 1974, an album taken from the radio show, creative directors Tony Hendra and Sean Kelly

*Official National Lampoon Stereo Test and Demonstration Record, 1974, conceived and written by Ed Subitzky

*National Lampoon Gold Turkey, 1975, creative director Brian McConnachie

*Goodbye Pop 1952-1976, 1975, creative director Sean Kelly

*That's Not Funny, That's Sick!, 1977

*Greatest Hits of the National Lampoon, 1978

*National Lampoon's White Album, 1979

Cassette tape:

*Official National Lampoon Stereo Test and Demonstration Tape, 1980, conceived and written by Ed Subitzky

CDs:

*A CD boxed set Gold Turkey 1996, recordings from The National Lampoon Radio Hour, was released by Rhino Records in the 1990s

Vinyl record singles:

*A snide parody of Les Crane's 1971 hit "Desiderata" was recorded and released as "Deteriorata," and stayed on the lower reaches of the Billboard magazine charts for a month in late 1972.

*The gallumphing theme to Animal House rose slightly higher and charted slightly longer in December 1978.

Radio

• The National Lampoon Radio Hour, a nationally syndicated radio comedy show which was on the air weekly from 1973 to 1974. For a complete listing of shows, see .

Theater

• Lemmings, 1973

This was a successful off-Broadway show which took the form of a parody of the Woodstock Festival.

• National Lampoon's Class of '86

This show was performed at the Village Gate in 1986, aired on cable in the 80's, and is now available on VHS. It was a sketch-based satire of 1980's culture, told against a frame story of two characters named Galahad and Dewdrop, hippies who had taken LSD in 1969, fallen into a deep sleep and then woken up 17 years later, in 1986. The sketches in the show lampooned yuppie culture, health food, the Reagan Administration, airplane hijackings, and psychotherapy.

Films

Unfortunately there is considerable ambiguity about what actually constitutes a National Lampoon film.

During the 1970s and early 1980s, a few films were made as spin-offs from the original National Lampoon magazine, using its creative staff. One of these was National Lampoon's Animal House. This film was so enormously successful, and was made on such a small budget, that the name National Lampoon applied to the title of a movie was from that point onwards considered to be a valuable selling point in and of itself. Because of this, numerous movies were subsequently made that had "National Lampoon" as part of the title, but a large number of them were made when the name National Lampoon could simply be licensed on a one-time basis by any company, for a fee.

Over time a number of movies were released which were made as apparent "sequels" to earlier movies which had National Lampoon in the title. Some of these movies did not actually have the words National Lampoon in the title, but nonetheless they hoped to cash in on the success of the previous movies, while being virtually unconnected to them, except for featuring some of the same actors. For example, it is misleading to refer to all of the various "Vacation" movies as a "series".

The first of the National Lampoon movies was a not very successful made-for-TV movie called Disco Beaver from Outer Space, broadcast in 1978.

National Lampoon's Animal House

In 1978, National Lampoon's Animal House was released. Made on a small budget, it did phenomenally well at the box office. In 2001, the United States Library of Congress considered the film "culturally significant", and preserved it in the National Film Registry.

The script had its origins in a series of short stories which had been previously published in the magazine. These included Chris Miller's "Night of the Seven Fires," which dramatized a frat initiation and included the characters Pinto and Otter, and P.J. O'Rourke's "Tales From The Delphi Lodge", which contained prose versions of the toga party, the "road trip", and the dead horse incident. According to the authors, most of these elements were based on real incidents.

National Lampoon's Class Reunion

This 1982 movie was an attempt by John Hughes to make something similar to Animal House. National Lampoon's Class Reunion was not successful however.

National Lampoon's Vacation

Released in 1983, the movie National Lampoon's Vacation was based upon John Hughes' National Lampoon story "Vacation '58". The movie's financial success gave rise to several sequels and supposed sequels.

Influences on other films:

The Robert Altman film O.C. and Stiggs, 1987, was based on two characters who had been featured in several written pieces in National Lampoon magazine, including an issue-long story from October 1982 entitled: "The Utterly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Summer of O. C. and Stiggs." The film was actually completed in 1984, but it was not released until 1987, when it was shown in a small number of theaters, without the National Lampoon name. It was not a success.

Following the success of Animal House, MAD Magazine lent its name to a 1981 comedy titled Up the Academy. But whereas Animal House was co-written by the Lampoon's Doug Kenney and Chris Miller, Up The Academy was strictly a licensing maneuver with no creative input from MAD's staff or contributors, and as such it was a critical and commercial failure.

Later years

In 1989, the magazine was acquired in a hostile takeover by a business partnership headed by actor Tim Matheson (who played "Otter" in the 1978 film National Lampoon's Animal House). Matheson instituted a policy banning frontal nudity in the magazine; this had become an over-used staple, a "cheap sell" in the magazine's content during the 80s.

However, in 1991 after only two years, Matheson was forced to sell, in order to avoid bankruptcy due to mounting debts. The magazine (and more importantly the rights to the brand name "National Lampoon"), were bought by a company called J2 Communications, headed by James P. Jimirro. (J2 was previously known for marketing Tim Conway's "Dorf" videos.)

J2's Communications' focus was to make money by licensing out the brand name "National Lampoon". The company was contractually obliged to publish at least one new issue of the magazine per year in order to retain the rights to the Lampoon name. However, the company had very little interest in the magazine itself, and thus, throughout the 1990s, the number of issues per year declined precipitously and erratically. In 1991 there was an attempt at monthly publication: nine issues were produced that year. Only two issues were released in 1992. This was followed by one issue in 1993, five in 1994, and three in 1995. For the last three years of its existence, the magazine was published only once annually.

The magazine's final print publication was November 1998, after which the contract was renegotiated, and in a sharp reversal, J2 Communications was then prohibited from publishing issues of the magazine. J2 still however owned the rights to the brand name, which it continued to franchise out to other users. In 2002, the brand name was purchased from J2 Communications by Dan Laikin, current CEO of a company which was subsequently entitled "National Lampoon Inc". (This is a separate and distinct company from "National Lampoon, Inc", the subsidiary of 21st Century Communications which oversaw the magazine during its 1970s heyday.)

References

Books

• If You Don't Buy This Book, We'll Kill This Dog! Life, Laughs, Love, & Death at National Lampoon 1994, Matty Simmons, Bariccade Books, New York. ISBN 978-1569800027
• Mr. Mike: the life and work of Michael O'Donoghue, Dennis Perrin, 1998, AvonBooks, New York. ISBN 978-0380973309
• Going Too Far, Tony Hendra, 1987, Doubleday, New York. ISBN 978-0385232234
• A Futile and Stupid Gesture: How Doug Kenney and National Lampoon changed comedy forever, Josh Karp, 2006. ISBN 1556526024

External links

• Mark's Very Large National Lampoon website
• Gallery of all National Lampoon covers, 1970-1998
• Two part interview with the Lampoon's first female contributing editor, Anne Beatts, on her involvement with the magazine: Part One / Part Two
• Gallery of art director Michael Gross' covers and art
• "National Lampoon Grows Up By Dumbing Down by Jake Tapper, The New York Times, July 3 2005.
• List of National Lampoon movies