The Harvard Lampoon
Humor magazine | |
Circulation | 30,000 |
---|---|
Founded | February 1876 |
Based in | Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts, US |
Website | harvardlampoon |
The Harvard Lampoon is an
Overview
The Harvard Lampoon publication was founded in 1876 by seven undergraduates at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts who were inspired by popular magazines like Punch (1841) and Puck (1871).[1][2] The Harvard Lampoon is the world's third longest-running continually published humor magazine, after the Swedish Blandaren (1863) and the Swiss Nebelspalter (1875).
The organization also produces occasional humor books (the best known being the 1969 J. R. R. Tolkien parody Bored of the Rings) and parodies of national magazines such as Entertainment Weekly and Sports Illustrated. Much of the organization's capital is provided by the licensing of the "Lampoon" name to National Lampoon, begun by Harvard Lampoon graduates in 1970.[citation needed]
The Lampoon publishes five issues annually. In 2006, the Lampoon began regularly releasing content on its website, including pieces from the magazine and web-only content. In 2009, the Lampoon published a parody of Twilight called Nightlight, which is a New York Times bestseller.[3] In February 2012, the Lampoon released a parody of The Hunger Games called The Hunger Pains,[4] also a New York Times bestseller.[5]
The Lampoon is housed a few blocks from
History
The Harvard Lampoon was first published in 1876 by seven founders including
A Lampoon graduate from 1887, Archibald Cary Coolidge, professor of architecture at Harvard College, was chosen as the architect of Randolph Hall, one of the college's newest dormitories. Legend has it that when designing Randolph, Coolidge purposefully made the dormitory recessed further back from Mt. Auburn Street than was at first designed, purchasing for himself the land the Castle now stands on.[citation needed] The commission to design the castle was given to Edmund M. Wheelwright, then city architect of Boston.
The Lampoon and its sensibility began to branch out away from the Harvard campus in the early 1960s, and soon became an important expression of, and feeder system for, American humor and comedy.[citation needed] In 1961, Mademoiselle offered the Lampoon staff an honorarium to produce a parody of their own magazine for the traditionally lower-selling July issue. The project boosted Mademoiselle's summer circulation along with the Lampoon's ever tenuous cash flow, and the magazine renewed its association with the Lampoon for a follow-up parody in July 1962, and a third parody issue (of Esquire) in July 1963. The magazine also produced a 70-page spoof of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels in 1962 titled Alligator, which was subsequently released by Random House. These projects proved popular, and led to full, nationally-distributed parodies of Playboy (1966), Time (1968), and Life (1969), and later, Cosmopolitan in 1972 and Sports Illustrated (1974).
An important line of demarcation came when Lampoon editors and
Writers from these shows were subsequently hired to help create
Lampoon alumni include such comedians as Conan O'Brien, Andy Borowitz, B. J. Novak, Greg Daniels, Michael Schur, Christopher Cerf (Sesame Street), and Colin Jost. Etan Cohen wrote for Beavis and Butt-Head as an undergraduate member. In 1986 former editor Kurt Andersen co-founded the satirical magazine Spy, which employed Lampoon writers Paul Simms and Eric Kaplan, and published the work of Lampoon alumni Patricia Marx, Lawrence O'Donnell, Suchetas Bokil, and Mark O'Donnell. The Lampoon has also graduated many noted authors such as George Plimpton, George Santayana, John Updike, and William Gaddis. Actor Fred Gwynne was a cartoonist and president of the Lampoon. Famous Boston lawyer Bradley Palmer acted as treasurer for the Lampoon.
Celebrities often visit the Lampoon to be inducted as honorary members of the organization. Honorary members include Aerosmith, Winston Churchill, John Cleese, Bill Cosby, Billy Crystal, Tony Hawk, Hugh Hefner, Kesha, Jay Leno, Elon Musk, Ezra Pound, Adam Sandler, the cast of Saturday Night Live, Sarah Silverman, Tracey Ullman, Kurt Vonnegut, John Wayne and Robin Williams.
Rivalry with The Harvard Crimson
The Lampoon has a long-standing rivalry with Harvard's student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, which repeatedly refers to the Lampoon in its pages as a "semi-secret Sorrento Square social organization which used to occasionally publish a so-called humor magazine".[11][12]
The Lampoon–Crimson rivalry was furthered by the Crimson's 1953 theft of the Lampoon Castle's ibis statue and presentation of it as a gift to the government of the Soviet Union.[13][14]
On September 27, 2011, the Lampoon stole the Harvard Crimson President's Chair, and had it used as a prop on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.[15] On June 2, 2015, the Lampoon again stole the Harvard Crimson President's Chair; this time, pretending that it was the Harvard Crimson's editorial staff, they took the chair to Trump Tower to fake endorsement for later-president Donald Trump.[16]
Notable members
Publications
- Alligator (1962)
- Bored of the Rings (1969)
- The Hunger Pains (2012)
Gallery
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Masthead of the Harvard Lampoon
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Lampoon's Ibis Mascot c.1888
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Lampy posing in an image from an 1886 Lampoon
See also
References
- The Salina Journal. April 4, 1990. p. 24. Retrieved November 22, 2013.
- ^ Rosenwald, Michael (March 11, 2001). "The last laugh". Boston Globe Magazine. Retrieved May 17, 2019.
- ^ Schuessler, Jennifer (January 17, 2010). "Hardcover". The New York Times.
- ISBN 9781451668209. Retrieved May 17, 2019.
- ^ Cowles, Gregory (April 1, 2012). "Print & E-Books". The New York Times.
- ^ Schonberger, Nick (November 12, 2012). "The 10 Most Ridiculous Phallic Buildings". Complex. Retrieved May 17, 2019.
- ^ "The Founders. A.D. 1876". The Harvard lampoon fiftieth anniversary 1876–1926. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard lampoon. 1926.
- ^ Report – Harvard College (1780– ). Class of 1877. 1917. p. 338.
- ^ The American Pageant: A History of the Republic, Thirteenth edition. 2006.
- ISBN 978-1-55652-602-2.
- ^ Harvard Crimson, February 1, 2006
- ^ "Young Rich Lands Book Deal". thecrimson.com. Retrieved July 3, 2015.
- ^ "The Rhodes Roster". Harvard Magazine. March–April 2004. Retrieved October 11, 2013.
- ^ "'Dove of Peace' is 'Bird'; Harvard Crimson's Gift to Reds Ends Up as Campus Prank". The New York Times. April 22, 1953. p. 24. Retrieved May 17, 2019.
- ^ "Crimson President's Chair on Jimmy Fallon!". The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved September 28, 2011.
- ^ Zimmerman, Neetzan (August 3, 2015). "Harvard Lampoon tricks Trump with fake endorsement". The Hill. Retrieved December 29, 2017.
External links
- Official website
- Harvard Lampoon (1876–) at HathiTrust Digital Library
- Harvard Lampoon at Library of Congress, with 7 library catalog records – six as "(Organization)" and one as "(Cambridge, Massachusetts), author"