Reprints and reminiscences from the magazine’s first decade: “Fun to flip through . . . Where would American humor be without the National Lampoon?”—The New Yorker From its first issue in April 1970, the National Lampoon blazed like a comet, defining comedy as we know it today. To create Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead, former Lampoon illustrator Rick Meyerowitz selected the funniest material from the magazine and sought out the survivors of its first electrifying decade to gather their most revealing and outrageous stories. The result is a mind-boggling tour through the early days of an institution whose alumni left their fingerprints all over popular culture: Animal House, Caddyshack, Saturday Night Live, Ghostbusters, SCTV, Spinal Tap, In Living Color, Ren & Stimpy, The Simpsons—even Sesame Street counts a few Lampooners among its ranks. This is the story of a band of young talents who “irrevocably rewrote the landscape of American humor” (Publishers Weekly). “A vivid picture of a tight-knit family of twentysomething humorists at the dawn of their careers.” —Newsweek "The other night I started laughing so hard I had to leave the room . . . And then I realized that I hadn’t laughed so hard in 35 years, since I was a teenager, reading National Lampoon.” —The Wall Street Journal “If you grew up with the Lampoon, this book is a trip down memory lane like no other; if not, it will demonstrate that the much maligned 70s could produce humor that has never been surpassed.” —Vanity Fair

The ultimate biography of "National Lampoon" and its cofounder Doug Kenney, this book offers the first complete history of the immensely popular magazine and its brilliant and eccentric characters.

"Smart, knowing, and deeply reported, the definitive history of one of modern American humor’s wellsprings." —Kurt Andersen, author of Fantasyland, host of NPR’s Studio 360 Labor Day, 1969. Two recent college graduates move to New York to edit a new magazine called The National Lampoon. Over the next decade, Henry Beard and Doug Kenney, along with a loose amalgamation of fellow satirists including Michael O’Donoghue and P. J. O’Rourke, popularized a smart, caustic, ironic brand of humor that has become the dominant voice of American comedy. Ranging from sophisticated political satire to broad raunchy jokes, the National Lampoon introduced iconoclasm to the mainstream, selling millions of copies to an audience both large and devoted. Its excursions into live shows, records, and radio helped shape the anarchic earthiness of John Belushi, the suave slapstick of Chevy Chase, and the deadpan wit of Bill Murray, and brought them together with other talents such as Harold Ramis, Christopher Guest, and Gilda Radner. A new generation of humorists emerged from the crucible of the Lampoon to help create Saturday Night Live and the influential film Animal House, among many other notable comedy landmarks. Journalist Ellin Stein, an observer of the scene since the early 1970s, draws on a wealth of revealing, firsthand interviews with the architects and impresarios of this comedy explosion to offer crucial insight into a cultural transformation that still echoes today. Brimming with insider stories and set against the roiling political and cultural landscape of the 1970s, That’s Not Funny, That’s Sick goes behind the jokes to witness the fights, the parties, the collaborations—and the competition—among this fraternity of the self-consciously disenchanted. Decades later, their brand of subversive humor that provokes, offends, and often illuminates is as relevant and necessary as ever.

An informative compendium of surprising ways you might die a horrible death at any moment from humor writers Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf.

For fourteen years, cartoonist B.K. Taylor regaled and baffled the readers of National Lampoon with the good-natured goofiness of his odd suburban family. Now Fantagraphics brings you the complete run of the Appletons, Timberland Tales, and his other crazy creations.

A tongue-in-cheek introduction to the ineptiles describes dodosaurs that lived during the Moronic, Idiotic, and the Preposterous periods

"Written by Don Knotts's brother-in-law and featuring extensive unpublished interviews with those closest to both men, [this book explores] the legacy of The Andy Griffith Show and ... two of America's most enduring stars"--Amazon.com.

In this exploration of shadowy, behind-the-scenes operators, “each portrait provides an incisive dissection of the acquisition and maintenance of power” (The Nation). Journalist Amos Barshad has long been fascinated by the powerful. But not by elected officials or natural leaders—he’s interested in the dark figures who wield power from the shadows. And, as Barshad shows in No One Man Should Have All That Power, these master manipulators are not confined to political backrooms. They can be found anywhere—from Hollywood to drug cartels, recording studios, or the NFL. In this wide-ranging, insightful exploration of the phenomenon, Barshad takes readers into the lives of more than a dozen notorious figures, starting with Grigori Rasputin himself. The Russian mystic drank, danced, and healed his way into a position of power behind the last of the tsars. Based on interviews with well-known personalities like Scooter Braun (Justin Bieber’s manager), Alex Guerrero (Tom Brady’s trainer), and Sam Nunberg (Trump’s former aide) and original reporting on figures like Nicaragua’s powerful first lady Rosario Murillo and the Tijuana cartel boss known as “Narcomami,” Barshad investigates a variety of modern-day Raputins. He explores how they got there, how they wielded control, and what lessons we can take from them, including how to spot Rasputins in the wild.

"Trots and Bonnie is hilarious, poignant, raunchy, gorgeously drawn, and more relevant than ever. Shary Flenniken is an absolute genius." —Roz Chast In the 1970s and 1980s, National Lampoon was home not only to some of the funniest humor writing in America but also to many of its best cartoons. One of the greatest was Trots and Bonnie by Shary Flenniken, a comic strip that followed the adventures and mishaps of the guileless teenager Bonnie and her wisecracking dog, Trots. Bonnie stumbles through the mysteries of adulthood, as Flenniken—one of the few female contributors to National Lampoon—dissects the harsh realities of American life. Dating, sex, politics, and violence are all confronted with fearlessness and outrageous humor, rendered in Flenniken’s timeless, gorgeous artwork. After all these years, they have lost none of their power to shock and amuse. This collection, handpicked by Flenniken and with an introduction by the New Yorker cartoonist Emily Flake, is the first book of Trots and Bonnie ever published in America, a long-overdue introduction to some of the most stunning and provocative comics of the twentieth century.

The fifth title in the National Lampoon classic library, The National Lampoon Encyclopedia of Humor returns with the madness that only Michael O'Donoghue, P.J. O'Rourke, Terry Southern, Anne Beatts, Doug Kenney and Brian McConnachie could have possibly created. Includes a pullout, 4-color, National Lampoon World Map and artwork from Edward Gorey, Bruce McCall and Rick Meyerwitz