'Read this trade, or we'll kill the dog'
National Lampoon hits comeback trail, Hollywood-style
By Russ Britt, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 2:10 AM ET Dec. 24, 2002
HOLLYWOOD (CBS.MW) -- Dispatches from the entertainment capital of the world:
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National Lampoon stages a comeback, via the Web
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Disgraced uber-agent Michael Ovitz starts a parking and valet service for actors.
Extreme action movie star Vin Diesel rides a snowboard named "Rosebud" in a remake of "Citizen Kane."
Warner Bros. Studios vows to make nothing but sequels for the foreseeable future.
What in the name of Cecil B. DeMille is going on here? Just a bit of good-natured satire aimed at Hollywood, courtesy of National Lampoon.
One of the biggest names in parody, National Lampoon (NLPN: news, chart, profile) is on the comeback trail, and it wants everyone in Hollywood to know it. So what better way to get the word out than create a spoof edition of the Hollywood Reporter, the town's trade magazine?
Lampoon's version, dubbed the Hollywood Retorter, looks like an April Fool's edition of the actual trade, replete with the same typeface and layout. Lampoon officials circulated a few thousand copies throughout the industry recently that features the Ovitz, Diesel and Warner stories, among several others.
"It was a calling card to say that National Lampoon is back," said Doug Bennett, the company's executive vice president. "This is a way of jogging everyone's memory."
And once they stopped laughing, Hollywood Reporter officials said they didn't seem to mind. "We're flattered they chose us," said magazine spokeswoman Lynda Miller.
Over the last decade, National Lampoon has been dormant, living largely off the licensing of its name.
It got its start at Harvard University in 1970 as a satire magazine, the place where college students sought out caustic humor throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
In 1978, Lampoon branched into movies with the debut of "Animal House," the classic starring the late John Belushi about a fraternity house gone awry. It scored big with that film as well as the "Vacation" movies starring Chevy Chase.
But its last film was 1989's "Christmas Vacation." This year's "National Lampoon's Van Wilder" was produced by Artisan Entertainment under a licensing deal; Lampoon had little creative input. And the magazine stopped publication several years ago.
Lampoon officials took the company public as J2 Communications in 1998, saying they wanted to build up its presence on the Internet, a haven for its target audience of college-age students. Trading under the symbol "JTWO," the shares managed to get into the high teens during the Internet bubble.
But when the bubble burst, J2's shares dropped, the company fell into disarray, and eventually the company lost its listing on the Nasdaq.
This year, National Lampoon reorganized and installed several new managers after Dan Laikin purchased most of its shares. Laikin instituted an aggressive plan to create more products under the Lampoon name.
It changed its name to National Lampoon (NLPN: news, chart, profile) in November and trades on the over-the-counter market around $6.
Lampoon was known for its irreverent sense of humor. One memorable magazine cover featured a picture of a bewildered canine with a revolver pointed at its head. The caption read: "If You Don't Buy This Magazine, We'll Kill This Dog."
More of the same appears in "Hollywood Retorter." The lead story says CNN has signed a deal for a reality TV show called "The Kennedys," based on the Kennedy family that's in the same vein as MTV's "The Osbournes."
The blaring headline: "CNN shoots 'The Kennedys.'" The show would have "the kitsch of 'the Osbournes,' but with the uncertainty element of 'Survivor.' And it's got the sex appeal of 'Temptation Island.'"
Other news stories talk about how action film producer Jerry Bruckheimer set the entire country of Morocco on fire for a "fast-paced orangutan/cop buddy film," an executive for NBC in charge of workplace diversity fired himself because he is white, and a primadonna scriptwriter managed to get his grocery list optioned.
There's even a self-congratulatory ad along the lines of those often seen in the pages of the Reporter and its main competitor, Variety. This one says Warner Bros. flop "The Adventures of Pluto Nash" made $217 million in its first weekend.
The catch, however, is that its box-office take was inflation-adjusted to the year 2087. "Pluto Nash" was one of the year's notorious failures, costing $100 million to make but returning only $5 million in U.S. receipts.
And, of course, there are the usual pieces that are even too caustic to mention in this space.
Bennett says it's not clear yet whether National Lampoon will return to the magazine business. The company is negotiating a number of projects, some of which may include a magazine deal, he says.
Lampoon has published several satirical books and is planning a 25th anniversary re-release of "Animal House" next year. Other films, television programs and perhaps more films are on the horizon.
But the company isn't abandoning the Internet strategy it adopted in 1999. Bennett says college-age students are frequent visitors to the Web even if the rest of the world has yet to embrace it. It's also a good source to recruit talented writers, he adds.
"We want to build a media company," Bennett said. "And we want to increase our stock price."
Russ Britt is the Los Angeles Bureau Chief for CBS.MarketWatch.com. |
