Mark's Very Large National Lampoon Site

Quite a few back issues of National Lampoon are on sale at The Mad Store, according to proprietor Scott Gosar, pictured at left. He’s the one shoving the Idiot™ into the trash can.

Shary Flenniken is going online soon with a website at www.sharyflenniken.com. Nothing much there at this writing except an announcement, some contact info, and a scan of one of Shary’s drawings.

CD Review Magazine featured a sampler CD of bits from National Lampoon Radio Hour in the early ’90s, according to reader Robert Thompson. This was five years before the Rhino boxed set appeared. Anyone out there ever seen one of these?

National Lampoon Radio Hour Logs, whatever those are, are available here. Courtesy of Scotty Crane from Shaken Not Stirred. Update: Well, they used to be. Gone now. Wonder whatever happened to AOL?

National Lampoon Show alum Sarah Durkee dropped me a line recently to answer question topic “Live Tours in 1978” on the Answers page: Who was in the troupe that toured in spring of 1978?

In addition to appearing in the touring productions of “That’s Not Funny, That’s Sick!” and “If We’re Late, Start Without Us,” Sarah has also worked as a writer on projects and kids’ TV shows with Lampoon veterans Chris Cerf, Henry Beard, and Sean Kelly. She also married Paul Jacobs, the musical director of the original Lemmings. She was also a co-writer with Beard, Kelly, and Cerf on “The Book of Sequels” (1991), which wasn’t a National Lampoon publication, but “sure felt like one, given that we were all Lampoon alums to one degree or another.” David Kaestle was art director as well.

Sarah is curious about whatever happened to her fellow actors from the tours. If you know, let me know.

Mark’s Very Large National Lampoon Site now has a more flexible system for delivering you, the crazed and aging NatLamp fan, the latest information about this site and the world of National Lampoon.

It’s a spiffy little content management system for weblogs (also known as “blogs”) called Movable Type. If you’ve never heard of “blogs” or “content management systems,” don’t worry. The main thing is that I will be able to update Mark’s Very Large National Lampoon Site in a simpler and more timely fashion. At least in theory.

Bobby London informed me that there were still more factual errors about him on the Answers page. They are now corrected. (Thanks Bobby, and sorry it’s taken so long.) Incidently, there is now an official Dirty Duck website.

John Bendel, editor of National Lampoon‘s popular True Facts section from 1978 to 1992, is alive and well and living in New Jersey. Nowadays, he makes a living as a technology writer. For a while, he maintained a personal web site about life and politics in New Jersey. It’s still up, but he hasn’t updated it in a while. Update: Not anymore.

National Lampoon Lemmings was recently released for the first time on CD on the Decca Broadway label. This classic cast recording of National Lampoon’s best-known off-Broadway show has been out of print since the ’70s. The team that produced the CD did a great job of not messing with a good thing and included all the original liner notes and photos unaltered (albeit at less than half their original size). There is a great reminiscence by cast member Alice Playten (Pizza Man, Megadeath groupie) on the iClassics.com site apparently to promote the release. Update: iClassics appears to have disappeared.

Bulgemobile Fans Rejoice! “The Last Dream-O-Rama: The Cars Detroit Forgot to Build, 1950-1960” by Bruce McCall has just been published by Crown. This book picks up where McCall’s “Bulgemobile” articles left off.

If you want to check out the original articles: “The ’58 Bulgemobiles” (“So All-fired New, They Make Tomorrow Seem Like Yesterday!”) first appeared in the April ’72 (“25th” Anniversary) issue. It also appeared in the National Lampoon Best of #1 anthology (1972), and the Tenth Anniversary Anthology (1979). “The 1946 Bulgemobiles” (“New… from the tires down!”) in the April ’79 (April Fool) issue; “The 1934 Bulgemobiles” (“The new cars that say, ‘Get out of my way!'”) in the May ’74 (“50th” Anniversary) issue; and “The 1906 Bulge-Buggy” (“The Contraption of Merit”) in the April ’75 (Car Sickness) issue. All the Bulgemobile articles also appear in “Zany Afternoons,” an anthology of Bruce McCall’s humor published by Knopf (1982) and reprinted in 1999 by Barnes and Noble.

McCall’s work is brilliant and, in fact, it was his “’58 Bulgemobiles” article that got me hooked on National Lampoon in the first place. A sampling of his work, including many of his more recent pieces, can be seen on the James Goodman Gallery site from a 1999 exhibit. Update: The Goodman Gallery site no longer exists.