The 199th Birthday Book Finally Added

June 25, 2025

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.

Comments

Thanks, Mark! I always thought that this was one of their best and most insightful special editions, and being able to actually look up the article you want makes it that much more enjoyable. I printed a copy of your contents page and tucked it into the front of the book.

—Stephen Orr

June 30, 2025 9:22 pm

Cool! It's good to know that my efforts weren't for nothing (which seems to be the case sometimes). :-)

—Mark

July 1, 2025 10:27 pm

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