National Lampoon: Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead (2015)
Unrated
Directed by Douglas Tirola
The Story:
The rise and fall of the National Lampoon magazine, and the impact that magazine had on American pop culture.
Ooo.
That's actually rather profound, and also quite true.
What started out as a satirical magazine that poked holes in the establishment in the late 60s/early 70s, grew into an influential comedy machine in the mid to late 70s that established much of the humor that continues in movies and television today.
The brainchild of Doug Kenney, Henry Beard and Robert Hoffman, they created a little magazine that started slowly and then slowly built into a sales juggernaut. Parody and satire were the name of the game, and they enlisted a slew of talented writers to make the pages of the magazine must read material.
It proved so popular, they started a radio show and brought in even more comedic talent to make their skits take life. The majority of the original cast of Saturday Night Live passed through National Lampoon on their way to bigger things. Many from Lampoon were targeted by NBC to help create Saturday Night Live.
Then came the movies.
Animal House & Vacation.
So too could Caddyshack be added to the mix, as it was Lampoon in every way except billing.
While nearly everything else to bear the label of National Lampoon has been of variable quality, those two were the gold standards which made all of the others seem pale in comparison.
If it's any consolation, most movies that came after Vacation often licensed the National Lampoon name for an attempt to cash in with a built in audience.
So, while it wasn't National Lampoon being less funny, it was them being increasingly greedy. :)
The documentary does an excellent job of talking to just about everyone that was there and is still around and it's filled with lots of archival footage of the stage shows, radio shows, magazine and movie clips.
A very enjoyable documentary that is well worth your time.
Final Grade: B+
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