 |
|
Your
Unauthorized Guide
to the Golden Age of National Lampoon
Magazine (1970-1975)
Last update: February 10, 2010. Original material
(excluding quoted material) © 1998 Mark
Simonson.
Cover images copyright © National Lampoon.
Used with permission.
Mark's Very Large National Lampoon Site is
not affiliated with National Lampoon or National Lampoon Inc. Click
here for the real thing.
|
|
 |
 National
Lampoon
1964 High School Yearbook Parody
(1974)
COVER: Photographed by Vince Aiosa.
The High School Yearbook Parody was one of the most stunning
achievements of National Lampoon during its heyday. It
was one of the most ambitious publishing projects ever undertaken
by the magazine. It consists of a nearly full-length parody of a
typical high school yearbook followed by numerous documents and
ephemera relating to Larry Kroger, a fictional student at C. Estes
Kefauver High School, Dacron, Ohio (also fictional). A prep school
on the Upper West Side of New York City was rented for several months
and twenty young people were cast as the senior class. The school teachers and staff
were played by NatLamp writers and staffers. The attention
to detail is mind-boggling, and is really the key to what makes
the whole thing so funny. The issue was a bestseller for the magazine
and went into several printings through the end of the seventies.
An
early, shorter version of the same idea can be seen in the October
1970 (Nostalgia) issue with the 1956
High School Yearbook, written by Doug Kenney and Michael O'Donoghue.
The character "Larry Kroger" appears later as the main
protagonist in Animal House (with the nickname "Pinto,"
taken from Chris Miller's Tales of the Delphian Lodge short
stories). The original idea for a National Lampoon movie
(which ultimately became Animal House) was set at Kefauver
H.S. When Chris Miller's stories were added to the mix, the setting
was changed to a college.--MS
|
Contents
1964 Kaleidoscope (the yearbook)
Kefauver High School Mascot Decals
1963-1964 Basketball Program
Features Buckeye Cola ad
Larry Kroger Ephemera (fake hall pass, fake I.D.,
detention slip, fake excuse note, crib sheet, etc.)
The American Spectacle: 1492 to the Present (history
book with KHS slip cover; fully "annotated" in ballpoint pen)
Graded English Exam
Larry Kroger's Permanent Record
"Sex Test"
Larry Kroger's Report Card
Larry Kroger's Diploma (printer's discarded racing
form "make-ready" on back)
Cootie Catcher, with instructions
The Prism (school newspaper)
Leaf & Squib (school literary magazine)
Issue edited by P. J. O'Rourke and Doug Kenney; art
directed by David Kaestle
Writers: P.J. O'Rourke, Doug Kenney, Sean Kelly, Christopher
Cerf, Ed Subitzky
Photographers: David Kaestle, Vince Aiosa, Alan Rose, Michael
Gross, Dick Frank, and Laura Singer
Art and graphics: Alan Rose, Marc Arceneaux, David Kaestle,
Michael Gross, Warren Sattler, Mara McAfee, and Wendell Robinson
|