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In April 1972, comedy writer and senior editor Michael O'Donohue arrived at the offices of
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the National Lampoon at 635 Madison Avenue in New York and began going through his mail
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When he opened one of the packages, he discovered what looked like sticks of dynamite inside
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O'Donohue didn't think much of it at first. In fact, he began showing it around the office
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But after some calls where he described the contents of the package to people knowledgeable
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about explosives, he realized the special delivery didn't just look like sticks of dynamite
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This was actual dynamite. There was a note, too. Hi, Mike. Have some fun with this dynamite
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One bomb squad and a massive evacuation later, the Lampoon offices were safe
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Well, as safe as they were ever going to be. It's hard to tell whether the reader who sent the dynamite was a fan or a detractor
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given the magazine's mixed public reception and irreverent, sometimes offensive, sensibility. But whether you liked it or not, one thing was for certain
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The Lampoon had a huge influence on American comedy. If you've found something funny in the past 50 years here in the United States, there's
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a good chance The Lampoon either inspired it or was responsible for it
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The Simpsons. Saturday Night Live. John Hughes. Maybe not Dynamite. Bugs Bunny was doing that much earlier
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Today's throwback is all about the history of a comedy dynasty. Watch it, or we'll hug this dog
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welcome to the show where we take a look back at some of the most influential pop culture stories
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and events you might remember from your childhood i'm aaron mccarthy and like many of you my
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familiarity with national lampoon is thanks to their incredibly effective branding national
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lampoon's vacation national lampoon's van wilder national lampoon presents dorm days National Lampoon's bag boy
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Okay, so the company experienced a bit of a stumble later on. But first, the glory days
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When people hear the phrase National Lampoon, their mind usually goes to the movies
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But long before the Lampoon had big screen aspirations, the brand was a college humor publication at Harvard University
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dating all the way back to 1876. Seven undergraduates conceived of the Harvard Lampoon
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which was inspired by the British humor publication titled Punch. It featured a mixture of essays, cartoons, and other satirical content
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What kind of humor? Well, it was the 19th century, but something like, have you taken a bath
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No, is there one missing? I can only assume this was cutting-edge comedy at the time
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The Lampoon was said to be an immediate hit, selling through its 1,200-copy print run and
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later printing a farcical warning for President Rutherford B. Hayes, not to read it in the
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event he was too busy laughing to run the country. In the early decades of The Lampoon, it was mostly a campus exclusive, something
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for students to read that helped deflate academia. Then, in the 1960s, Doug Kenney arrived on campus
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Kenney was from Chagrin Falls, Ohio, the same small town where Calvin and Hobbes cartoonist
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Bill Watterson was raised. Like Watterson, Kenney liked to satirize suburbia with a little bit of
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an edge. He was often described as preppy, making the halls of the Lampoon a natural fit
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By this point, the publication was a kind of social club, with young undergrads eating formal
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dinners and a regal building dubbed The Castle. While at Harvard and the Lampoon, Kenney met
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fellow student Henry Beard. The creative chemistry was instant. Both enjoyed tipping over sacred cows
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They hatched a plan to produce parodies of popular magazines Time and Sports Illustrated
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and to distribute their creation nationally. They also struck a deal to issue their full-length
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parody book of Lord of the Rings, titled Board of the Rings. Some of those projects were ushered
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into the market by Maddie Simmons, a publishing entrepreneur. His company, 21st Century Publishing
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was known primarily for printing Weight Watchers magazine. Simmons, Kenny, Beard, and Harvard
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classmate Rob Hoffman struck a deal to adapt the Harvard Lampoon into a mainstream publication
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dubbed the National Lampoon. In return, Harvard would get a regular royalty check for use of the
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Lampoon name. The first issue of the magazine was released in April 1970. It was not a hit
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Not right away, anyway. Kenny and Beard struggled to find the right tone for their new venture
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Picking up an issue of National Lampoon in these early years, you might find Tarzan of the Cows
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where the famous Lord of the Jungle winds up in Wisconsin, or an interview with Howard Hughes in
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which the reclusive billionaire seems surprisingly normal. You might get a lesson in how to talk
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dirty in Esperanto the language that was invented in 1877 with the hopes of facilitating international communication Aside from Mad Magazine the U hadn really been a huge market for humor magazines It was as if the reading public needed a little nudge
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And they got it when the Lampoon put Minnie Mouse on the cover of their September 1970 issue
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This highly unauthorized appearance featured the normally modest Minnie wearing pasties. Whether people thought that was funny or offensive, they took notice
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So did Disney, which filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the National Lampoon
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A very contrite Maddie Simmons settled with the House of Mouse and even promised never to directly
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parody any other Disney icons. But it wasn't the last time the Lampoon's sense of humor would land
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them in hot water. In 1973, the magazine published what might be one of the most infamous covers of
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all time. It's a photo of a dog with a gun to its head and a captioned threat. If you don't buy this
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magazine, we'll kill this dog. The dog was Mr. Cheeseface, an adorable pup who managed to hold
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still and looked pensive while a prop weapon was held to his furry head. And while it offended many
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it wasn't nearly as bad as a faux Volkswagen ad they published that featured the vehicle floating
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in water, a pretty tasteless reference to Senator Ted Kennedy driving a vehicle into a lake
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and failing to come to the rescue of his passenger in 1969. The caption
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If Ted Kennedy drove a Volkswagen, he'd be president today. Volkswagen sued on grounds of defamation and copyright infringement and was successful in
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getting the company to remove the pages from copies of a book collection. They also got an
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apology from The Lampoon. Mr. Cheeseface and the Volkswagen ad were emblematic of what gave the
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national lampoon its edge. The humor was clever, but tasteless. Often funny, but sometimes instilling
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a sense of guilt for laughing at its very unpolitically correct approach. It took time for
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Kenny and Beard to build up a roster of talented writers who understood The Lampoon's acerbic style
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Kenny and Beard wrote much of the first six issues. They soon got help from art director
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Michael Gross, who took the lampoon from looking very much like an alternative magazine to putting
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enough polish on it to make it at least look mainstream. But it wouldn't be long before they'd
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have an entire office full of very creative and slightly unhinged contributors
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Following the Minnie Mouse scandal, circulation for the National Lampoon grew. By 1973, it was
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selling roughly 800,000 copies a month, or about 800,000 copies more than the average magazine
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sells today. This left the door open for The Lampoon to expand its comedy empire. But the
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first step wasn't a movie. It was a stage show. Following a comedy album titled Radio Dinner
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The Lampoon mounted a stage production called Lemmings at the Village Gate in New York City
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The show featured young and unknown comedians like Christopher Guest and Chevy Chase
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and a tremendous ball of energy named John Belushi, who debuted his uncanny impression
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of singer Joe Cocker. The show spoofed the Woodstock Music Festival, Hell's Angels
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Bob Dylan, the military, Richard Nixon, and whatever other 70s-era cultural touchstone
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that needed satirizing. The success of Lemmings led to another project, the National Lampoon Radio Hour, which ran for 13 months beginning in 1973
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Segments featured included Chit Chat with Pat, ostensibly a talk show with Nixon's wife
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who cautioned teens that fooling around could lead to ritual murder and bad grades
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Another piece announced that the end of the world would mean a pause on alternate side parking
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A second stage project, The National Lampoon Show, was unveiled in 1975. While it wasn't as well
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reviewed as Lemmings, it was notable for featuring Second City improv talent, including a young Bill
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Murray, Gilda Radner, and Harold Ramis, all of whom had been on the radio hour. It continued what
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The Lampoon seemed to be doing best, acting as a graduate school for a new era of comedic talent
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If you think The Lampoon's story sounds a lot like the beginning of Saturday Night Live, well, it was. SNL, which premiered in 1975, wound up using a number of talents from The Lampoon
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not only as performers but as writers, like Michael O'Donohue. Al Jean, a longtime writer
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and producer on The Simpsons, once told The New York Times that a lot of the credit that SNL got
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for changing the comedy landscape was rightfully due to The Lampoon. But while Lorne Michaels has
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largely stuck with his comedy dynasty for almost 50 years, Doug Kenney was done after five. That's
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how long it took before Maddie Simmons offered a contractually obligated buyout to Kenny
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Henry Beard, and Robert Hoffman, a deal that had been made way back when the magazine first started
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The three Harvard classmates had wanted to make sure they were financially rewarded if the magazine
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was successful. And it worked. They each made millions. That was good for the founders
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but it left Maddie Simmons slightly cash-strapped. He figured it was time to explore the final
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frontier for the lampoon after print stage and radio Movies One of Doug Kenney biggest achievements at The Lampoon was a 1974 book titled The National
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Lampoon 1964 High School Yearbook Parody, a takedown of a fictional 1960s school named
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Estes Kefaufer Memorial High in Dacron, Ohio. Thumb through the yearbook and you'll find high
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school archetypes, doodles in the margins, and an ongoing mystery of the mad crapper
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who keeps leaving deposits throughout the school grounds. Kenny and co-editor PJ O'Rourke, who also worked for The Lampoon, managed to somehow pull together
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a kind of narrative from all this material. It sold two million copies. So when Simmons began
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toying with the idea of a National Lampoon movie, he thought about adapting the yearbook
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There was even an idea for a movie called Laser Orgy Girls, which would chronicle the exploits of
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a teenage Charles Manson. But pretty soon, college started to sound like a better idea
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Harold Ramis was offered the screenwriting job in collaboration with writer Chris Miller and Doug
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Kenny, who wanted off the magazine but was intrigued by the idea of a film. That was the
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beginning of National Lampoon's Animal House. The script for Animal House, about an underdog
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fraternity up against a tyrannical school dean, was hammered out in just three months. Originally
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Ramis wanted to play the role of Boone, but director John Landis didn't think he had much
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range as an actor and refused to cast him. That role went to Peter Reigert. But another Lampoon
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alum was enlisted, John Belushi, who took the role of party animal Bluto. Belushi, who was on
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Saturday Night Live by this point, spent half the week shooting the movie and the other half
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in New York at SNL. National Lampoon's Animal House was the big screen dose of irreverent humor
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the Lampoon and SNL had been delivering in other mediums for years, and moviegoers responded
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Released in July 1978, Animal House made over $140 million domestically and brought the National
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Lampoon brand name more recognition than it had ever had. Naturally, Hollywood wanted a follow-up
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And no, that wasn't just 1983's National Lampoon's Vacation. For Doug Kenney, it was 1980's
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Caddyshack, the golf club comedy that starred Bill Murray and Chevy Chase. Though it didn't bear the
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National Lampoon mark, it was full of lampoon humor. Considered a classic today, it was not
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a good experience for Kenney, who was highly dissatisfied with the end result. He even showed
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up to a press conference for the movie Drunk and insulted media members in attendance
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This might have been the first public sign Doug Kenney had some personal issues, but those closest to him knew that he had been struggling with substance abuse and depression
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Kenny died while on vacation in Hawaii in 1980. While police ruled it an accidental fall
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Kenny's friends believed he had intentionally taken his own life. He was just 33 years old
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It's hard to know what would have happened to National Lampoon had Doug Kenny not died
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While he was no longer involved in day-to-day operations at the magazine, it still benefited from his oversight. Starting in the 1980s, it seemed like fewer readers
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appreciated Lampoon the magazine and were more interested in Lampoon as a brand name
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National Lampoon's Vacation was released in 1983. It was based on a short story that had appeared in
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the magazine by John Hughes, a one-time Chicago ad man who had turned to writing comedy. Hughes
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of course, went on to define 80s teen angst in films like The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles
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Vacation 58 was his look at the dark side of a suburban family outing
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written while Hughes was homebound during a blizzard in Chicago. It features one of the
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the more memorable first sentences you'll ever read. If Dad hadn't shot Walt Disney in the leg
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it would have been our best vacation ever. By this point, the lampoon was aware of how
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sensitive the Walt Disney Company could be. So in the film, the Griswold family is in pursuit of
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Wally World, a Disney-esque destination that traded the real-life brand's mouse for a moose
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Some other changes to the Hughes story were needed. For one thing, his prose had focused
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on the Griswold son. By casting Chevy Chase as family patriarch Clark, the movie had to adapt
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to his point of view. Hughes was reportedly so annoyed by this change and others that he began
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to insist on directing his own scripts, which turned out to be a boon to 80s moviegoers
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The film was a big step for All Involved. Though he was hoping to be a major movie star following
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SNL, Chase hadn't been in many hits, and the Lampoon name had been attached to two films
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after Animal House, Class Reunion and Movie Madness, that barely made a blip. Fortunately
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for All Involved, Vacation was a big success, earning $61 million. More Vacation movies followed
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including National Lampoon's European Vacation and Vegas Vacation. None, however, seem to have as much cultural impact as 1989's National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
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which has become a perennial holiday favorite Also based on a Lampoon short story by John Hughes it might in fact be the most well of all Lampoon projects Who can relate to poor Clark Griswold struggling against fate and Christmas lights to give his family the perfect holiday experience Christmas Vacation was the last time a National
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Lampoon project would make a major impression on the movie-going public. After changing comedy in
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the 1970s and becoming a household name in the 1980s, The Lampoon was about to find itself changing
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hands. A lot. We've mentioned Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Harold Ramis, and other Lampoon alumni
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but that's far from a complete picture of the people who helped make the Lampoon a comedy
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institution. You've probably noticed a lot of the talent mentioned have been men
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and that's because the National Lampoon, like the Harvard Lampoon, was very much a boys club
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But writer Anne Beetz helped change that. A graduate of McGill University, she found herself
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inside the offices of the magazine when she was dating one of its writers, Michelle Coquette
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Beats later recalled that she didn't feel welcome at first. The Lampoon was a tight-knit group of
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male humorists. But eventually, they loosened up, and Beats became one of the magazine's most
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notable writers before landing a staff job at Saturday Night Live. Beats also happened to be
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responsible for that off-color Volkswagen ad. While he never wrote for the magazine, Conan O'Brien
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was president of the Harvard Lampoon. Along with associates from that magazine, Al Jean and Greg
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Daniels, O'Brien went on to write for The Simpsons before getting his own eponymous talk show in 1993
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Alexis Wilkinson made history at the Harvard Lampoon in 2013, when she was elected as the
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publication's first black female president, a few decades after the publication's first female
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president, Lisa Henson. Wilkinson later joined the writing staff of the hit HBO series Veep
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Famed fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta contributed several covers to The National Lampoon. And we can't forget Fred Gwynne, who was a cartoonist and later president of the Harvard
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Lampoon before making it big as Herman Munster. Those comedy chops also came in handy when he
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played the incredulous judge in My Cousin Vinny. With so much comedic talent and so many achievements
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you might be wondering why National Lampoon isn't talked about much anymore. It's certainly no
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Saturday Night Live, which has been going for nearly 50 years. It's possible there were simply
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more opportunities for counterculture humorists in the 1980s and beyond. If you were adept at a
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cutting joke, you could work for David Letterman or SNL or in the movies. Instead of incubating
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young comic talent, the National Lampoon was losing them to better paying jobs. By 1986
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the magazine was being published just six times a year, and circulation was down from a high of
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1 million to 250,000. While it's true the National Lampoon has lost a lot of its cultural cachet
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it's not for lack of trying. After magazine sales declined in the 1980s, the National Lampoon name
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was put up for sale and purchased by a company named J2 Communications in 1990. Instead of quality
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control, J2 seemed to focus more on licensing the Lampoon name. For the right price, pretty much any
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producer could come along and slap the Lampoon logo on their movie. That's how we got less than
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classics like National Lampoon's Golf Punks and National Lampoon's Senior Trip. Even National
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Lampoon's Van Wilder, which wound up becoming a cult favorite, didn't have much to do with the
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original Lampoon brand. But the name still held value. When the studio screen-tested the movie
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with audiences, it got higher scores with Lampoon in the title. J2 later renamed the company National
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Lampoon Inc. and tried to rebuild the franchise. There was a game show attempt, National Lampoon's
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funny money, college campus events, and an increasing presence on the burgeoning worldwide
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web. But not much stuck. Most of the movies, with the exception of Van Wilder, were forgettable
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direct-to-DVD projects. The company eventually took to using the term National Lampoon Presents
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to distance themselves from mediocrity. And there were some interesting choices. 2011's National Lampoon's Dirty Movie starred Law & Order SVU's Chris Maloney, who also co-directed
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Zero reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. Make of that what you will. For the most part, the Lampoon had become a past-tense comic dynasty. The magazine hasn't
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even published an issue since 1998. In 2017, Palmstar Media purchased it for a reported $12
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million. It remains to be seen whether the brand can once again resonate with audiences
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While it's true that Mad Magazine had long been satirizing pop culture, National Lampoon was a kind of graduate-level humor magazine. It was very smart about being
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silly, a trait that's common in a lot of comedy from the past 50-odd years. So if you didn't know
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the names Doug Kenny, Henry Beard, or Mr. Cheeseface and their radical impact on modern comedy
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now you do. Feel free to take yourself off double-secret probation. I'm Erin McCarthy. Thanks for watching
