Way before European Vacation and Chevy Chase in lederhosen, National Lampoon was a name associated with respectable journalism, and by respectable I mean antiestablishment social satire (with bonus boobs!). In a way, it was The Onion of its day, but that day being the 1970s, all the writers had to parody was Vietnam or Third World starvation. (No modern-day internet memes: w00t!) Those quaint days are celebrated in hardcover tome Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Writers and Artists Who Made National Lampoon Insanely Great, by Lampoon illustrator Rick Meyerowitz, who's compiled a nostalgic selection of the magazine's greatest jabs from its earliest days, with reflections from the mad men who made it all possible. Let's just not concern ourselves that the rights to the brand name “National Lampoon” are currently held by the marketers of Tim Conway's “Dorf” videos.

Wed., Nov. 17, 7 p.m., 2010

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