Review: 'Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon' Captures The irreverent Spirit Of A Comedy Institution

While it’s likely known now to younger generations as a brand that launched some classic ‘80s movies, once upon a time the savagely pointed satirical magazine National Lampoon was the voice of comedy in the United States. Founded by Harvard humorists Douglas Kenney and Henry Beard, the naughty and provocative creators of National Lampoon slid their sneaky fingers under the bra strap of culture gatekeepers, and after some heavy petting, rested it right on the pulse of the zeitgeist. Founded in the 1970s, as the flower power ideals curdled into the cynical and angry era of Watergate and Vietnam, National Lampoon’s establishment-challenging irreverence and taboo-breaking gallows humor mainlined right into the darker countercultural current. A product of their less-idealistic generation, these outsiders’ incisive wit, ballsy hilarity, and transgressive political, social, and sexual views arrived just when the nation was at its most desperate need for a laugh.

Eventually veering...