The untold storybehind a revolution in American comedy

Labor Time, 1969. Two latest college graduates proceed to NewYork to edit a fresh magazine called theNational Lampoon. More than the next decade, Henry Beard and Doug Kenney,plus a loose amalgamation of fellow satirists such as Michael O’Donoghueand P. J. O’Rourke, popularized a smart, caustic, ironic brand of laughter thathas become the dominant voice of American comedy.

Ranging from sophisticated political satire to broadraunchy jokes, the about That’s Not Funny, That’s Sick and tired: The National Lampoon as well as the Comedy Insurgents Who Captured the Mainstream National Lampoonintroduced iconoclasm towards the mainstream, offering millions of copies to anaudience both large and committed. Its excursions into concert events, records, andradio helped form the anarchic earthiness of John Belushi, the suave slapstickof Chevy Chase, as well as the deadpan wit of Costs Murray and brought them togetherwith other talents such as Harold Ramis, Christopher Visitor, and Gilda Radner. Anew generation of humorists emerged from the crucible of the Lampoon tohelp create Saturday Night Live as well as the important film Animal Home,among many other notable comedy landmarks.

Journalist Ellin Stein, an observer from the scene because the early 1970s,draws on a wealth of uncovering firsthand interviews using the architects andimpresarios of this comedy explosion to provide crucial insight into a raucous culturaltransformation that still echoes today. Brimming with insider stories and setagainst the roiling political and cultural landscape of the 1970s, That’sNot Funny, That’s Sick will go behind the jokes to witness the battles, theparties, the collaborations-and the competition-among this fraternity of theself-consciously disenchanted. Decades later, their make of subversive humorthat provokes, offends, and often illuminates is really as relevant and required asever.