Image © 1971 by National Lampoon

Back in October of 1971, National Lampoon published a scathing parody of MAD that is today the stuff of legend. National Lampoon, like most humor magazines of that time (and a lot of humor period over the next several decades) owed a lot to MAD and its artists and writers were obviously heavily influenced by the magazine. As a result the parody, while being pretty brutal and pulling no punches, seemed much more of a needling with love by a close relative than a bitter attack. The staff of MAD, as the story goes, were delighted with it.  National Lampoon was always more original and had more of its own voice than most of the other non-MAD humor magazines of those days… it was not a knock off of MAD so much as it was a cousin that grew in a different direction and established much more of its own voice… albeit it using a lot more vulgar language.

The blog Easily Mused has scanned in and posted the entire parody from National Lampoon #147…. I’m sure the lawyers of whoever owns the rights to NL will be in touch with them soon but in the meantime you can enjoy what is a great piece of humorous comic history.