A Futile and Stupid Gesture

June 19, 2006
Screenwriter Kenney (Animal House
; Caddyshack
), co-founder of National Lampoon
, was one of the gifted gagsters who ignited the 1970s revolution in American humor. Journalist Karp (Playboy
; Premiere
) delivers an iridescent, polychromatic portrait of the humorist, framed within an amusing anecdotal history of National Lampoon
. To chart the magazine's rise and fall, Karp conducted 150 interviews, mapping every avenue of business decisions, feuds, romances, cocaine use and bizarre pranks. It all began at Harvard, where wild wit Kenney and misanthropic Henry Beard became "symbiotic creative forces," revitalizing the Harvard Lampoon
. When they teamed with publisher Matty Simmons, National Lampoon
was born in 1970, filling the "gigantic void" between the New Yorker
and Mad
. Success led to heightened hilarity as the brand expanded with posters, products, theatrical productions and recordings. The 1973 National Lampoon Radio Hour
cast resurfaced in 1975 on Saturday Night Live
, but the anarchic Animal House
in 1978 catapulted Kenney to Hollywood—as Karp writes, "He had transformed himself from nerd to preppy to hippie and now to unassuming millionaire artiste." 16-page b&w photo insert not seen by PW
.

August 15, 2006
For the multitude of baby boomers coming into full adolescent bloom in the 1970s, the National Lampoon was the cat -s ass. With comedic masterpieces like the 1964 Kefauver High School Yearbook parody and the transcendent January 1973 cover of the buy-this-magazine-or-we -ll-shoot-this-dog issue, the Lampoon imprinted American popular culture forever. The Harvard-educated mastermind behind the Lampoon, as well as the movies "Animal House" and "Caddyshack", was Doug Kenney, whose story and intersections with other star-crossed geniuses like Michael O -Donoghue, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, and P.J. O -Rourke are wonderfully told in this interview-driven, behind-the-scenes account. Readers are immersed in the comedy scene in 1970s New York City as well as the birth of the "Lampoon" and its spin-off media. Karp, an experienced journalist, conducted 150 interviews, so it -s understandable that the story -s cadence is at times more staccato than fluid. Like a cultural joyride in a 1975 Cutlass 442 -fun, fast, and furious. Larger public and academic libraries should purchase." -Barry X. Miller, Austin P.L., TX"

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2006
When Doug Kenney, Henry Beard, and a handful of other " Harvard Lampoon"alums launched " National Lampoon," one of their dreams was to create a long-lived American humor magazine to match Britain's venerable " Punch." But for a few ill-advised business and creative decisions, they might have succeeded. Instead " NL" first transformed early-1970s anti-authoritarianism into lively, intelligent humor, then devolved into a formulaic, low-brow, mildly reactionary rag with a predilection for T&A and body--function jokes. Kenney shepherded " NL" through its first years, writing first-rate satire, before stumbling through a series of personal crises ended by a mysterious, perhaps suicidal, fall to his death in Hawaii in 1980. Both Karp's well-researched analysis of why " NL "succeeded, shuddered, and ultimately crashed and his biography of Kenney are compelling, and the latter is also mysterious. Early success in the magazine world and later in Hollywood (Kenney had a hand in " Animal House" and " Caddyshack") only seemed to make Kenney more miserable. Karp's account of Kenney's death is as moving as the excerpts from excellent " NL" articles are hilarious.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)