A Futile and Stupid Gesture: How Doug Kenney and National Lampoon Changed Comedy Forever With wonderful stories of the comedy scene in New York City in the 1970's and National Lampoon's place at the center of it, this chronicle shares how the magazine spawned a popular radio show and two
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| Title | : | A Futile and Stupid Gesture: How Doug Kenney and National Lampoon Changed Comedy Forever |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.84 (326 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1556527624 |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 416 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2008-04-01 |
| Genre | : |
Editorial : From Publishers Weekly 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
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. With wonderful stories of the comedy scene in New York City in the 1970's and National Lampoon's place at the center of it, this chronicle shares how the magazine spawned a popular radio show and two long-running theatrical productions that helped launch the careers of John Belushi, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, and Gilda Radner and went on to inspire Saturday Night Live. More than 130 interviews were conducted with people connected to Kenney and the magazine, including Chevy Chase, John Hughes, P. J. O'Rourke, Tony Hendra, Sean Kelly, Chris Miller, and Bruce McCall. These interviews, along with behind-the-scenes stories about the making of both Animal House and Caddyshack, help to capture the nostalgia, humor, and popular culture that National Lampoon still inspires.
I enjoyed it very much and I highly recommend this book. It is mostly a distraction and is thoroughly boring. Kenney's novel "Teenage Commies from Outer Space" didn't survive and he obviously spent a lot of time alone so there are a lot of pages chronicling the bickering and backstabbing at the Lampoon offices while Kenney ran off to live in a tent or make millions of dollars in Hollywood.
There have been millions of laughs in the years since Lampoon and ANIMAL HOUSEit's just too bad Bluto and the Stork weren't here to hear them.. I didn't like the beach scenes in this book! I found the pics boring and lacking in color! Also short on instructions.. As sad as Kenney's story ultimately is, I still found myself laughing at the memories of Lampoon stories. Highly recommend.. Fire this and where's this and too much of this, etc. THIS BOOK IS WELL WRITTEN BY A GREAT ARTIST. Grimes.
In this we see the top of the culinary world in action, amazingly from an unencumbered inside v
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