Ted Mann, who started writing for the National Lampoon in 1975 and continued through the eighties, has died at age 72. He was probably best known for writing the “O.C. and Stiggs” series for the magazine. After his time with NatLamp he went on to be a writer and producer for several TV shows, including NYPD Blue, Deadwood, and Homeland.

R.I.P., Ted.

Obit at the Hollywood Reporter.

Back in 2007, Graphic Technology Inc. published “National Lampoon: The Humor Magazine Complete Collection on 1 DVD-ROM” I wrote about it at here the time. Over the years, it’s been an essential resource for me when I get questions from readers asking about articles and cartoons in the magazine. As I mentioned in 2007, it’s basically a bunch of PDFs and they are completely searchable. To make things easier and faster, I copied all of them to my computer. It’s much better than having to flip through actual issues (not to mention the wear and tear that would entail).

As I also mentioned in 2007, there are things missing, such as the special issues, but also certain things like insert cards which sometimes had editorial content, not just subscription promos. Over the years, I’ve noticed pages missing here and there. But I didn’t realize until recently just how many are missing.

For example, I received an email the other day asking about something that appeared in the June 1977 (“I got my job through the…”) issue. There are 104 pages in that issue, including the covers. But the item the reader asked about was completely missing. Flipping through the issue, I discovered the following pages were missing: 43–46, 61, 62, 79–82. And pages 3 and 4 were stuck between 98 and 99. Some of these included entire articles.

That’s ten missing pages in one issue. Incredible. I’m surprised I never noticed this before, but I guess I just assumed there were only a few pages missing and didn’t see it. It’s possible some of this stuff was intentionally left out for some reason, but it mostly seems random, as if the magazines they scanned were missing pages. Or it could have been simple sloppiness. I assume they had to unbind the issues to scan them and maybe some of the pages just got lost in the process.

I don’t know if this issue is unusual or if it’s a problem that affects the entire collection. And I don’t really have the time or inclination to go through every PDF, page by page, to find out.

The DVD-ROM is long out of print, but you can download it from The Internet Archive. Be forewarned: It’s only mostly complete.

It’s been a long time since I’ve added new content to any of the listings on Mark’s Very Large National Lampoon Site. There was one big gap in the Books & Anthologies section: The 199th Birthday Book (1975), a pre-Bicentennial special issue, featuring all-new material, that skewered American history. It was edited by Tony Hendra, with contributions from Henry Beard, Christopher Cerf, Sean Kelly, Doug Kenny, Dean Latimer, Bruce McCall, Brian McConnachie, P.J. O’Rourke, Gerry Sussman, and John Weidman, plus many of your favorite NatLamp artists.

I set it aside because of the insane decision by someone back in 1975 to put all the credits on a single, alphabetical index page in the back of the issue. The normal practice, used in every other issue they published, was to include a contents page, usually near the front, sometimes on the back cover, or, in one unusual case, under the letter “C” (The Encyclopedia of Humor). Instead, they did this. (See above.) It makes compiling a listing so much more difficult.

I finally bit the bullet and did it. It took literally hours to go through all 192 pages, flipping back and forth to the index page, poring over it to find articles and who the writers and artists were.

What a terrible idea. Maybe someone thought it would be funny.

Anyway, you’re welcome.

Well, not with David himself. He died in 2004. Jack Urso, who runs a website about the Hot Hero Sandwich TV series (1979-80), has done an interview with David Kaestle Jr and Louisa Kaestle, the son and widow of David Kaestle, who was an art director at National Lampoon from 1972-74. It gives an overview of his life and work both before and after the Lampoon, which included designing the logo for Hot Hero Sandwich. 

I exchanged emails with David in 2002, hoping to get information from him about his time at National Lampoon for my website. He was said he was busy and would get back to me in a couple of weeks. Sadly, that was the last I heard from him. So Jack’s interview is about the next best thing.

In my opinion, David was the best designer who ever worked for National Lampoon. Although he’s usually listed as an art director, he was responsible for the design of the 1964 High School Yearbook Parody, The Encyclopedia of Humor, and many other special projects in addition to the magazine itself. Michael Gross was a great art director, but I believe David was responsible for the magazine’s excellent use of type and getting every last detail of its parodies right. (I am a typeface designer and former magazine art director and designer, so you can take my word on this.)

Celebrated fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta’s granddaughter Sara has a YouTube channel where she does excellent video presentations about her grandfather’s life and work. Most recently, she did one about Frazetta’s relationship with the National Lampoon, where he did several covers and inside illustrations.

As you can imagine, I know a lot about National Lampoon and its history, but much of what she presents is new even to me. She does a concise and accurate job of describing the magazine and some of the people who worked for it, including art director Michael Gross, and goes into detail about how he was hired and what he (and his wife) thought of the magazine.

I just discovered this three-year-old video, which is something of a post-mortem of the National Lampoon brand, and it’s pretty good. It looks at the history of National Lampoon‘s foray into movies, pegging Christmas Vacation 2 (2003) as the best example to illustrate what went wrong.

I’ve never seen this movie—or any of the “National Lampoon” movies beyond European Vacation (1985)—so it was like looking under a rock I’ve been avoiding for decades. And, well, it’s kind of disgusting. But this guy’s analysis is sound.

I will add one thing he doesn’t mention. Henry Beard, NatLamp‘s first managing editor, was against doing movies. Ironically, it was his departure in 1975 (along with co-founders Doug Kenney and Rob Hoffman), taking a $7-million buy-out clause, that left the magazine strapped for cash, which in turn led them to start making movies in order to make money to keep the magazine afloat.

This YouTube video tells the sad story of how that ultimately worked out.

Years ago, there was a site called Egg City Radio where you could download a set of .zip files containing all the episodes of National Lampoon Radio Hour. I used to direct people there when asked, but never posted a link here because I didn’t want to bring it to the attention of certain lawyers. Unfortunately, the site disappeared a few years ago.

However, I’ve discovered another site, called Radio Echoes, that hosts all the shows individually for streaming or download. I feel like I’m taking a chance by posting it here, but I’m less worried about publicizing things like that nowadays. Hopefully, it will still be there when you click on the link. (Knock on wood.)

And, of course, feel free to use the extensive Radio Hour listings on my site as a guide.

Last Saturday night I went and saw Saturday Night, the new movie directed by Jason Reitman. It tells the story of the beginnings of Saturday Night Live by recreating the 90 minutes before the show first aired. It’s a pretty clever way to do it. Most of the scenes were based on real events, even if they didn’t happen during those 90 minutes—some happened earlier, some later. A few scenes were made up by combining different events with some creative license. But it works.

Overall, it felt very authentic to the spirit of the show and people involved. The humor of Michael O’Donoghue, for instance, was not sanitized for modern audiences—and neither were the reactions he got from the other characters in the movie. While the connection to National Lampoon does not come up (Lorne Michaels hired a significant number of Lampoon writers and performers), the Radio Hour does get a passing mention.

The casting was very good, particularly the actors playing the Not Ready For Prime Time Players. Their voices and mannerisms were very accurate, even when they didn’t quite look like the original person. The guys playing Chase and Belushi were uncanny. The actor portraying Michael O’Donoghue was good, especially getting across his acerbic personality, but he was younger and better looking than the real MO’D. The guy who played Jim Henson virtually brought him back from the dead. On the other hand, I had trouble with the choice of Matthew Rhys as George Carlin. I like Rhys as an actor, but he didn’t sound or look much like Carlin.

I’ve heard this movie described as a “suspense comedy,” and that’s accurate. You know they’re going to succeed, but it’s hard to see how it was even possible before it happens.

As someone who saw the show’s first broadcast when it aired, and was a fan of the show into the early eighties, I really enjoyed it. I want to watch it again just to catch background details I’m sure I missed. It looks like it was made by people who knew the show well and loved it for what it was. Recommended.

(On a personal note, I was thrilled to see that they used one of my fonts throughout the movie for titles and captions.)

Chris Miller was a frequent contributing writer (and later editor) of National Lampoon during the 1970s. He’s best known for his satirical short stories, often revolving around the topic of sex.

During his time with the magazine, Chris went on the road to college campuses around the U.S., giving talks about humor and satire, which included reading some of his short stories from the magazine. This is an audio recording of one of those talks, from early 1977, sent to me by the person who recorded it, who wishes to remain anonymous.

The talk contains adult themes, and is not suitable for young or sensitive individuals. NSFW, as they say. Keep in mind that this was the seventies, when attitudes about sex were quite different from today. Consider yourself forewarned. If you’re a fan of the magazine and Chris’s stories from back then, never mind. You know what you’re in for.

(The newspaper clipping shown in the video is about an earlier campus appearance Chris made in 1975. Read more about it here.)

Director Jason Reitman has announced that a new film about the debut episode of Saturday Night Live is in the works. Most of the cast, including all the “not-ready-for-prime-time players,” has been announced, and you can see them on the People website. I don’t see mentioned yet who will be playing Michael O’Donoghue, who was head writer for the show from 1975-78 and also appeared in the first “cold opening” of the show with John Belushi.

Many of the writers and performers of the show had also worked on the National Lampoon Radio Hour (1974) and on National Lampoon comedy albums, as well as National Lampoon magazine itself. These included writers Michael O’Donoghue and Anne Beatts, and performers John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, and Gilda Radner.

It will be interesting to compare the cast of this to the cast of the 2018 Doug Kenney biopic A Stupid and Futile Gesture, which features some of the same people played by different actors.

(Thanks to Al for the tip!)