Oh the Horror, or Die Pumpkin Spice and slutty costumes

There’s a slight dip in temperature here in the south. Leaves are turning brown, because let’s face it foliage around here is either green or dead, and that dreaded pumpkin spice is every-fucking-where from coffee to corn flakes. Technically we are just under two weeks from the first day of fall, but let’s call it fall anyway.  For those of us not enamored with cinnamon, clove, nutmeg and dead leaves, this change in the seasons means two things. Football and Halloween. The Alabama Crimson Tide are sitting at 2-0 heading into Oxford, Mississippi to play my wife’s alma mater (also 2-0) The University of Mississippi Campus is wrapped up in Bama Hate Week. There were chants during a victory versus Southern. Illinois University (to whom they gave up 40-plus points), and posts over all social media networks of “We want Bama,” but that suspect defense tells me one thing. You Rebs, Bears, sharks, whatevers really don’t WANT BAMA. Saban and his staff and installed a much more pass-happy offense than what the Tide have run in years past, and still play defense well enough they could have beaten several NFL teams this week. I’ll say it now. This game won’t be close. There will be no tearing down the goal posts. The grove will go silent, and you will go home with your first loss feeling much more mortal than you have after the past two games. As for the NFL, I hope the Falcons don’t play the Eagles again. They seem to be inside Julio Jones’ head, and this is coming from a Falcons fan. I am left wondering where this new high-octane offense the announcers were touting during pregame shows and the Thursday night game. Calvin Ridley had zero catches, Dovanta Freeman was barely on the field, and the team looked worse than when Bobby Petrino was the head coach. I wasn’t a fan of Steve Sarkisian when he ran the Tide Offense during the National Championship game two years ago, and I’m certainly not now.  OK. I promise thats all my sports talk. Let’s take a trip down the Halloween Aisle at your local big box store, buy a shitload of candy we’ll eat before the first trick or treater rings the door bell and dive right into what Halloween is for most of us as adults- horror movies. (Those that don’t use it as an opportunity to let their inner slut come out for a night of drunk partying anyway.) During the month of October, on The Heavyweight Chumps Podcast (available on iTunes, GooglePlay, Stitcher and SoundCloud) we will welcome back some of our favorite guests during out regular Thursday episodes to discuss different franchises each week with a bonus episode looking at the place of comedic-horror in the genre.  One our list are Wrong Turn, Critters, A Nightmare of Elm Street, and The Purge.  Don’t freak out that Nightmare is the only highly regarded franchise on the list. We have a past episode deep diving Friday the 13th in our archives, and Halloween was intentionally left off because of the new film opening October 19. We are looking forward to that film as much or more than many of you and do not wish to risk spoiling it, even accidentally.  As for the franchises that did make the list, they were chosen by the guests as films they wanted to discuss. It doesn’t hurt that some of those cheesy Critters and Wrong Turn sequels are just plain fun.  Be sure to follow us www.facebook.com/heavyweightchumps, or on Instagram, Twitter and Tumblr @madfatloud for guest updates and poll questions.  We also want to take a moment to thank Chef Steph Cook of Rawk n Grub in Memphis, Tennessee for his recent hospitality and the creation of the Fat Bottom Chump burger in our honor and Betsy Butler of Bits n Bites with Bets on YouTube for The Fat Ass Cookie she created for the event. You guys go check them out and tell ‘em The Heavyweight Chumps Sent YA.  I’m going to train now so I can maintain my girlish figure by doing 12 oz curls. Until next time, eat, drink and listen to THE HEAVYWEIGHT CHUMPS PODCAST.

What would Doug Kenney Do?

I find myself thinking these days whether or not there is a need for printed satire and/or comedy in forms like it was presented during my childhood. 

Perhaps this thought was brought on by watching the brilliant, and insightful, A Futile and Stupid Gesture from Netflix. For those unaware of this magnificent biopic, the film focuses on the life and times of Doug Kenney. The name may not be one many are familiar with but you have in some way of the other come into contact with his work through either founding and writing for The National Lampoon, his work on film projects Animal House and Caddyshack,

I was never able to read the National Lampoon as its heyday as THE political satire and comedy magazine was long past by the time I came limping into this world in the final quarter of 1978, but I have no doubt that his influence can be seen in the comedy world with which I became and remain so engrossed in even as I approach my 40th birthday.

Through the creation of the National Lampoon, the comedy world was given the National Lampoon Radio Hour, and though Lorne Michaels might not admit it, in some ways it also gifted us with the comedic institution that is (or was depending on your view) Saturday Night Live. You need look no further than the fact that a former Lampoon editor (Colin Jost) has served as head writer of the show and remains co-anchor of Weekend Update with Michael Che’ not to mention most of the original cast members had appeared in the National Lampoon’s Lemmings stage show and the aforementioned Radio Hour.

With that out of the way let’s take a look at where the world of print comedy has come and gone, as well as what the future might hold for a medium many feel has died.

The Lampoon was created by former Harvard Lampoon editors Kenney, Henry Beard and Robert Hoffman in 1969 feeling there was an untapped market of readers who had aged out of MAD Magazine (more on them in a bit). They were rejected by several large publishers who failed to see the potential but eventual found a supporter in Matty Simmons who financed the venture through 21st Century Communications. 

The magazine was not well-received at first but within the first five years of existence had a pass-along readership audience of between 10-15 million, per Simmons in the docmentary National Lampoon: Fat Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead. The magazine was kinda The Onion before the The Onion.Its final issue was released in 1998. 

MAD was founded by Harvey Kurtzman, a cartoonist known mainly for the Little Annie Fanny comic strip in Playboy throughout the 1980s, in 1952 as a comic book itself until a format change in 1955 to avoid the strict governance of The Comics Code.

MAD was a major staple of my childhood as I loved its style of parodying movies, television and bands of the era. It was never something I subscribed to, and honestly rarely purchased, but I would read a monthly issue from cover to cover within a few trips to the magazine rack during my mothers grocery runs. The fold-ins, the iron-ons, Alfred E. Newman and Spy vs Spy were always clever and, if I was lucky, sometimes offensive. (i also discovered the comedy of George Carlin and Richard Pryor around the same time thanks to tapes and LPs owned by the parentals.)

MAD, much like the Lampoon, even spawned a briefly successful sketch comedy series on FOX in the form of MAD TV that featured tremendous comedy talent (seriously go look at the casts) and Spy vs Spy in an animated form. The success was short-lived as it, like other shows of its format, could not defeat SNL. The magazine continues to publish though with a smaller presence than in past decades. The television series saw a short return to the FOX network in recent television seasons but never recaptured the audience that once supported it.

As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and the success of MAD Magazine spawned several pretenders to Alfred E.’s throne, the most notable of which was CRACKED. 

CRACKED was nearly a direct rip-off of MAD and even poached staff at one point in an attempt to gain ground as a leading comedy publication. It never achieved its goal and was shuttered all together in magazine form. It does however continue in the form of website CRACKED.com. 

Today, most fans of satire get their fix from The Onion, but that site falls to hit all the high and low notes its printed predecessors did, in my opinion. Which begs the question, where are kids getting their laughs these days? 

The lack of these, at times, tacky and tasteless outlets for comedic content has seemingly left a generation unable to take a joke. The world needs to laugh now more than ever. It’s our goal with the Heavyweight Chumps Podcast to make you laugh, think, boo and present you with some good interviews on various subjects. If you would like to hear more on A Futile and Stupid Gesture, check out our archives on iTunes, GooglePlay or Stitcher, for the episode where we discuss it with fellow podcaster and movie fanatic Rick Ramos. 

“The last few days have been some of the best I’ve ever wasted.”- Doug Kenney