Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon

Age: 19+

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Featuring rare and never before seen footage, this is the mind boggling story of The National Lampoon from its subversive and electrifying beginnings, to rebirth as an unlikely Hollywood heavyweight, and beyond. A humour empire like no other, the impact of the magazines irreverent, often shocking, sensibility was nothing short of seismic: this is an institution whose (drunk stoned brilliant) alumni left their fingerprints all over popular culture. Both insanely great and breathtakingly innovative, The National Lampoon created the foundation of modern comic sensibility by setting the bar in comedy impossibly high.
There was a time, not so long ago, when an issue of National Lampoon was as commonplace on a Vancouver coffee table as a Gideon’s Bible was in a motel nightstand. Soon to follow were a hit radio show, comedy LPs and movies (including Animal House and Vacation).
Douglas Tirola’s documentary whisks us back to the 70s when a few overachieving college smartasses made good. In fact, to hear Judd Apatow tell it, “They became all of modern comedy.” Fuelled by weed and indignation, Douglas Kenney, Henry Beard and Rob Hoffman—along with publisher Marty Simmons—transformed a counterculture magazine into an empire and, through collaborations with Second City, launched the careers of John Belushi, Harold Ramis, Bill Murray and dozens of other luminaries.
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