Reader David Rolfe got that strange feeling of déjà vu when he read a news story about a teenager who got knocked out when a fish jumped out of the water and smacked him in the face. It reminded him of an article in the National Lampoon Sunday Newspaper Parody (Section C, page 9): “Last year, 100 times as many people died from choking on food in restaurants than died from being hit in the face with live game fish.”

Chris Miller is selling personalized, autographed copies of his Animal House books (the 1978 National Lampoon‘s Animal House movie book, and the current one, The Real Animal House) on his website. Update: Forget it. Chris’s site is long gone.

On August 13 at 9 p.m. EST, the Biography Channel will premier “National Lampoon‘s Animal House–The Inside Story,” a two-hour documentary maring the 30th anniversary of the film’s release. More on Chris’s site and on the Biography Channel’s site.

Chris is also one of the interviewees featured in a documentary about “gross out” comedy called “In The Gutter,” which has been running periodically on the Starz network since July 29.

Finally, Chris has just added another of his classic National Lampoon short stories, “Practice Makes,” about a guy who has to keep reliving the same failed attempt to get laid.

Update: Chris’s site is long gone.

An interview with Brian McConnachie by Mark Leffler has been posted on the Review Magazine website. In it, McConnachie reveals that he has been working on a new radio show called “Big Ship Radio”, similar in style to the National Lampoon Radio Hour, and featuring some Radio Hour alums, including Ed Subitzky, Emily Praeger, and Windy Craig.

Josh Karp’s biography of Doug Kenney will be issued in a paperback edition in April.

Read my interview with Josh, posted just before the hardback edition was released, from August 2006.

Chris has added two more of his classic National Lampoon short stories to his website, “A Thanksgiving Memory” and “The Magic Show.” Link. Update: Sorry, Chris pulled the plug on all that.

Well, it finally arrived today. The box is the usual DVD box size, but contains very little: The disc and a 1-page installation guide in a DVD jewelcase.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The DVD-ROM contains all the regular issues of National Lampoon ever published, from April 1970 to November 1998. Special issues, with original material, such as the High School Yearbook Parody, Encyclopedia of Humor, etc. are not included, but everything that appeared in the anthology issues (“Best of” issues) is here. Even the ads are included, which is kind of cool. Not surprisingly, bind-in cards, such as the famous “You May Already Be a Wiener” subscription card, are left out. Unfortunately, at least one article, “In Search of the Midnight Tapes” from the May 1973 issue, which was printed on a bind-in insert card that looked like a flexible 33 rpm record, was also left out. I have not had time to see if anything else is missing.

The issues are medium-resolution scans of mediocre quality. They are good enough for reading and browsing, but a lot of the photography and illustration suffers from being overexposed and washed out. Color balance is also off on some of the scans.

A really great thing is that the text in the PDFs is completely searchable—incredibly useful for finding things.

Even with its flaws, at $49.95 retail, I think it’s a good deal and a convenient package for anyone who wants to browse or search the issues, find their favorite articles or cartoons, or even discover it all for the first time. It would have been fantastic if they had lovingly restored every page to its pristine original appearance, but I imagine the market for something like that is simply too small to justify the effort. For those people, I would recommend acquiring the real issues. But even for collectors, the DVD would be worth having if only so you could look at the issues without removing them from their protective plastic wrappers.

After I’ve spent more time looking it over, I will post more details. (There are some reports on Amazon.com that the disc doesn’t work properly for some people, but I’ve had no trouble on my Mac.)

A few people, who ordered from places other than Amazon.com, have written to tell me they’ve already got their copies, and for lower prices than Amazon.com. One is a seller on eBay called SellIt4U, and the other is Aramedia (see list of Amazon resellers here). Early reports say that the scan quality is not great, but, considering the convenience, acceptable.

Last month I wrote about the new collection of National Lampoon magazine about to be released on DVD. Naturally, I ordered it immediately from Amazon.com. Initially, it was supposed to ship at the end of September. Shortly after I ordered it, the expected ship date was moved to mid-to-late October. Today I was notified that it will arrive early November. Let’s hope this is the last delay.

When it does finally arrive, I will tell all about it.

Further Update (11/3/07): I spoke too soon. I just received word from Amazon that the estimated arrival date is now some time between December 8 and 26.

Chris Miller’s The Real Animal House was recently released in paperback. The new edition includes an additional 45-page early Sixties pop culture glossary. Available at Amazon and other fine book sellers.

In other Chris Miller news, he has recently posted on his website two of his classic National Lampoon short stories, Telejester and Boxed In. Update: Chris’s site is dead. Don’t bother clicking.

Finally, Chris will be doing a special night in New York City on Monday, October 29th. It’ll be a recounting of the long strange trip that led from his joining the Alpha Delta Phi house at Dartmouth in 1960 to the creation of both Animal House the movie and his book, The Real Animal House. Peter Reigert (“Boon”) will be along to reminisce with him about the former, and two of the guys who he featured in the book—John “Magpie” Walters and Dick “Black Whit” Whitfield–will also appear to share their memories of fraternity madness, early sixties-style. His appearance will be at the Housing Works Cafe in Soho, at 126 Crosby Street, starting at 7 PM. It should be a lot of fun for all, and he’ll be signing copies of the paperback edition of his book.