National Lampoon was started by Harvard graduates and Harvard Lampoon alumni Douglas Kenney, Henry Beard and Robert Hoffman in 1969, when they licensed the "Lampoon" name for a monthly national publication. The magazine's first issue was dated April 1970.

After a shaky start, the magazine very rapidly grew in popularity. It regularly skewered pop culture, the counterculture and politics with recklessness and gleeful bad taste. Like the Harvard Lampoon, individual issues were often devoted to a particular theme such as "The Future", "Back to School", "Death", "Self-Indulgence", or "Blight". The magazine regularly reprinted material in "best-of" omnibus collections.

The magazine took aim at every kind of phoniness, and had no specific political stance, even though individual staff members had strong political views.

Cover art

National Lampoon became infamous for its often acerbic and humorous magazine covers. The original art directors were cartoonist Peter Bramley and Bill Skurski, founders of New York's Cloud Studio, an alternative-culture studio well known for its eclectic style that combined an interest in comics and theater with commercial art and illustration. Bramley created the magazine's first cover and introduced cartoonists Arnold Roth and Gahan Wilson to the magazine's audience.Some notable cover images include:

• Court-martialed Vietnam War mass-murderer William Calley sporting the guileless grin of Alfred E. Neuman, complete with the parody catchphrase 'What, My Lai?" (August 1971);
• The iconic image of Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara being splattered with a cream pie (January 1972).
• A dog looking worriedly at a revolver pressed to its head, with the famous caption "If You Don't Buy This Magazine, We'll Kill This Dog" (January 1973). The cover was art directed by Michael Gross and was selected as the seventh-greatest magazine cover of the last 40 years. ASME Unveils Top 40 Magazine Covers ASME's Top 40 Magazine Covers of the Last 40 Years This issue is the most coveted and collectible of all the National Lampoon's issues.
• A replica of the starving child from the cover of George Harrison's charity album The Concert for Bangla Desh, rendered in chocolate and with a large bite taken out of its head.

• The "3D Issue", which depicted blind musician Stevie Wonder wearing a pair of anaglyphic (red-blue) 3D glasses.

Staff

The magazine produced and fostered some notable writing and comic talents, including (but by no means limited to) Kenney, Beard, Chris Miller, P. J. O'Rourke, Michael O'Donoghue, Chris Rush, Sean Kelly, Tony Hendra and John Hughes.

Many important cartoonists, photographers and illustrators appeared in the magazine's pages, including Neal Adams, Gahan Wilson, Michael Sullivan, Ron Barrett, Peter Bramley, Vaughn Bode, Bruce McCall, Rick Meyerowitz, M.K. Brown, Shary Flenniken, Bobby London, Edward Gorey, Jeff Jones, Joe Orlando, Arnold Roth, Rich Grote, Ed Subitzky, Mara McAfee, Sam Gross, Charles Rodriquez, Buddy Hickerson, B.K. Taylor, Bernie Lettick, Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallejo, Marvin Mattelson, Stan Mack, Chris Callis, John Barrett and Raymond Kursar.

Comedy actors John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner and Bill Murray first gained national attention for their performances in the National Lampoon's stage show and radio show, and subsequently went on to become part of Saturday Night Live's original wave of Not Ready For Primetime Players.

Michael C. Gross art directed the magazine from 1970-1974, followed by Peter Kleinman (1974-1987). (The first five issues of the magazine had been art directed by Peter Bramley and Bill Skurski.) The business side of the magazine was controlled by Matty Simmons, who was Chairman of the Board and CEO of 21st Century Communications, a publishing company.

Circulation peak 1973-1975

National Lampoon's commercial heyday was roughly 1973-75. Its national circulation peaked at 1,000,096 copies sold of the October 1974 "Pubescence" issue. The Lampoon's 1974 monthly average was 830,000, which was also a peak. Former Lampoon editor Tony Hendra's book Going Too Far includes a series of precise circulation figures.

The magazine was considered by many to be at its creative zenith during this time, but it should also be noted that the publishing industry's newsstand sales were excellent for many titles. The Lampoon's circulation height coincided with the historic sales peaks for other magazines such as Mad (more than 2 million), Playboy (more than 7 million), and TV Guide (more than 19 million).

1975 changes

Some fans consider the glory days of National Lampoon magazine to have ended in 1975, when the three founders (Kenney, Beard and Hoffman) took advantage of a buyout clause in their contracts for $7.5 million. At about the same time, some of the magazine's contributors left to join the NBC comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL), notably O'Donoghue and Anne Beatts.

Despite this change, the magazine still made money and it continued to be produced on a monthly schedule throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. However, from the mid 1980s on, the magazine was on an increasingly shaky financial footing. Beginning in November 1986, the magazine was published only every other month.

Later years, and eventual demise

In 1989, the magazine was acquired in a hostile takeover by a business partnership headed by actor Tim Matheson (who played "Otter" in the 1978 film National Lampoon's Animal House). Matheson instituted a policy banning frontal nudity in the magazine, which had become an overused staple of the magazine's content.

However in 1991, after only two years, Matheson was forced to sell, in order to avoid bankruptcy due to mounting debts. The magazine (and more importantly the rights to the brand name "National Lampoon") were bought by a company called J2 Communications, headed by James P. Jimirro. (J2 was previously known for marketing Tim Conway's "Dorf" videos.)

J2 Communications' focus was to make money by licensing out the brand name "National Lampoon". The company was contractually obliged to publish at least one new issue of the magazine per year in order to retain the rights to the Lampoon name. However, the company had very little interest in the magazine itself, and thus throughout the 1990s the number of issues per year declined precipitously and erratically. In 1991 there was an attempt at monthly publication; nine issues were produced that year. Only two issues were released in 1992. This was followed by one issue in 1993, five in 1994, and three in 1995. For the last three years of its existence, the magazine was published only once annually.

The magazine's final print publication was November 1998, after which the contract was renegotiated, and in a sharp reversal J2 Communications was then prohibited from publishing issues of the magazine. J2, however, still owned the rights to the brand name, which it continued to franchise out to other users. In 2002 J2 Communications was purchased by a group of investors led by businessman Dan Laikin, and was subsequently renamed National Lampoon Inc.

The magazine spun off successes in a variety of media:

Books

Numerous books, special issues, anthologies, etc, including: [1]

• The Best of National Lampoon No. 1, 1971, an anthology

• The Breast of National Lampoon (a "best of" No. 2), 1972, an anthology

• Would You Buy a Used War from This Man?, 1972, edited by Henry Beard

• The Best of National Lampoon No. 3, 1973, an anthology

• The National Lampoon Encyclopedia of Humor, 1973, edited by Michael O'Donoghue

• Letters from the Editors of National Lampoon, 1973, edited by Brian McConnachie

• The Best of National Lampoon No. 4, 1973, an anthology

• National Lampoon Comics, an anthology, 1974

• The Best of National Lampoon No. 5, 1974, an anthology

• National Lampoon 1964 High School Yearbook Parody, 1974, Edited by P.J. O'Rourke and Doug Kenney

• This Side of Parodies, 1974, edited by Brian McConnachie and Sean Kelly

• The National Lampoon Encyclopedia of Humor, 1973, edited by Michael O'Donoghue

• The Job of Sex, 1974, edited by Brian McConnachie

• The Very Large Book of Comical Funnies, 1975, edited by Sean Kelly

• National Lampoon Art Poster Book, 1975

• Official National Lampoon Bicentennial Calendar 1976, 1975, written and compiled by Christopher Cerf & Bill Effros

• National Lampoon The Gentleman's Bathroom Companion, 1975

• National Lampoon Art Poster Book, 1975

• The 199th Birthday Book, 1975, edited by Tony Hendra

• The Best of National Lampoon No. 6, 1976, an anthology

• National Lampoon Songbook, 1976, edited by Sean Kelly, musical parodies in sheet music form

• The Naked and the Nude, 1977, written by Brian McConnachie

• The Best of National Lampoon No. 7, 1977, an anthology

• National Lampoon Gentleman's Bathroom Companion 2, 1977

• National Lampoon The Book Of Books, 1977 edited by Jeff Greenfield

• The Best of National Lampoon No. 8, 1978, an anthology

• National Lampoon's Sunday Newspaper Parody, 1978 (claiming to be a Sunday issue of the Dacron, Ohio (a spoof on Akron, Ohio Republican-Democrat, this publication was originally issued in loose newsprint sections, exactly like a regular American Sunday newspaper.)

• National Lampoon Tenth Anniversary Anthology, 1979

• National Lampoon's Doon, 1984

Recordings

Vinyl record albums (also issued on cassette tape) including:

• National Lampoon Radio Dinner, 1972, produced by Tony Hendra

• Lemmings, 1973, an album of material taken from the stage show, and produced by Tony Hendra

• The Missing White House Tapes, 1974, an album taken from the radio show, creative directors Tony Hendra and Sean Kelly

• Official National Lampoon Stereo Test and Demonstration Record, 1974, conceived and written by Ed Subitzky

• National Lampoon Gold Turkey, 1975, creative director Brian McConnachie

• Goodbye Pop 1952-1976, 1975, creative director Sean Kelly

• That's Not Funny, That's Sick!, 1977

• Greatest Hits of the National Lampoon, 1978

• National Lampoon's White Album, 1979

• National Lampoon Sex, Drugs, Rock 'N' Roll & the End of the World, 1982

CDs:

• A CD boxed set Gold Turkey 1996, recordings from The National Lampoon Radio Hour, was released by Rhino Records in 1996.

• A CD boxed set The Best of the National Lampoon Radio Hour was released in 1996.

Vinyl record single:

• A snide parody of Les Crane's 1971 hit "Desiderata" written by Tony Hendra was recorded and released as "Deteriorata", and stayed on the lower reaches of the Billboard magazine charts for a month in late 1972. Deteriorata became one of National Lampoon's best-selling posters.

• The gallumphing theme to Animal House rose slightly higher and charted slightly longer in December 1978.

Radio

• The National Lampoon Radio Hour, a nationally syndicated radio comedy show which was on the air weekly from 1973 to 1974. For a complete listing of shows, see.

Theater

• Lemmings (1973) was National Lampoon's most successful theatrical venture. The off-Broadway production took the form of a parody of the Woodstock Festival. Co-written by Tony Hendra and Sean Kelly, and directed and produced by Hendra, it introduced John Belushi, Chevy Chase and Christopher Guest in their first major roles. The show formed several companies and ran for a year at New York's Village Gate.
• National Lampoon's Class of '86: This show was performed at the Village Gate in 1986, aired on cable in the 80's, and is now available on VHS. It was a sketch-based satire of 1980's culture, told against a frame story of two characters named Galahad and Dewdrop, hippies who had taken LSD in 1969, fallen into a deep sleep and then woken up 17 years later, in 1986. The sketches in the show lampooned yuppie culture, health food, the Reagan Administration, airplane hijackings and psychotherapy.

There is considerable ambiguity about what actually constitutes a "National Lampoon" film.

During the 1970s and early 1980s, a few films were made as spin-offs from the original National Lampoon magazine, using its creative staff. The first and by far the most successful National Lampoon film was National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). Starring John Belushi and written by Doug Kenney, Harold Ramis and Chris Miller, it became the highest grossing comedy film of all time. Produced on a low budget, it was so enormously profitable that the name "National Lampoon" applied to the title of a movie was considered to be a valuable selling point in and of itself. Numerous movies were subsequently made that had "National Lampoon" as part of the title, with many being made after the name "National Lampoon" could simply be licensed on a one-time basis, by any company, for a fee.

The first of the "National Lampoon" movies was a not very successful made-for-TV movie called Disco Beaver from Outer Space, broadcast in 1978.

National Lampoon's Animal House

This 1982 movie was an attempt by John Hughes to make something similar to Animal House. National Lampoon's Class Reunion was not successful however.

National Lampoon's Vacation