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''National Lampoon'' is a Humor Magazine that began in 1970 as an offshoot of the '' Harvard Lampoon ''. Harvard graduates and ''Lampoon'' alumni Douglas Kenney , Henry Beard , and Rob Hoffman licensed the "Lampoon" name for a national publication. After a shaky start, the magazine quickly grew in popularity during the 1970s, when it regularly skewered Pop Culture , the Counterculture and Politics with Recklessness and gleeful bad taste. Notable cover images include:
Like the ''Harvard Lampoon'', individual issues were devoted to a particular theme such as "The Future", "Back to School," "Self-Indulgence," or "Blight". The magazine also took a cue from '' Mad '' by regularly reprinting its material in a series of collections. The magazine produced and fostered some notable writing and comic talents, including (but not limited to) Kenney, Chris Miller , P.J. O'Rourke , Michael O'Donoghue , Sean Kelly , and Tony Hendra . Many important cartoonists and illustrators appeared in the magazine's pages, including Neal Adams , Vaughn Bode , Shary Flenniken , Edward Gorey , Larry Hama , Jeff Jones , Bruce McCall , Rick Meyerowitz , Joe Orlando , Ralph Reese , Arnold Roth , Ed Subitzky and Gahan Wilson . Hendra's 1987 book on 1950s-1970s humor, '' Going Too Far '', contains much information about the magazine's early days. Most fans consider the glory days to have ended in 1975, when the three founders took advantage of a $7.5 million dollar buyout in their contracts. Also, some of the magazine's contributors left to join the NBC comedy show '' Saturday Night Live '' (''SNL'') around the same time, notably O'Donoghue and Anne Beatts . Even so, the magazine still made money and continued to be produced on a monthly schedule until the early 1990s. '', 1984]] The magazine also spun off an '' (2003). Four of SNL's Not Ready For Primetime Players — John Belushi , Chevy Chase , Gilda Radner and Bill Murray — first gained attention as part of the Lampoon's stage and/or radio shows. A snide parody of Les Crane 's 1971 hit " Desiderata " was recorded and released as " Deteriorata ," and stayed on the lower reaches of the Billboard Magazine charts for a month in late 1972. The gallumphing theme to '' Animal House '' rose slightly higher and charted slightly longer in December 1978. Several comedy LPs were released throughout the 1970s. In the 1990s, a CD boxed set of recordings from The National Lampoon Radio Hour was released by Rhino Records . Throughout the 1990's, the number of issues per year declined until the magazine was published only annually; the magazine's last print publication was November 1998. An on-line version of the magazine began after that. Some success was achieved but the creative staff were laid off unexpectedly and replaced with freelancers. Eventually, in a move that seemed like a classic ''National Lampoon'' parody but was not, Brian "Kato" Kaelin was hired to work and write for ''National Lampoon''. {Link without Title} In June 2005, Kaelin was named as the host of ''National Lampoon's'' new daytime TV court show, ''Eye for an Eye''. In 2002, a New-York-based provider of television shows to campus cable channels, the Burly Bear Network , became the National Lampoon Network . The company currently provides a weekly block of programming to over 600 colleges and Universities throughout the United States, serving over 4.5 million students. Though the magazine essentially exists today only as a logo and a trademark for licensing purposes, its comedic influence on a previous generation of writers and performers was seismic. As co-founder Henry Beard described the experience years later, "There was this big door that said, 'Thou shalt not.' We touched it, and it fell off its hinges." CIRCULATION The Lampoon's commercial heyday was roughly 1973-75, with its national circulation peaking at 1,000,096 copies sold of a single October 1974 issue. The Lampoon's 1974 monthly average was 830,000. Former Lampoon editor Tony Hendra 's book "Going Too Far" includes a series of precise circulation figures. ''NATIONAL LAMPOON'' MOVIES
The Robert Altman film '' O.C. And Stiggs '' was based on two characters which made several appearances in ''National Lampoon'', including an issue-long story from October 1982 called the "Utterly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Summer of O. C. and Stiggs." The film was completed in 1984 , but not released until 1987 , and then only on home video, without the National Lampoon name. ''National Lampoon's Strip Poker'', which was filmed at the Hedonism II nudist resort in Negril, Jamaica, was released on Pay-Per-View in 2005. These titles, which consist of one-hour episodes in which various Playboy, WWE, and pin-up models compete in strip poker match-ups, contained more nudity than any other National Lampoon production in the company's history. ''National Lampoon's Strip Poker'' is expected to develop into a franchise, with new episodes scheduled to be filmed in 2006. . All are scheduled for a 2006 release. EXTERNAL LINKS
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