That's Not Funny, That's Sick: The National Lampoon and the Comedy Insurgents Who Captured the Mainstream

The untold story behind a revolution in American comedy.

Labor Day, 1969. Two recent Harvard graduates move to New York to edit a new magazine called The National Lampoon. Brilliant humorists Henry Beard and Doug Kenney presided over a team that within a decade transformed American culture and conquered the mainstream with a brand of subversive humor that provoked, offended, and often illuminated. With unparalleled access to the architects and impresarios of this boom, journalist Ellin Stein takes us behind the jokes to witness the fighting and partying, collaboration and competition of those who led a rebellion of the self-consciously disenchanted. At its zenith, the brand birthed the anarchic earthiness of John Belushi, the suave slapstick of Chevy Chase, and the deadpan wit of Bill Murray. Set against the roiling political and cultural landscape of the 1970s, That’s Not Funny, That’s Sick brims with insiders’ stories while offering crucial insight into a transformation in comedy that still echoes today.