The Lampoon

"ANNIHILATION," announces the latest Lampoon, "is the intriguing game of intercontinental devastation designed to delight both adults and children." Any adult or child who manages to survive the 36-page assault is more likely to be left devastated than delighted. The Lampoon attempts to obliterate war with more bombs than are necessary, and is thereby guilty of the kind of overkill it hopes to lampoon. The Overkill Number is overworked, overwritten, overwrought.

The Lampoon's failure is particularly sad because it leaves the absurdity of the Vietnam war virtually untouched by American humorists. Indeed, the one great exception remains the Lampoon's 1965 parody of Time magazine. What humor there is in the war is exploited by Conn Nugent in his "Personal Essay," an unlikely letter from a Leverett House senior to the Duke University Graduate School of Business Administration.

If the subject of Vietnam remains a fresh one for humorists, the subject of nuclear war does not, and the Lampoon drags out all the old and hackneyed approaches. Predictably enough, world leaders gamble for control of the world. ANNIHILATION! is offered as a game in which "each player must attempt to wipe out as many as possible of the human beings inhabiting the country of his opponent," and even Jester, Ibis and The Blot find themselves trapped in "The World After Armageddon."

"Brinksmanship" by Ernest J. Wilson, one of two promising new writers on the Lampoon, contains clever characterizations of our favorite national heroes--Ike, McNamara, Rusk. The other rising light on the magazine is James T. Hill, who contributes a bizarre tale of a "former neo-Trotsktie" who goes "from Molotov to White House cocktails in one weekend with hardly a brainwash."

The rest of the material on war, and there is unfortunately a great deal more, is best left undiscussed. Lampoon humor appears sharpest when allowed to wander outside the constraints of the particular topic. Cartoonist David McClelland, for example, is funniest when he is being irrelevant ("Where is Krishna Menon now that we need him?"), which happily he is often.

The best written and funniest piece in the issue, aside from the Poonies' Evelyn Wood ad on the inside back cover, is Sidney P. Lee's parody of a spy story. Lee brings laughs because he is unpredictably unLampoon, and therefore not above a well-placed "Horse-piss."

The January Overkill Number is only the second Lampoon of the school year (the magazine supposedly appears "eight times a year, September to June, inclusive except January"). One imagines the Poonies spent considerable time amassing the over-sized issue on war. As the Jester says, "We managed to survive, but the tension was great. At moments we came within inches of losing our sense of humor."