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

by Josh Karp Narrated by Chris Lutkin

Overview

This ultimate biography of National Lampoon and its cofounder Doug Kenney offers the first complete history of the immensely popular magazine and its brilliant and eccentric characters. Relying on wonderful stories about the comedy scene in New York City in the 1970s and National Lampoon's place at the center of it, author Josh Karp chronicles how the magazine spawned a popular radio show and two long-running theatrical productions that helped launch the careers of John Belushi, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, and Gilda Radner and that went on to inspire Saturday Night Live. That history along with interviews conducted with more than 130 people connected to Kenney and the magazine-including Chevy Chase, John Hughes, P. J. O'Rourke, Tony Hendra, Sean Kelly, Chris Miller, and Bruce McCall-and behind-the-scenes stories about the making of Animal House and Caddyshack help to capture the nostalgia, humor, and popular culture that National Lampoon still inspires.

Editorial Reviews

Booklist

"Karp's account of Kenney's death is as moving as the excerpts from excellent NL articles are hilarious."

American Way

"Karp makes a persuasive case for Kenney to be considered among the key architects of post-World War II humor."

Virginia Heffernan

Plenty of goateed comedy writers, Harvard Lampoon veterans and Hollywood people in Brioni suits still mist up at the memory of Kenney, the raffish humor whiz who helped start National Lampoon in 1970, helped write "Animal House" and "Caddyshack" and then fell or jumped off a cliff in Hawaii in 1980. He definitely had one blowout decade. But from his parodies and japes, which have dated unevenly, as well as his life's erratic plot points, it's hard to get exactly why people thought he was so cool. Even A Futile and Stupid Gesture, Josh Karp's painstaking argument for his supergenius, doesn't close the case.
—The New York Times

The Capital Times

A story that sheds welcome light on some of the funniest material of our age.

Steve Goddard's History Wire

Filled with anecdotes that will send tears streaming down the readers' cheeks.

Richard Roeper

The definitive profile of Kenney's brilliant comic mind and his too-short life.
— Chicago Sun-Times

The New York Times

Jammed with personalities and capsule histories.

From the Publisher

"Fun, fast, and furious." —Library Journal



"Jammed with personalities and capsule histories." —The New York Times



"Josh Karp has informed us well about one of the funniest and innovative humorists of the last century. Doug Kenny was a great friend of mine and it is a good read." —Chevy Chase, actor, Caddyshack



"Josh Karp achieves the unthinkable—he's written an essential American excavation of comedy that is, of itself, very, very, very, very, very, very funny. Doug Kenney would be extremely proud and humbled, if he weren't dead." —Bill Zehme, author, Lost in the Funhouse: The Life and Mind of Andy Kaufman



"The definitive profile of Kenney's brilliant comic mind and his too-short life." —Richard Roeper, film critic, Chicago Sun-Times



"The sharpest analysis yet of how success, self-doubt and drugs led one of his generation’s wittiest minds down a blind path." —Philadelphia Citypaper



"A must-read for the curious, comedy aficionados, and subversively shy teenagers everywhere." —Mark McKinney, actor, Kids in the Hall



"[This] is the definitive behind-the-scenes account of the man and publication that all but defined the comedy zeitgeist of the last 35 years." —Rob Siegel, former editor, The Onion

Product Details

BN ID:	2940175605991
Publisher:	Dreamscape Media
Publication date:	10/03/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged

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