The Lampoon

If only you could judge a book by its cover, the current edition of the Lampoon would be the most brilliant to come out in many years. How many good parodies of the Bayeux tapestry have you seen in the last millenium? David McClelland's cover brings the Norman invasion to Harvard and is much funnier than anything British advertisers produced in their summer-long camapign to sell Stout by making fun of the Battle of Hastings. If you see anyone laughing out loud at what's inside the Lampoon (and how often do you see that?), it is probably McClelland's doing, too. His narrated cartoons, smacking of Don Martin and Jules Feiffer, are irresistible. The uncanny thing is that he can make a page scream, grumble, or "throw away lines" at will.

The rest inside is a bit more predictable, The usual calculated whimsy, the trivia, the place names, are all back making their bids for laughs, (But I did meet a girl who was thrilled that the Lampoon Playboy parody had put Chagrin Falls, Ohio, on the map.) As for the worst offense -- well, the incomparable Max Beerbohm once wrote of W. S. Gilbert that his "one notion of humorous prose was to use as many long words and as many formal constructions as possible -- a most tedious trick, much practiced by other Mid-Victorian writers." Three Lampoon pieces are guilty on that count.

However, Tom LaFarge's articles are clever and sometimes touching. He has an eye for the incisive detail that can paint an instant picture--a "jade-rimmed pince-nez," an "ivory ping-pong table" -- but sometimes he starts cataloguing trivia. With sparser details and stronger endings, his stories will be gems. Conn Nugent's revelation that Harvard football victories depress the economy is off-beat and has an angle--the sort of amusing fact-twisting that the Yale Record is more inclined to do, but very welcome in the Lampoon.

Perhaps this Lampoon will go down as the one that began the format revolution. Rumor has it that the newly-introduced Table-of-Contents, which brings the contributors off of the musty mast-head, is only the first step in Lampoon president Walker Lewis' drive to reform the layout. McClelland is digging up new type-faces so that the 'Poon can send the stupifying Bodoni back to the Congressional Record. The new look includes photographs, and the full-page ones in this issue are of Harvard's beautiful people." They must have been taken either by W. Laney Thornton, the sole member of the Photographic Board, or by a Leica with a very dry sense of humor.

On balance, then, this is a very literate Lafpoon, and one with the same possibilities that the Ugly Duckling promised. But it is as unprovocative as it can be. If the good burghers of Bayeux ever see a copy, they may mutter a few "Sacre bleus," but who else could it provoke? Even the Lampoon's toothless progenitor, Punch, doesn't shy away from talking politics. Nor should the Lampoon, which never takes a stand, never catches you unawares, never makes you drop your jaw and the magazine at an outrageous line. In olden days, jesters felt obliged to insult monarchs. It is time that the Lampoon lived up to its cap and bells.