Thursday, January 02, 2020

BOOK REVIEW! NATIONAL LAMPOON PRESENTS CARTOONS EVEN WE WOULDN'T DARE PRINT (National Lampoon, 1984)

I don't quite buy that 1984 date o' publication since I remember reading this one at the book store as early as, say, 1977. I should know because the mid/late-seventies were the prime years of my book store and mag rack reading days and I fondly remember pouring through those old NATIONAL LAMPOON collections and laffing my pitted fat ass off before some polite yet stern bitch would come up to me and ask me to leave the store. Yeah, I coulda swatted the gal real good but I just left because well...those evil stares she and the other employees were aimin' at me did shoot the creeps down my spine and it still is fun thinking about all the fun I coulda had murdering 'em! But like eh, that was soooooo long ago.

Ah yeah...memories of reading those NATIONAL LAMPOON books which featured alla that bad taste humor that I couldn't get enough of whether it be via the original SNL or MONTY PYTHON (Sat. PM's were boffo with PYTHON immediately followed by SNL providing more laffs per jam-packed minute than the entire run of VICTORY AT SEA ever did.) An' as far as getting down to the nitty gritty of high-falutin' seventies-era comedy went those NATIONAL LAMPOON cartoons were the best if only because for once in our lives, the RIGHT people and ideas that make up this universe of ours were being offended! Believe me, nothing has made me laugh like this since the BIG HELEN KELLER JOKE EXPLOSION OF THE MID-SEVENTIES, and that's really sayin' something good!

These turdbits are just a nice li'l sample of the comedic madness that went on throughout the seventies making for loads of emotional release almost but not quite as good as...well, you lonely guys still know what I'm talkin' about what with Miss Palm and her Five Sisters, right Brad?

Frankly I don't think some of these cartoons are anything as out of the NATIONAL LAMPOON-standard ordinary, since that mag really could go overboard inna disgust department when it put its mind to it. Fortunately most of 'em do, and I'm sure glad about it. After all, in these days of rigid puritanicalism these funnies mean all the more to beyond-reactionary loathers of post-modernity such as I (and perhaps you unless you tuned into this blog expecting the usual hearts and flowers so popular these days) and it sure is good seeing the right people get them apples, and they sure are GREEN this time, eh?
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This is offensive and no-holds-barred, with subjects such as homos, fisting, hemorrhoids, cannibalism, erections, necrophilia, castration, blind people, poop, amputations and other things that will at least bring a warmth to your inner child like nothing since REBECCA OF FANCY LEATHER GOODS FARMS. Nothing about genital warts, but maybe those popped up elsewhere (the comics, not the warts!). And with artists like Charles Rodrigues, Sam Gross, some guy called Caldwell and others outta the book o' comical vomit  doin' the art you're getting bad taste comedy of a seventies variety at its bad tastiest!

And the best part is you will like it because it will piss off the people in your life you absolutely LOATHE... and in my life there are sure plenty of these people around!

You'll laugh like nothing since the old lady fell down the stairs. Don't blame me, that's a Don Fellman line and if anyone should know about old ladies falling down stairs it's Don Fellman. Don't let that scare you off, this'll gag ya!

Oh yeah, I was wondering about the more recent copyright date on this so I decided to read the opening schpiel courtesy of longtime NATIONAL LAMPOON writer or something like that Sean Kelly and says that this indeed is a second edition. Well, that does answer a few questions about this 'un since I did espy a CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND reference (that was from  '78 or something like that, right?) plus I noticed the omission of a few cartoon I clearly remember from the original, one where Mary gives birth to twins, one who looks like a baby Yassir Arafat and the other Moshe Dayan and another featuring one of those Gross Gingerbread Men icing a cake with his own ejaculation. Don Fellman often tells me about his "false" memories of things that transpired via tee-vee or real life for that matter and how the real thing (or "supposed" real thing) just doesn't match up. The same thing has happened to me what with old tee-vee shows or whatnot which seemed to high-larious when first seen ages back not matching up to the old memories. Sheesh Don, can we trade minds by any chance? Your false memories seem a whole lot funnier'n mine!

3 comments:

MoeLarryAndJesus said...

Another good one the Lampoon guys did was "Hitler's Favorite Cartoons."

Anonymous said...

B-l-e-c-h...

Anonymous said...

(((Schlomo Stiggenstein))) sez, "Plz, goyim, more shekels. Buy back issues of my 'zine. The merchant iz unly heppy when he's drowning in shekels."