Book Review: If You Don't Buy this Book, We'll Kill this Dog

Book Review: 'If You Don't Buy this Book, We'll Kill this Dog' 

Life, Laughs, Love, and Death at National Lampoon

by Matty Simmons

5 / 5 Stars

'If You Don't Buy this Book, We'll Kill this Dog: Life, Laughs, Love and Death at the National Lampoon' (335 pp.) was published by Barricade Books in 1994. It's one of seven books authored by Matty Simmons; others include The Diner's Club Drink Book (1961), The Credit Card Catastrophe: The 20th Century Phenomenon That Changed the World (1995), and Fat Drunk and Stupid: The Making of Animal House (2012).

Simmons was born in Brooklyn on October 3, 1926 (he died of covid-19 at age 93 on April 29, 2020). His father was the owner of the Flatbush Sign Company. Simmons worked as a copyboy for the New York Telegram, and later, as a reporter, prior to being drafted. He spent his service time in the U.S. Army at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, where he produced shows for the troops and contributed to the Fort's newspaper. Upon his discharge in 1946 he embarked on a career as a publicist for New York City restaurants and clubs. During this time he met Leonard Mogel, a salesman for a printing company.  

In 1950, as he relates in The Credit Card Catastrophe, the 23 year-old Simmons's public relations work brought him to the attention of Fran McNamara and Ralph Schneider, two businessmen who were interested in starting a credit card designed to be used by corporate employees for business lunches and dinners. 

McNamara and Schneider called their endeavor the ‘Diners Club’. Initially reluctant to get involved in what he saw as an unlikely business model, Simmons eventually joined McNamara and Schneider and handled marketing and promotion for the Diners Club. Simmons brought Mogel aboard and the two supervised a house magazine, called Signature: The Diners Club Magazine, which was very successful. 

In 1967 Diners Club was bought by a large insurance firm and Simmons and Mogel decided to quit and start their own magazine publishing endeavor, called Twenty-First Century Communications. After Simmons met with Weight Watchers chairman Al Lippert, they entered into an agreement to publish Weight Watchers magazine. The first issue, published in 1968, sold 300,000 copies; by the early 70s, circulation reached one million.

Simmons and Mogel were looking for more hip, cutting-edge outlets for Twenty-First Century. In 1968, Simmons's friend, the publishing magnate Harold Chamberlain, called to tell him that some 'kids' from the Harvard Lampoon were looking to published a humor magazine. Simmons subsequently sat down with three recent Harvard grads: Doug Kenney, Henry Beard, and Robert Hoffman. 

After some tough negotiations and an agreement to buy the three out after five years (a decision which Simmons later would regret) he agreed to team up with the Harvard grads to issue a new magazine, called National Lampoon. The first issue, released in April 1970, didn't set the world on fire, but by the end of the year, the magazine was on its way to becoming a pop culture icon.

'If You Don't Buy this Book, We'll Kill this Dog' covers Simmons's years with the magazine from its inauguration in 1970 through 1991, when, having been purchased by James P. Jimirro of 'J2 Communications', it went into a steep decline, and then, sadly, extinction. 

The book is filled with anecdotes and narratives about the staff of the magazine, some of whom, such as Doug Kenney, were brilliant, but deeply troubled. The book also has quite a few insights into the magazine publishing business as it was conducted in the 70s and 80s, as well as some trenchant observations about the movie business (these derived from Simmons's productions of Animal House, and the Lampoon's Vacation films). 

The closing chapters can't help but take on a depressing note as Simmons struggled, and succeeded, in turning around the fortunes of the magazine in the mid-80s, only to see his efforts ultimately undone when the team of Dan Grodnik and Tim Matheson (who played 'Otter' in Animal House) took over the Lampoon with the assistance of David Batchelder. Grodnik and Matheson had no experience in running a company, let alone a magazine, and when Batchelder's support turned out to be more in the line of moral support rather than dollar support, the Lampoon took a downward turn that it never has recovered from.

Simmons only devotes a couple of pages in all to Heavy Metal magazine, which in its early days was edited by former Lampoon staffer Sean Kelly before Simmons made his daughter Julie Simmons editor. 

The business side of Heavy Metal was more or less run by Leonard Mogel, and Simmons notes that even when the Lampoon was not doing well financially, Heavy Metal was profitable. It even thrived during the hapless management of Grodnik and Matheson, and only was sold - to Kevin Eastman in 1992 - because James P. Jimirro and J2 Communications were desperate for cash.

Summing up, 'If You Don't Buy this Book, We'll Kill this Dog: Life, Laughs, Love and Death at the National Lampoon' is an entertaining read, particularly for Baby Boomers, and those with nostalgia for the 70s and 80s and the media and movies of that era. Accordingly, I give it a '5 Star' rating.