A Futile and Stupid Gesture by Josh Karp

Author:Josh Karp
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2006-01-15T05:00:00+00:00

During 1973, Matty was approached by building management about renaming 635 Madison “The National Lampoon Building.” Fearing an endless string of pranksters at their doorstep, he opted for calling it the “21st Century Communications Building.”

Playing on this theme, the December 1973 Self-Indulgence issue included artist Alan Rose’s depiction of the National Lampoon Building, which would tower over the Manhattan skyline (taller than the Eiffel Tower, Empire State Building, and Great Pyramid of Cheops), complete with blimp docks, botanical gardens, airport, national forest, and the Kenney Towers—a federally subsidized high-income housing project.

That month, McConnachie debuted “Tell Debby,” an advice column containing letters from “a worried father” or “upset mother” telling of various domestic tragedies that received responses ranging from “oh, how awful” to “that’s quite tragic,” only veering from this formula to chide one writer who uses “crap” in her letter: “Don’t you ever use that ugly word when you ‘Tell Debby’ something! Debby does not like vulgar expressions. None the less, I do sympathize with your unpleasant situation, but it never has been, nor will it ever be, an excuse for using coarse language.”

The height of Self-Indulgence was “humor’s official teen fan mag” called “PoonBeat,” whose headlines roar, “The Night Michael O’Donoghue Broke My Heart, My Cloisonne Vase, Somebody’s Pelvis and Both My Legs”; “You Can Have Sean Kelly’s Next Baby”; “Dougie and PJ Fun Fux”; and “Where to Kiss Chris Miller.”

Inside, readers can “find out who isn’t talking to me this week” by Hendra; discover “which editor’s girlfriend pisses me off the most,” by Kelly; view a seductive, autographed photo layout of O’Donoghue, Henry, Doug, and Gross; and read a piece in which female staffers answer the question, “If I could fuck any editor in the world it would be … “

The editors further parody themselves in “Our Sunday Comics” where Henry becomes “Hank Beard” à la Dick Tracy; McConnachie is sent up as a modern-day Dagwood Bumstead; O’Rourke is the hero of “PJ and the Pirates”; and Beatts is “Little Beattsy” who continually tries to break into the National Lampoon boys clubhouse, where childhood versions of the editors toss around ideas like “naked women served up like food,” and “deadly dump trucks of World War II.”

Doug’s contribution is a Ripley’s-style series of panels that depict the sign welcoming people to beautiful Chagrin Falls, tell the potentially true 1953 story of “The Frog That Wouldn’t Die” (tied to a bike and dragged two miles to Tony’s house), and credit the founding editor with the World’s Speed Record for writing this parody piece in four minutes and forty seconds.

Under a cartoon of Doug at the typewriter it reads, “Douglas C. Kenney (1946-197?).

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.