Making Taste

Calendar’s generally excellent cover story on “Taste Makers,” one matter puzzled me. In Bill Steigerwald’s article on Spy magazine editor E. Graydon Carter piece, he cites Spy magazine’s influence on the realms of humor and satire.

Well, the truth is that for millions of people across the country (especially those like myself, usually defined as yuppies ), there is only one definitive humor magazine on the market, the one that has been out there the longest and remained the funniest: National Lampoon.

More than just wildly inventive and deliciously irreverent (it was a favorite when I went to college and it seems to be more popular than ever today), National Lampoon has been a trend-setter and taste-maker in the American culture for some 20 years.

After all, this is the magazine that launched the careers of people like John Hughes, Harold Ramis, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Jeff Greenfield, P. J. O’Rourke and Gilbert Gottfried, among others. Many (myself proudly included) consider all other humor publications merely pale imitations.

Certainly, there are other quality humor magazines available, but none which has made as strong of an impact on the way we look and laugh at ourselves.

If all that doesn’t make them “taste-makers” of the highest caliber, I really don’t know what does.

JEFF COPELAND

Hollywood