This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(February 2014) |
Genre | Comedy, satire |
---|---|
Country of origin | United States |
Language(s) | English |
Starring | John Belushi Chevy Chase Richard Belzer Christopher Guest Bill Murray Gilda Radner Brian Doyle-Murray Harold Ramis Joe Flaherty |
Original release | November 17, 1973 |
The National Lampoon Radio Hour was a comedy radio show which was created, produced and written by staff from National Lampoon magazine. [1]
The show ran weekly, for a little over a year, from November 17, 1973 to December 28, 1974.[ citation needed ] Originally an hour in length, after 13 weeks it was cut down to half-an-hour due to the difficulty of putting together the very considerable amount of material required for a one-hour show.[ citation needed ]
The show was created and produced by Michael O'Donoghue.[ citation needed ] When O'Donoghue left, later producers included Sean Kelly, Brian McConnachie and John Belushi.[ citation needed ]
Performers on the show included John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, John DeBella, [2] Gilda Radner, and Harold Ramis, who was one of the co-writers for National Lampoon's Animal House . Other writers and performers on the show included Anne Beatts, Richard Belzer, [1] Christopher Cerf, Brian Doyle-Murray, Joe Flaherty, Christopher Guest, who did many of the show's musical parodies, Ed Subitzky, Douglas Kenney (another co-writer of Animal House) and Bruce McCall.
The Radio Hour was recorded in a studio specially built at the National Lampoon offices at 635 Madison Avenue, New York City. The musical theme for the show was co-written and performed by Bob Hoban and Nate Herman.
The show was broadcast nationally on 600 different radio stations, but the stations picking it up were free to air it at any time they chose. It proved difficult to get enough advertising to support the series: national sponsors seemed reluctant to take on the show, probably because of the controversial nature of much of its material.
When the show folded, several of the performers and writers moved on to Saturday Night Live . Michael O'Donoghue was head writer for the first three seasons of Saturday Night Live, and this may explain why some of the radio show material, such as "What if Ed Sullivan Were Tortured?" was subsequently re-purposed for television. Ramis and Flaherty instead joined SCTV.
Two examples of the sometimes shocking humor of the Radio Hour are sketches featuring game shows entitled "Catch it and Keep it" (prizes - some quite lethal - are dropped from a great height to the crowd below), and "Land a Million" (in which a housewife is left alone in an airborne Boeing 747 containing $1 million in cash and a ton of TNT and must answer questions about literature in order to receive tips on how to land the plane safely).
National Lampoon released 5 albums that were created entirely with, or partly with, material from the Radio Hour:
Gold Turkey was also subsequently issued as a CD. In 1996 Rhino Records released a multi-CD/tape box set, The Best of the National Lampoon Radio Hour, which borrowed one of the magazine's classic covers ("Buy this box or we'll shoot this dog"). The set includes many of the best sketches, and has extensive liner notes detailing the history of the show.
National Lampoon also released 3 albums that predated the Radio Hour. Several items from these earlier works were either reworked, or made it on to the Radio Hour in their original format:
John Adam Belushi was an American comedian, actor and musician. He was one of seven Saturday Night Live cast members of the first season. Along with Chevy Chase, he was arguably the most popular member of the Saturday Night Live ensemble. Belushi had a partnership with Dan Aykroyd. They had first met while at Chicago's The Second City comedy club, remaining together as cast members on the inaugural season of the television show Saturday Night Live.
National Lampoon was an American humor magazine that ran from 1970 to 1998. The magazine started out as a spinoff from The Harvard Lampoon.
Gilda Susan Radner was an American actress and comedian. She was one of the seven original cast members of the "Not Ready for Prime Time Players" on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from its inception in 1975 until her departure in 1980. In her routines on SNL, she specialized in parodies of television stereotypes, such as advice specialists and news anchors. In 1978, Radner won an Emmy Award for her performances on the show. She also portrayed those characters in her highly successful one-woman show on Broadway in 1979. Radner's SNL work established her as an iconic figure in the history of American comedy.
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Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase is an American comedian, actor, and writer. He became the breakout cast member in the first season of Saturday Night Live (1975–1976), where his recurring Weekend Update segment became a staple of the show. As both a performer and a writer on the series, he earned two Primetime Emmy Awards out of four nominations.
Brian Murray, known professionally by his stage name as Brian Doyle-Murray, is an American actor, comedian and screenwriter. He has appeared with his younger brother, actor/comedian Bill Murray, in several films, including Caddyshack, The Razor's Edge, Scrooged, Ghostbusters II, and Groundhog Day. He co-starred on the TBS sitcom Sullivan & Son, where he played the foul-mouthed Hank Murphy. He also appeared in the Nickelodeon animated series SpongeBob SquarePants as The Flying Dutchman, the Cartoon Network original animated series My Gym Partner's a Monkey as Coach Tiffany Gills, The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack as Captain K'nuckles, a recurring role as Don Ehlert on the ABC sitcom The Middle, and Bob Kruger in the AMC dramedy Lodge 49.
Harold Allen Ramis was an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. His film acting roles include Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989), and as Russell Ziskey in Stripes (1981); he also co-wrote those films. As a director, his films include the comedies Caddyshack (1980), National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), Groundhog Day (1993), Analyze This (1999) and Analyze That (2002). Ramis was the original head writer of the television series SCTV, on which he also performed, as well as a co-writer of Groundhog Day and National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). The final film that he wrote, produced, directed, and acted in was Year One (2009).
Michael O'Donoghue was an American writer, actor, editor and comedian.
Anne Beatts was an American comedy writer.
Ed Subitzky, full name Edward Jack Subitzky, is an American writer and artist. He is best known as a cartoonist, comics artist, and humorist. He has worked as a television comedy writer and performer, a writer and performer of radio comedy, and a writer of radio drama. He has also created comedy and humor in other media. Subitzky is a member of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and the Writers Guild of America.
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The first season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC from October 11, 1975, to July 31, 1976. The show served as a vehicle that launched to stardom the careers of a number of major comedians and actors, including Chevy Chase, John Belushi, and Dan Aykroyd.
National Lampoon: Lemmings, a spinoff of the humor magazine National Lampoon, was a 1973 stage show that helped launch the performing careers of John Belushi, Christopher Guest, and Chevy Chase. The show was co-written and co-directed by a number of people, including Sean Kelly.
Brian John McConnachie was an American actor, comedy writer, and children's book author.
A Futile and Stupid Gesture: How Doug Kenney and National Lampoon Changed Comedy Forever is an American book by Josh Karp that was published in 2006. It is a history of National Lampoon magazine and one of its three founders, Doug Kenney, during the 1970s. The book was based on numerous interviews with people who contributed to the magazine, and people who performed in The National Lampoon Radio Hour, and the stage show Lemmings.
That's Not Funny, That's Sick, a spinoff of the humor magazine National Lampoon, was a 1977–1978 stage show and also a 1977 album of American sketch comedy.
Buy This Box or We'll Shoot This Dog: The Best of the National Lampoon Radio Hour is a CD box set of recordings from the National Lampoon Radio Hour, which was a spin-off from National Lampoon magazine. It was released on March 26, 1996.
Rhonda Lee Oglesby Coullet is an American actress, comedian, singer-songwriter, theatre composer and playwright.
Robert Tischler was an American television writer, audio engineer and television producer. Tischler engineered the National Lampoon's first comedy album and with Michael O'Donoghue co-created and produced the National Lampoon Radio Hour. A friend of John Belushi's since the Radio Hour days, Tischler produced four Blues Brothers albums, the first of which, Briefcase Full of Blues, reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and went double platinum. He later worked on Saturday Night Live as head writer from 1981 to 1985.
The National Lampoon Show, a spinoff of the humor magazine National Lampoon, was a 1974–1976 stage show that helped launch the performing careers of John Belushi, Brian Doyle-Murray, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, and Harold Ramis. The company's stage successor to National Lampoon's Lemmings (1973), some skits from the show made their way into the 1978 film National Lampoon's Animal House.