National Lampoon was better in memory than it actually was in fact. I was a regular reader back in the 70’s and 80’s. I recently had the opportunity to look through a stack of vintage copies and was amazed and appalled by what I read. Much of it was just lame, but an astonishing amount of the humor was just mean-spirited and ugly. One story, in particular, stands out in that regard. It was about a high school girl going to the prom. Briefly, she is raped by her escort and then her father punches her in the face for being late when she gets home. Reall ha-ha stuff. Lampoon was no loss.
I’ll bet, sight unseen, that that story was written by Chris Miller. He almost single-handedly managed to destroy the Lampoon with his frat house humor after Beard, Kenney and O’Donoghue left. Admittedly he was abetted by P. J. O’Rourke when he became editor, but Miller sank the magazine into a pool of ugliness.
Actually, I’m pretty sure that piece (which was quite horrible) was by either O’Donoghue or Kenney; I think the former. As far as I’m concerned, NatLamp was brilliant for its first couple of years, but the mean-spiritedness/in-your-face tastelessness-as-humor, which was present as early as the “Is Nothing Sacred?” issue in early 1972, had almost completely spoiled the magazine by '74.
It was a Doug Kenney piece. Apparently, I am the only one who thinks the that the writing in that story is funny (apart from the actual story itself).
Well, the writing was funny, but that doesn’t make up for the brutality of the content. BTW, Kenney was also responsible for a story around '74 or '75 about a boy and his dad on a camping trip, I think called “Trespassers Will Be Violated,” that made the date-rape story look quite tame. He must have been wrestling with some serious demons to come up with shit like that.
I’ll agree with the opinions that National Lampoon was overrated. They did manage to produce a lot of sophisticated , clever pieces. But they also produced a huge amount of ugly mean and cheap stuff as well. What really annoyed me was the way that they put out a lot of xenophobic and misogynistic pieces. I got the feeling that they were doing it with the excuse that “Hey, look at all this politically incorrect humor! But we know that it’s politically incorrect – we’re making fun of it, so it’s OK!” But it still seemed like an excuse to just run the same ethnic humor other people were being criticized for. Give Mad credit for not going that route – they really did make fun of that mindset without wallowing in the humor thwey were criticizing.
Our college humor mag took its cue from NL, and it became just as gross and offensive as NL was, without managing to actually be funny. The editors at one point said that their aim was to be offensive to at least one group in each issue. I think that they should’ve aimed for being funny at least once per issue.
What really annoys is that the founding fathers of NL worked for the Harvard Lampoon before staring up NL, and HL put out a lot of great suff, including Bored of the Rings, Alligator, and Plyby. NL gave us the only occasionally funny Doon and the absysmal [B’ Nastional Lampoon Show**.
The 'Poon was a mixed bag, of course, and you had to take the bad with the good. “First Blow Job” was tasteless and mean, of course, and they took a lot of cheap shots at public figures. Too often they thought they were being devastatingly witty when they were really just being boorish–like a lot of the Bush bashers here on the SDMB.
But when they did it right, there was no one else like 'em. The census form parody they did in ‘80 was a classic, as were *Son O’ God Comics, Southern Gothic Comics, * “Cock Story,” and the “Buy this magazine or we’ll shoot this dog” cover, and there was often a lot of inspired silliness in the phony letters column. I could go on and on.
You had to take the bad with the good. There were a number of times when I put the magazine down and thought, “Okay, this time the bastards have gone too far. That was just juvenile, mean, and/or gross.” But as long as they kept giving me some of the really inspired stuff once in a while, I kept coming back.
An argument could be made that some of the current men’s magazines, like Maxim and Stuff, are as much humor magazines as anything else. That’s the attitude I take when I read them, anyway.
I just remembered a short-lived *National Lampoon * clone published back in the '70’s called National Harpoon. As I recall, they did some wonderful political satire. In a desperate bid to stay afloat, the title was changed to *Apple Pie * when they did a hilarious centerfold called “King Kong Nude.” I don’t think it lasted more than a couple of years, if that long. Does anybody else remember this one?
I pretty much quit reading NL by the mid-80s. As with all comedy, it was spotty.
By there were some absolute treasures – I don’t remember the author, but does anyone else remember the article My Struggle? Published in the early 80s, it was a ficticious sequel to G. Gordon Liddy’s autobiography. The title, the English translation of “Mein Kampf”, brilliantly makes fun of the similarity of “Will” to “Triumph of the Will”. The writer managed to sound exactly like Liddy, except (if you can believe it) more insane and paranoid. A classic. I’d love to find that issue.
Another underrated story was the whole-issue-long antics of “OC and Stiggs”. Later made into a Robert Altman film (which I haven’t seen, but heard sucks), OC and Stiggs were two memorably sociopathic teenagers – picture Beavis and Butthead with the ability to get laid, and a little more street smarts (but no more morals). This one is online – google “national lampoon” AND OC AND Stiggs. I actually enjoyed it more than when I first read it.
I’d say the Internet has replaced magazines as a medium for satire/humour. Many people have free 'net access in work so can look at stuff online instead of forking out a few quid for a magazine. Perhaps. Perhaps.
I remember that piece. “Gee,” said Tom, as he flogged Nancy with a car antenna, “I’ve been wanting to try this since the first time I heard Negro music!” Laughed my ass off. I read it to my best friend (who had been a victim of several rapes in her life) and she laughed her ass off. More, more, more!
Yeah, that’s the one. I find it no funnier when you quote it than I did when I originally read it. You think it’s laugh-your-ass-off funny, I think it is ugly and misogynistic. Lampoon produced too much of this kind of drek for me to think they are any great loss.
I particularly likedthe “Highschool Yearbook”-what was it, Dacron , Ohio (Estes Kefauver HS)? Yeah, it was shallow, but funny!
Anybody remember the “Adventures of Deadman” in the “Death” issue? Pretty good stuff…“Last Aid”,or what to do till the mortician comes!..
I have that issue. I really did like the ad “Bobby Fischer teaches you how to beat Death at Chess”, showing the chess champ playing against the Death figure from The Seventh Seal. But, to get to that , yo had to suffer through their necrophiliac Playboy satire “PlayDead”
The James Joyce parody in that issue was one of the finest things they ever did. Sean Kelly used to contribute some really great stuff.
I don’t suppose anyone has a collection of Sick from the '60s, do they? There’s a specific issue I’ve been trying to track down for years, and I haven’t been able to identify it by cover.
The compilation, This Side of Parodies is one of the all-time great parody anthologies. It also shows just how adult the humor was in the first couple of years before they decided to destroy it.
The yearbook was outstanding – so many great lines and pics. The cast of characters loosely became that of Animal House. (Similarly, John Hughes’ Vacation '58 and Christmas '59 morphed into National Lampoon’s Vacation, etc. (Yes, that John Hughes – IMO, his stories were much funnier than the movies).
Just as good was the sequel Sunday-paper parody, which gave the world the immortal fake Walmart blurb:
SwillMart – Where Quality is a Slogan
There was a story called Deadwood, about ‘Red’ Bostrom, a worthless, aging employee of “North American Dyamics”, a big corporate military/industrial firm who pathetically tried to make friends with his yuppie boss. A powerful, sad message to any idealistic young capitalist*, which I was when I read it.
- FTR, I am still a capitalist.
As we say in the Church of the SubGenius, “Fuck 'em if they can’t take a joke!” To which I would add, “And in every aperture, with great vigor, extreme prejudice, and no lubricant.” 
Your atrophied funnybone probably didn’t appreciate NatLamp’s collection of Cartoons Even We Wouldn’t Dare Print, either.