A Futile and Stupid Gesture: How Doug Kenney and National Lampoon Changed Comedy Forever Book

At the root of modern American comedy lies the corpse of Doug Kenney. Without him, there would have been no National Lampoon, no Animal House and no Caddyshack. NL alumni went on to populate Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons, Spinal Tap, SCTV, all of the John Hughes films, and many, many other pillars that hold up our comedy world, for better or worse.

This book captures Kenney's unusual genius and influence. A lifelong NL fan, I was shamefully unaware of Kenney's impact on my own sensibilities. I knew he'd written some funny things and was there at the genesis, but I was always drawn to the more colorful writers, editors and performers that flowed out of NL, including Hughes, Michael O'Donoghue, Anne Beatts, P.J. O'Rourke, Mike Reiss, Al Jean and the army of SNL cast members and movie stars. Kenney was the glue that held them all briefly together.

The book is unflinching about Kenney's flaws and those of my comedy heroes. It doesn't shy away from criticizing NL's fairly narrow worldview, either: Aside from Beatts and Shary Flenniken and some cartoonists, female influences were few and far between at NL, which often objectified women to sell magazines. POC were non-existent, meanwhile, except as fodder for some of the more reactionary comedy it ran circa 1979-80.

The book is exhaustively researched, and sometimes names, quotes and facts are awkwardly shoved into the narrative in a seeming effort to clean out Karp's notebook.

Still, if you love comedy and the history of comedy, it's worth a read -- and certainly better than the not-great Netflix movie they made of this.