Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead
A look at the history of the American comedy publication and production company, National Lampoon, from its beginning in the 1970s to 2010, featuring rare and never-before-seen footage.A look at the history of the American comedy publication and production company, National Lampoon, from its beginning in the 1970s to 2010, featuring rare and never-before-seen footage.A look at the history of the American comedy publication and production company, National Lampoon, from its beginning in the 1970s to 2010, featuring rare and never-before-seen footage.
- Awards
- 5 nominations
- Self
- (archive footage)
- …
- Self - Lampoon Staff
- (as Judith Jacklin Belushi)
- Self
- (archive footage)
- …
- Self - Lampoon Contributor
- (as Chris Cerf)
- Self
- (archive footage)
- …
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaComedians John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, Brian Doyle-Murray first gained attention as part of National Lampoon's stage and radio shows before gaining fame on Saturday Night Live. Michael O'Donoghue was a founder, writer, and editor for the National Lampoon magazine before becoming the first head writer of Saturday Night Live.
- Quotes
Henry Beard, Himself: It was like we had an attic full of culture that had been accumulating from 1945 to 1970. And we opened the trap door and nobody had been up there. And we just basically looted it!
- ConnectionsFeatures Lemmings (1973)
- SoundtracksThe Jean Genie
Written by David Bowie
Performed by David Bowie
Published by Tintoretto Music (BMI) administered by RZO Music, Inc., EMI Blackwood Music Inc. o/b/o EMI Music Publishing Ltd. (administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC.) and BMG Blue on behalf of Chrysalis Music Ltd.
Courtesy of RZO Music
As the documentary pointed out, the magazine grew from the Harvard Lampoon, a Harvard humour magazine that didn't reach a national audience. In the 1920s there were nationally published magazines that collected articles and cartoons from universities around the US: "College Humor" was probably the largest, and was published from 1920 to the 1940s. These college humor magazines were aimed at a young but mainstream audience.
It surprised me that Drunk Stone Brilliant Dead didn't mention Mad magazine. It was Mad. first published in 1952, that brought radical and subversive humour that poked fun at authority figures to a country wide audience. Without Mad, there probably wouldn't have been a National Lampoon. It also surprised me that the documentary made no mention of the Underground press and Underground comics of the 1960s. The art style of the first issues of the Lampoon looked very reminiscent of the style of Robert Crumb and other artists from Zap.
I didn't like National Lampoon very much in the 1970s. I read my older brother's issues. Even back then, I thought they were indulging in printing pictures of naked girls and making jokes about drugs and sex simply for the sake of it. They didn't have the force of the Underground comics, which were breaking ground in discussing subjects that before then couldn't be mentioned, and were using the archaic spirit of Mad to take apart the establishment and cultural heritage of the era. I remember the issue of National Lampoon that printed a spoof of Mad, taunting that Mad was stuffy, middle aged, and had long forgotten the meaning of satire. I thought that while Mad didn't print cartoons of naked women and guys smoking pot and snorting coke, it still featured strips that aptly commented on society: strips that have been reprinted and discussed in many studies about US history and the growth of graphic novels.
I thought while I was watching the documentary that National Lampoon branched out very quickly into other media and became a brand: while Saturday Night Live wasn't officially associated with National Lampoon the show clearly stole their talent and their style of satire. I think the magazine pulled its punches keeping an eye on their advertising revenue and growing empire. I'm not saying it wasn't funny- I thought the record albums and movies were funny- but I think the humour of the magazine was aimed at pleasing its creators and audience of liked minded readers, rather than exposing the darker aspects of its targets. The publisher of Mad, William M Gaines, didn't allow advertising in the magazine because he said a satire magazine couldn't make fun of an advertising campaign and then print an ad a few pages later for the same product or a similar product. He also saw it as a practical issue, saying that the magazine would then try to attract more advertisers, and if it started losing some of its advertisers and the advertising income, the readers would still expect the same fancy package, but without the advertising income to pay for the higher production costs, the magazine was sunk. Which it seems, along with loss of readership, was what ultimately happened to National Lampoon.
- clivy
- Jan 13, 2017
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Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official sites
- Language
- Also known as
- Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $62,660
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $5,254
- Sep 27, 2015
- Gross worldwide
- $62,660
- Runtime1 hour 38 minutes
- Color