What the Hell Is This?

Mark's Very Large National Lampoon Site is an unauthorized guide to what I consider the best years of National Lampoon magazine, roughly 1970-1975. You won't find much here about the movies, later years of the magazine (it ceased publication in 1999), or its current incarnation (although there is some of that, too). It is also a tribute to the talented writers and artists who put the magazine together in those early years. This site has no connection or affiliation with National Lampoon, Inc.

I began working on this site in 1996 as a hands-on way to learn web design. I chose National Lampoon since, at the time, there was nothing about it on the Web. More importantly, it happened to be a topic which permanently occupied a large and otherwise useless portion of my brain. It has since gotten completely out of hand to become the award-winning, fan-pleasing resource it is today.

As for me, I am a commercial artist (at various times paying the bills by doing graphic design, art direction, illustration, web design, and animation, but more recently lettering, typeface design, and font development) and sometimes writer who was heavily influenced by National Lampoon during my formative years. It wasn't my only influence, but it was a big one. This site is sort of a hobbie for me. If you want to see what I do most of the time, check out www.ms-studio.com.

Why Does This Site Look So Boring?

It's very common on the Web to make pages that are very busy and full of "eye candy"—spinning logos, animated buttons, faux 3-D effects, and so on. Instead, I've chosen to emulate the clean, straightforward look and feel of the National Lampoon itself in hopes of recreating to some degree its early '70s milieu. I have the tools at my disposal to create a virtual Photoshop plug-in theme park online, but it would be wrong.

Toolbox

This site was created on a Mac, primarily with Adobe Dreamweaver, with help from Adobe Fireworks, Adobe PhotoShop, BBEdit, Adobe Illustrator, Apple Safari, Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and type from Bitstream Type Shop. Internet/FTP support from Dreamweaver and Panic Software's Transmit. Some pages (the Home page, the news item archives, and the Answers page) have been created with the help of the Moveable Type publishing system. The search engine is powered by Atomz.

Contact

If you have any questions or comments, you may send them to me at lampoon@marksimonson.com.

Some Helpful Hints for Navigating This Site

I have tried to keep things simple navigation-wise, but if you're having trouble finding your way around, here are some tips:

• Use the navigation links in the narrow left-hand column to go to the main parts of the site. These links appear on every page for your convenience.
• Some pages have more links in an additional column on the right. These links pertain only to pages within that section.
• In sections that have indexes (such as the Issues and Radio Hour section), clicking on the small section name logo at the top or bottom will take you back to the index for that section. Clicking on the arrows (if present) will take you to the next or previous page within the section.
• If you still can't find what you're looking for, use the handy Search box in the left-hand column.

HISTORY

Note: The site history has not been updated since October 2000 (except to add this note).

October 21, 2000

Added October 2000 News page. Added search feature.

October 20, 1999

Added October 1999 News page. Added Trots and Bonnie cartoons to Shary Flenniken's page. Added new National Lampoon Radio Hour section.

March 31, 1999

Added March 1999 News page.

February 19, 1999

Added Answers page.

January 8, 1999

Added pages with bios of Shary Flenniken and B. K. Taylor.

November 10, 1998

Removed certain graphics at the request of J2 Communications.

October 23, 1998

Added October edition of News on the March. Added pages to the Recordings section for National Lampoon Radio Dinner, National Lampoon Lemmings, and National Lampoon / Gold Turkey. Updated the Resources site to include the new Classifieds page and e-bay.

September 28, 1998

Updated the References page and the Michael O'Donoghue page after finishing Dennis Perrin's Mr. Mike bio.

September 25, 1998

Added September edition of News on the March. Added a new feature, the Classifieds page, where visitors may buy, sell, or trade their old Lampoon stuff.

August 31, 1998

Added August edition of News on the March. The Missing Issues page has been updated as I now have all the issues I was looking for (Thanks to Ralph Shadid, Jim Wilson, and Ron Ettleman). Also added pages for The Breast of National Lampoon, The National Lampoon Songbook, and Letters from the Editors of National Lampoon.

July 10, 1998

Added new material to Michael O'Donoghue's page. Added Darius James's personal memoir of O'Donoghue from his book, That's Blaxploitation!. (Thanks to Brian Siano, Joe Thomas, Jim Wilson and especially Darius.) Replaced the gratuitous cover page with News on the March as the default page for the site. (The cover page is not gone, it's just not the "home" page anymore.)

June 10, 1998

Added a method of tracking the number of visitors to the site, courtesy TheCounter.com.

April 7, 1998

Made many cosmetic changes to the site, mainly in the use of color on the index pages. Also updated the text on the Introduction and Resources pages.

March 25, 1998

Added two special issues, The Best of National Lampoon No. 1 and The National Lampoon Encyclopedia of Humor.

March 20, 1998

Added full synopsis for February 1971 (Head Issue).

March 17, 1998

Added bio for Chris Miller.

March 15, 1998

Added bio for Michael O'Donoghue.

January 19, 1998

Added full synopsis for Vol. 1, No. 1 (Sex) which I recently acquired. Thanks to the completely uncalled-for but nevertheless appreciated generosity of recent site visitor Carleton Palmer, I have now added contents listings for the remaining incomplete issues, and will soon be adding full synopses for February 1971 (Head Issue) and April 1971 (Adventure).

January 14, 1998

Added Resources page and Missing Issues page (deleted). Updated and corrected some things on the Introduction page. Added a description of Matty Simmons' book to the Reference page.

November 17, 1997

Added issues from October 1972 through November 1973 (listing of contents and credits only--synopses to be added later).

November 5, 1997

Added bios for Doug Kenney and Henry Beard. Added this page. Added the References page. Added issues from December 1971 through September 1972. (Note: Issues from January 1972 through September 1972 do not yet have synopses, just listings of contents and credits.)

October 14-16, 1997

Added indexes for staff & contributors, recordings, and books & anthologies. Revised issue summary page layouts and fixed some typos.

May 14, 1997

Uploaded initial version of site: Cover, Introduction, Contents page, Issue Index, and issue summaries for April 1970-November 1971.

December 13, 1996

Began work on site.