Jerry Taylor, who was National Lampoon‘s associate publisher from 1971-72 and publisher from 1973-75 (the Golden Age) has died at the age of 85. He was also executive producer on most of the National Lampoon record albums, such as Radio Dinner and Lemmings. Aside from Lampoon stuff, he was creator, publisher and executive editor of the Harvard Lampoon parodies of People and Newsweek as well as parodies of Playboy, Cosmopolitan, and Rolling Stone, and was involved on a similar level with many other magazine-related things throughout his career.
Like many of the business staff at National Lampoon, he was sometimes used as a model in photo shoots. The most prominent example was the Kelly Girls parody from the November 1975 (“Work”) issue, where he was featured as an executive demonstrating the “Henry VIII desk” on the opening page.
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Former publisher of the National Lampoon Matty Simmons has died at the age of 93. Besides helping to found the magazine with editors Henry Beard, Doug Kenney, and Rob Hoffman, Simmons was responsible for taking National Lampoon to Hollywood with the hit comedy Animal House and the Vacation movie series.
I can’t believe I forgot about this, but someone in one of the comment threads reminded me. Fifty years ago this month, the first issue of National Lampoon hit the stands. (Read the inside story of that first cover here.)
So far, I haven’t seen any notice of this in the media. But it’s not surprising since, as a brand, National Lampoon is practically dead, and the magazine has not been published since the embarrassing November 1998 (Failure) issue over twenty years ago.
National Lampoon actually did celebrate their 50th anniversary once before with issue number 50 in May 1974, with the cover printed in metallic gold ink. Too bad the magazine isn’t around to celebrate fifty years.
Anyway, happy 50th, National Lampoon, wherever you are!
Reader Cullum Rogers, who runs the amazing Magazine Parody website, recently did a detailed post about a NatLamp subscription promo from the late seventies that was probably not widely seen. It’s a parody of the typical Publisher’s Clearing House sweepstakes offer that was so ubiquitous back then. As a NatLamp subscriber at the time, I probably never saw this (that I can recall anyway), so I found the post pretty interesting—and informative beyond the promo itself.
National Lampoon’s subscription promos were usually funny (or meant to be). One renewal promo I remember from around 1974 took the form of a series of ransom letters, one of which I happen to still have:
Cartoonist Gahan Wilson, who was a frequent contributor to National Lampoon, passed away yesterday at the age of 89. The announcement appeared this morning on the fundraising site set up by his stepson Paul Winters to help pay for his memory care.
At long last, a collection of B.K. Taylor’sNational Lampoon comics will be published. For years, readers of my site have asked about such a collection and it’s finally happening.
Taylor created both “The Appletons” and “Timberland Tales” comic strips which appeared for over a decade in the Funny Pages section of National Lampoon, generally alternating between the two from issue to issue.
I’ve been on the email list for the Gahan Wilson Fundraiser (see below or here), and today the guy running it, Gahan’s step-son Paul, posted a link to an interview with Gahan from back in 2011 for the Mr. Media podcast. It’s mostly about his relationship with Playboy magazine, but National Lampoon comes up a few times. You can listen to the interview on YouTube.
Mark's Very Large Plug. You might think, as you wade through this site, that I have no life. Not true. I spend about two days a year working on Mark's Very Large National Lampoon Site. The rest of the time I make fonts. You can see my real website here. I also have an “art” website where I post caricatures and other stuff. For Lampoon-related stuff and site updates, follow me on X (Twitter).
