 | |
| Editors | P. J. O'Rourke andDoug Kenney |
|---|---|
| Authors | P. J. O'Rourke,Doug Kenney,Sean Kelly,Christopher Cerf,Ed Subitzky |
| Cover artist | Vincent Aiosa |
| Language | English |
Release number | Vol. 1, No. 6 |
| Genre | Parody |
| Publisher | National Lampoon |
Publication date | 1973 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Pages | 176 |
| ISBN | 978-0930368357 |
National Lampoon 1964 High School Yearbook Parody is an American humor book that was first published in 1973. It was a spin-off fromNational Lampoon magazine. The book was a parody of a high schoolyearbook from the early 1960s.
The parody was edited byLampoon regularsP. J. O'Rourke andDouglas Kenney and art-directed byDavid Kaestle. Much of the writing was by O'Rourke and Kenney. (It was based on an earlierNational Lampoon two-page piece, "1956 High School Yearbook," by Kenney andMichael O'Donoghue.)[1] The "literary magazine" was written bySean Kelly; the sports page was byChristopher Cerf; and the Principal's Letter and the "In Memorium" piece were both written byEd Subitzky.
Time magazine cited theNational Lampoon 1964 High School Yearbook Parody as an example of "the best comic writing in the country," writing that "the book is so rich in social detail that it brings a whole fictional town, Dacron, Ohio, to life."[2] It "sold more than 2 million copies on the newsstands";[3] it was reissued in 2004.[3][4]
The book, as it was originally published, appeared to be a genuine 1964 yearbook from"C. Estes Kefauver High School": theKefauver Kaleidoscope. (SenatorEstes Kefauver ofTennessee was known for his campaigns againstpornography,[5]comic books,[6] andjuvenile delinquency;[7] he had died in 1963.) TheLampoon yearbook very closely mimics the style and content of actual yearbooks from the period, only deviating in subtle ways. (As O'Rourke said about putting the parody together, "We had a room full of yearbooks and we realized they were all alike.")[8]
The fictional Kefauver High School is located in "Dacron, Ohio" (a three-part reference toAkron,[a]Dayton,[8] and the inexpensive synthetic fabricDacron).[citation needed] The parody is closely based on Toledo, Ohio'sDeVilbiss High School (DHS) yearbook, called thePot O' Gold. (O'Rourke graduated from DHS in 1965.) As portrayed in theLampoon yearbook, the fictional Kefauver High School shares scores of characteristics with DeVilbiss, including the street address and the school colors. Those colors, the rainbow, influenced the names of both the real DeVilbiss yearbook and the fictional Kefauver one. The name of the Kefauver school newspaper,the Prism, and its motto are the same as those of DeVilbiss. The swim team photo caption contains the names of a number of O'Rourke's friends from DeVilbiss. There are also numerous references in theLampoon to West Toledo landmarks and locations.[9]
The publication also included a copy of the school newspaper, abasketball program, areport card, adiploma,detention slips, and a fakeID.
According to apparent inscriptions, the book belonged to "Larry Kroger", class of '64. Anachronistically, the character Larry Kroger is the college freshmanprotagonist (played byTom Hulce) of the comedy movieNational Lampoon's Animal House, released in 1978 (but set in 1962, two years before the parody yearbook). The character "Mandy Pepperidge" also makes her first appearance in the yearbook and reappears in the film, played byMary Louise Weller. Dean "Vernon Wormer", a P.E. and civics teacher as well as an athletic coach in the yearbook, is played byJohn Vernon inAnimal House.
Five years after the Yearbook parody, in 1978, the National Lampoon published theNational Lampoon Sunday Newspaper Parody, a fake Sunday newspaper which also claimed to originate in "Dacron, Ohio" but was contemporary, being dated Sunday, February 12, 1978.
The cover photo was taken by Vincent Aiosa. The credits list the cheerleaders on the cover as models Roberta Caplan, Celia Bau, and Laura Singer. The cover is a one-off gag, unrelated to any of the stories inside.
An early, shorter version of the same idea can be seen in the October 1970 (Nostalgia) issue.
Dacron was a mystery city in Ohio, a combination of Dayton and Akron.
