A new documentary playing at this year's Tribeca Film Festival looks at one of history's most influential humor magazines. It is called "Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of National Lampoon." NY1 film critic Neil Rosen filed this review.
It was outrageous, hip, and groundbreaking, to say the least. With its satirical and irreverent approach to humor, the National Lampoon took on the establishment, popular culture, the sexual revolution, politics and dozens of other targets, in a way that was never seen before. In the process, by pushing boundaries and making its readers laugh, the magazine had far-reaching influence.
This fascinating and enlightening documentary tells the story of how the publication was an outgrowth of the Harvard Lampoon, a university humor magazine. In 1970, Lampoon alumni Doug Kenney and Henry Beard decided to take things to the next level and hence, the National Lampoon was born.
By doing full issue parodies of other magazines, in a scathingly hilarious way, they began to find their groove. They hired innovative art directors, and brilliant comic minds, like John Hughes, P. J. O'Rourke, and Michael O' Donohue as writers. Many of the former staff talk about what it was like to work there, how they came up with their subversive ideas.
The success of the magazine led the founders to branch out with record albums, a radio show, an off-Broadway play and eventually movies, most notably “Animal House” and the Vacation series.
The Lampoon also served as a launching board for such comedic talents as John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Chevy Chase and Bill Murray. When Lorne Michaels started Saturday Night Live in 1975, he essentially raided the Lampoon's incredibly gifted talent pool.
Filled with incisive interviews, as well as lots of images of the magazine's infamous cover art and it's often shocking content, director Douglas Tirola does an admirable job of telling the Lampoon's story and offering up an inside look at how it launched huge careers and went on to change the face of contemporary comedy.
You can catch Drunk, Stone, Brilliant, Dead at the Tribeca Film Festival before it is released in theatres later this year.
Neil Rosen’s Big Apple Rating:
Three and a Half Apples