National Lampoon, May 1978

National Lampoon, May 1978

Ahh, Spring is here, and with it, the May, 1978 issue of National Lampoon.

This is a pretty good issue, perhaps as a result of P. J. O'Rourke taking over the duties of Editor.

The advertising includes the latest album from Paul McCartney and Wings, and an album from the comedy duo of Proctor and Bergman. The Proctor and Bergman album is available at YouTube. It's New York City, Jewish, satirical humor. I can't say I'm impressed, but that's how it was, back in '78........

There is a satirical take on the 'Nancy Drew' stories:

'The Appletons' now is running in the magazine and would stay with the Lampoon till its end in 1990. May, 1978 saw a three-page color version of the comic.

'Foto Funnies' delivers some stoner humor.

An advertising parody takes aim at getting a child through mail-order.

Shary Flenniken's 'Trots and Bonnie' strip is a jocular look at strange noises in the night.

Also delivering some good laughs is 'Spritz Family Rubenstein', by John Weidman, with art by Val Mayerik. Even if you're not Jewish, it's going to draw some smiles. 

(Although......... the color printing register for this comic was off, quite a bit. Back in '78, the Lampoon rarely used full process color for its comics pages, and relied on traditional CMYK printing. If the acetate sheets weren't carefully aligned with one another, the final print could be.......fuzzy.)

And we'll close with....... some oddball signs. For some reason the Lampoon editorial staff really liked this feature, and ran it continuously. Getting these images in the first place relied on readers sending in prints of candid photographs they took with their Polaroids or Kodaks. That's how it was done back in '78, long before smartphones, and their integrated cameras, even existed.

There you have it, Springtime humor from long, long ago........