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A Futile and Stupid Gesture: How Doug Kenney and National Lampoon Changed Comedy Forever
by
Josh Karp
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 1970s and National Lampoon's place at the center of it, this chronicle shares how the magazine spawned a popular...more
Paperback, 416 pages
Published
April 1st 2008
by Chicago Review Press
(first published September 1st 2006)
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This book contains some horribly-written passages, and the author tens to make cosmic pronouncements about big topics like The 60s, American humor and the like. That said this a good biography of a central figure in American comic writing and editing. The reader learns about the founding of the National Lampoon, details about wild characters like Michael O'Donoghue and Bill Murray and the cocaine-driven Hollywood scene of the late 1970s. I especially enjoyed reading the summaries of pieces fr...more
Alan
rated it
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review of another edition
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review of another edition
Recommends it for:
People who've already read through the annual report and prospectus.
Recommended to Alan by:
Its cover and its subject
This is a biography of humorist Doug Kenney, but even more than that it's a biography of the National Lampoon in its heyday.
So... you'd think the book would be a bit funnier, is all I'm saying.
Oh, sure, a serious treatment of NatLamp's history couldn't possibly be entirely composed of Nixon-baiting, Foto Funnies and Bluto's acne impressions, especially since Kenney's mysterious and premature demise in Hawaii reverberates through the entire work, sending premonitory ripple...more
So... you'd think the book would be a bit funnier, is all I'm saying.
Oh, sure, a serious treatment of NatLamp's history couldn't possibly be entirely composed of Nixon-baiting, Foto Funnies and Bluto's acne impressions, especially since Kenney's mysterious and premature demise in Hawaii reverberates through the entire work, sending premonitory ripple...more
I am one of those people who loved the pointless vulgarity and hilarious character assassination of the National Lampoon in the 70s. If you were too, I suspect you will find this biography of Doug Kenney. A sad story. A former colleague, who is one of the most dignified persons that I know, appears in a photograph in this book. Turns out he was Doug Kenney's roommate in college. As Steven Wright says, "It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to paint it".
zero stars. couldn't finish it - soooo boring
half a turd so far. if i weren't interested in the subject matter, the writing/research/etc would have shunted me away three paragraphs in.
It was funny and entertaining even though I have like zero interest in Lampoon stuff and I dont just say that because my husband wrote it. Doug Kenney's life is a mysterious puzzle.
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