Your
Unauthorized Guide
to the Golden Age of National Lampoon
Magazine (1970-1975)

Mark's Very Large National Lampoon Site is not affiliated with National Lampoon or National Lampoon Inc. Click here for the real thing.

March 2010

Now in HD Where Available: If you click on the small cover images in the Issues section, a much larger image will now appear. Click again to make it go away. (Not available yet in the Recordings or Books & Anthologies section. Soon.)

Posted March 11, 2010, 11:42 AM

The 1973 Lemmings stage show at the Village Gate in New York City was promoted with a poster that was never seen in the magazine or used for the soundtrack LP. It featured a beautiful illustration by James Grashow. I remember seeing it in graphic design annuals back in the seventies. There is a copy of it on view at this auction site. (For a larger image, click here.) (Thanks to Rollo for the link.)

Posted March 11, 2010, 11:35 AM

Good news National Lampoon Bicentennial Calendar: Starting March 1, 2010, you can hang it up again and pretend it's 1976. From that date until the end of the year, the dates will all fall on the same days of the week as they did when the calendar was new. (Thanks to reader Jeff Goodman for the tip.)

Posted February 26, 2010, 09:06 PM

The inspiration for Politenessman? Check out Hairbreadth Harry, an old newspaper comic strip from 1920 by German-American cartoonis Charles W. Kahles. I think it bears an uncanny resemblance to Ron Barrett's Politenessman strip, which ran for years in National Lampoon. (Seen on Uncle Eddie's Theory Corner.)

Posted January 13, 2010, 12:05 PM

R.I.P. Don Ivan Punchatz, an illustrator who was a frequent contributor to National Lampoon in the Seventies and did the "official National Lampoon portait" of Gerald Ford on the November 1974 cover. You can read the obituary in the New York Times here.

Posted November 4, 2009, 03:17 PM

Amazon has dropped the price of the National Lampoon Complete DVD-ROM, which contains PDF scans of all the regular issues of the magazine (1970-1998). The reader who alerted me to this wondered if it was because a new and better edition is forthcoming. Unfortunately, I think it's more likely that it's because it's not selling as quickly as they'd like.

Admittedly, the quality leaves a lot to be desired, and there are occasional unexplained omissions (perhaps the issues they scanned were not completely intact), but it is a very handy reference if you are a collector or simply want to read the back issues without spending a lot on the real thing, which tend to go for at least $5 for a single issue. If you've been sitting on the fence because of the price, seems like a good time to make your move.

Posted October 7, 2009, 04:30 PM

John Hughes on writing "Vacation '58" and the screenplay of National Lampoon's Vacation, from Zoetrope: All-Story magazine. Also, you can read Vacation '58 online if you don't have a copy of the September 1979 (Fall Potpourri) issue of National Lampoon handy. (Via Daring Fireball.)

Posted August 7, 2009, 10:33 PM

John Hughes, R.I.P. John Hughes died today at 59. Hughes made a big name for himself in Hollywood in the '80s, writing and sometimes directing comedies such as National Lampoon's Vacation, Home Alone, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but many readers of this site will remember his work as a writer and editor for National Lampoon from 1977 to 1981. Vacation and Christmas Vacation in fact appeared as stories in the magazine long before they were made into movies. I wonder if there is still any chance that his stories "My Vagina" and "My Penis" will make ever make it to Hollywood. (More about his life and death here.)

Posted August 6, 2009, 07:51 PM

M.K. Brown has a page on YouTube where she has posted semi-animated versions of her cartoons with music and voices added. They're great, but it would be even cooler if they were fully animated. M.K. Brown on YouTube.

Posted December 30, 2008, 09:40 AM

This Can't Be Good. The CEO of National Lampoon, Dan Laiken, was charged yesterday with conspiracy and securities fraud in what prosecutors said was an attempt to raise the value of the company’s stock artificially. Read the whole story at the New York Times site.

Posted December 16, 2008, 09:31 AM

Mark's Very Large Plug. You might think, as you wade through this site, that I have no life. Not true. I spend about two days a year working on Mark's Very Large National Lampoon Site. The rest of the time I am a freelance graphic designer specializing in lettering and typography. You can see my real website here.

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207. Rolling Stones Album Parody

206. Worm Trainer Comic

205. "You May Already Be a Wiener!"

204. Getting Ahead in Business

203. Waking-Up-As-a-Kid-Again Story