National Lampo on’s Last Laugh?

Over the past 15 years, three devotees of National Lampoon have attempted to restore the legendary comedy brand to its former glory. Two ended up in prison, and the third, Alan Donnes, has been grappling with lawsuits, debts, and the company’s devastated reputation. BENJAMIN WALLACE learns how the launchpad of John Belushi, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, and Harold Ramis— the DNA of modern humor—became a fun-house distortion of itself

BENJAMIN WALLACE

When Alan Donnes, the first of the last three leaders of National Lampoon not to be sentenced to prison, joined the company, five years ago, he discovered that it was a magnet for off-the-wall film pitches. One day, he took a call from a guy who knew a guy with $5 million and a script for “the perfect National Lampoon movie.” “It always scares me when they say, ‘It’s the perfect National Lampoon movie,’ ” Donnes said, sitting in his office at National Lampoon headquarters, in Los Angeles This one, called Monkey’s Paw, was about a kid who, after making a wish on a magical monkey’s paw he found in an archaeologist neighbor’s house, gets to have sex with the hottest girl in his high school. “But there’s no limit, because…

You're reading a preview of

Vanity Fair (Digital) - 1 Issue, May 2017

DiscountMags is a licensed distributor (not a publisher) of the above content and Publication through Zinio LLC. Accordingly, we have no editorial control over the Publications. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers or other information or content expressed or made available by third parties, including those made in Publications offered on our website, are those of the respective author(s) or publisher(s) and not of DiscountMags. DiscountMags does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, truthfulness, or usefulness of all or any portion of any publication or any services or offers made by third parties, nor will we be liable for any loss or damage caused by your reliance on information contained in any Publication, or your use of services offered, or your acceptance of any offers made through the Service or the Publications. For content removal requests, please contact Zinio.