Matty Simmons, the ousted chairman and founding father-figure of National Lampoon, has the corner office in his personal history of its first two twisted decades of reinventing American humor. The National Lampoon is the closest thing the Baby Boom has to an institution for its sense of humor, having produced, under Simmons, some of the most tasteless and hilarious writing, theater revues, radio shows, and movies. Its multitalented, multimedia alumni continue to make jokes—the book's cast of characters reads like Michael Ovitz's Rolodex. Simmons's ``first professional relationship with the joke,'' however, was writing gags for Walter Winchell; his other magazine accomplishment was starting up Weight Watchers. Despite this incongruous background, in 1969 Simmons agreed to provide the publishing expertise and front money for a national humor magazine produced by two Harvard (Lampoon) graduates, Henry Beard and Doug Kenney, who were ready for national exposure with their say-anything-if-it's-funny brand of humor. In his book Simmons covers National Lampoon's turbulent editorial periods of fluctuating staff and private vendettas, its haphazard film projects (e.g. Jaws 3People 0, starring Bo Derek, directed by Joe Dante, and reportedly killed by Steven Spielberg), its recurrent controversy—from libel suits by Walt Disney and Liza Minnelli to advertising and newsstand boycotts spurred by guardians of public morality—and finally its disastrous takeover in the late '80s by a group led by one of the actors from Animal House. But Simmons's chronicle relies too often on oddly mundane showbiz anecdotes and shaggy dog stories, as if there were a generation gap in his sense of humor. Simmons does not rise to the numerous occasions for satire and sick jokes, though the Lampoon's history is as warped and blackly comic as any of its creations.
Pub Date: April 29, 1994
ISBN: 1-56980-002-2
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Barricade
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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