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National Lampoon Presents True Facts: the Big Book
Now, for the first time, fans of National Lampoon's popular True Facts books can enjoy the complete True Facts collection in one hilarious edition. Every weird and wacky photo, advertisement, announcement, and news article is in one handy volume. It's a guaranteed hit.
- GenresHumorNonfiction
272 pages, Paperback
Published September 22, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
October 26, 2019
If you’ve seen one misspelled sign . . . or one badly written headline . . . oh, well.
June 30, 2015
In rereading National Lampoon Presents True Facts: The Big Book, I was a bit surprised at how little I enjoyed it compared with the many, many previous times I had read its pages. For those unfamiliar, True Facts: The Big Book presents a more-or-less complete collection of a significantly more risque version of Jay Leno's "Headlines" that appeared in the pages of
National Lampoon
over the years. And while True Facts: The Big Book remained mostly funny, this time it felt like a bit of a letdown.
The hallmark of National Lampoon was edgy, often sophomoric humor peppered with more than occasional flashes of wisdom and true satire, and liberally laced with NSFW material; in 2015, Cracked has largely taken over where National Lampoon left off. True Facts: The Big Book is full of such material—all precipitated by typographically-inaccurate advertisements and newspaper headlines, actual weird signs and billboards, and actual unusual storefronts—complete with cheap sex gags, smarmy remarks at the expense of some poor copy editor, and "no comment needed" images. Some of the material is funny precisely because one really can't make this stuff up—witness an advertisement for a crocheted baby-bottle holder in the shape of a bunny, in which the bottle unfortunately resembles a certain part of the rabbit's anatomy—while some is enhanced by editors John Bendel and Jason Ward's editorial comments; my favorite is the death announcement of a poor gentleman accidentally killed by a bowling ball, with Bendel and Ward's caption, "Stop laughing, you insensitive bastards!" preceding it.
And therein lies some of the difficulty. Yes, sophomoric, even juvenile, humor is enjoyable sometimes, but there's a certain emptiness in it, particularly on multiple re-readings. Say what you will about National Lampoon Presents Cartoons Even We Wouldn't Dare Print and The Best of the Rejection Collection: 293 Cartoons That Were Too Dumb, Too Dark, or Too Naughty for The New Yorker; at least most of the cartoons, while often along similarly snide lines, are clever, which is frequently more than one can muster about a simple caption to a "true fact". While a cartoon contains real creativity by definition, found items, even ones with captions, essentially laugh at accidents, and so have theoretically limited potential for humor. (I still laugh at many, if not most, of these "true facts", however, so take my comment with a real grain of salt; after all, many National Lampoon writers and staffers had graduated from the Harvard Lampoon, so there's that to be said for it.)
All that being said, when one gets right down to it, True Facts: The Big Book is just plain fun, and there's nothing wrong with that. I just wish a little more effort went into its creation.
The hallmark of National Lampoon was edgy, often sophomoric humor peppered with more than occasional flashes of wisdom and true satire, and liberally laced with NSFW material; in 2015, Cracked has largely taken over where National Lampoon left off. True Facts: The Big Book is full of such material—all precipitated by typographically-inaccurate advertisements and newspaper headlines, actual weird signs and billboards, and actual unusual storefronts—complete with cheap sex gags, smarmy remarks at the expense of some poor copy editor, and "no comment needed" images. Some of the material is funny precisely because one really can't make this stuff up—witness an advertisement for a crocheted baby-bottle holder in the shape of a bunny, in which the bottle unfortunately resembles a certain part of the rabbit's anatomy—while some is enhanced by editors John Bendel and Jason Ward's editorial comments; my favorite is the death announcement of a poor gentleman accidentally killed by a bowling ball, with Bendel and Ward's caption, "Stop laughing, you insensitive bastards!" preceding it.
And therein lies some of the difficulty. Yes, sophomoric, even juvenile, humor is enjoyable sometimes, but there's a certain emptiness in it, particularly on multiple re-readings. Say what you will about National Lampoon Presents Cartoons Even We Wouldn't Dare Print and The Best of the Rejection Collection: 293 Cartoons That Were Too Dumb, Too Dark, or Too Naughty for The New Yorker; at least most of the cartoons, while often along similarly snide lines, are clever, which is frequently more than one can muster about a simple caption to a "true fact". While a cartoon contains real creativity by definition, found items, even ones with captions, essentially laugh at accidents, and so have theoretically limited potential for humor. (I still laugh at many, if not most, of these "true facts", however, so take my comment with a real grain of salt; after all, many National Lampoon writers and staffers had graduated from the Harvard Lampoon, so there's that to be said for it.)
All that being said, when one gets right down to it, True Facts: The Big Book is just plain fun, and there's nothing wrong with that. I just wish a little more effort went into its creation.
April 20, 2022
It’s funny, for the most part. The top of page 63 almost made me spit up! But some pages seemed familiar, like I’d read them before. It’s good for some giggles, and I’m sure my 14 year old daughter will love it! For me, it was just ok.
December 14, 2012
This book is basically an album of memes from before they were half of the Internet. You can flip through all the photos in no more than an hour. It's far from fine literature, obviously, but it's good for chuckles and is worth having around.
As a side note, it's interesting to see how far our definition of "risqué" has come since this book's release. Jokes that seemed edgy and vulgar in 1995 are now tame enough that you could find this in a doctor's office. (Well, a funny doctor's office, anyway.)
It's hard to give it a high rating because there really isn't a lot of substance to it compared to other books I'd rate 3 stars or higher, but don't mistake my 2-star rating to mean it's a bad collection. It's worth a flip-through if nothing else. I enjoyed it.
As a side note, it's interesting to see how far our definition of "risqué" has come since this book's release. Jokes that seemed edgy and vulgar in 1995 are now tame enough that you could find this in a doctor's office. (Well, a funny doctor's office, anyway.)
It's hard to give it a high rating because there really isn't a lot of substance to it compared to other books I'd rate 3 stars or higher, but don't mistake my 2-star rating to mean it's a bad collection. It's worth a flip-through if nothing else. I enjoyed it.
June 14, 2015
National Lampoon Presents True Facts: The Big Book by John Bendel and Jason Ward (Contemporary Books 1995)(031.02 (I think)) is an update of a collection I remember fondly from my youth. The 1995 version is not as funny, but I only paid seventy-five cents for it from the local used book store! My rating: 6/10, finished 1/12/14.
June 4, 2012
I travel and have a personal intrest in odd signs along the road. This book had me laughing. What can you read into a sign or news clipping when the author didn't proof read their work. Thanks Dave J.
December 31, 2009
Hilarious signs/headlines from around the country. A great book for browsing when you need a laugh.
January 19, 2012
Some sections were funnier than others.
March 25, 2016
An above average humor collection. Only a few were real "laugh out loud" ones.
November 22, 2016
A very quick read. Sometimes humorous and sometimes not. An easy flip through. Nothing exceptional here, by any means.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews