Skip content
A Futile and Stupid Gesture by Josh Karp
  Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account
Phone showing make the switch message

Limited-time offer

Get two free audiobooks!

Nowโ€™s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new one credit per month membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, weโ€™ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.

Sign up today
Libro.fm app with gift bow

Gift audiobook credit bundles

You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.

Start gifting

A Futile and Stupid Gesture

How Doug Kenney and National Lampoon Changed Comedy Forever

$26.24

Currently not available
Check back soon or contact us at hello@libro.fm.

Narrator Chris Lutkin

This audiobook uses AI narration.

Weโ€™re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.

Learn more
Length TBA
Language English
  Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account

This ultimate biography of National Lampoon and its cofounder Doug Kenney offers the first complete history of the immensely popular magazine and its brilliant and eccentric characters. Relying on wonderful stories about the comedy scene in New York City in the 1970s and National Lampoon's place at the center of it, author Josh Karp chronicles how the magazine spawned a popular radio show and two long-running theatrical productions that helped launch the careers of John Belushi, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, and Gilda Radner and that went on to inspire Saturday Night Live. That history along with interviews conducted with more than 130 people connected to Kenney and the magazine-including Chevy Chase, John Hughes, P. J. O'Rourke, Tony Hendra, Sean Kelly, Chris Miller, and Bruce McCall-and behind-the-scenes stories about the making of Animal House and Caddyshack help to capture the nostalgia, humor, and popular culture that National Lampoon still inspires.

Josh Karp is an adjunct lecturer in journalism at Northwestern University and a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in numerous print and digital publications, including Salon, The Atlantic, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Magazine, and the Huffington Post. He is the author of A Stupid and Futile Gesture, which was named the Best Biography of 2006 at the Independent Publisher Book Awards and the Midwest Book Awards.

Chris Lutkin has been an actor, a director, a writer, and a teacher for over thirty years. He has narrated several audiobooks including The Early Stories of Philip K. Dick, 12 Stories by Edgar Allan Poe, and The Red Badge of Courage. He currently resides in Detroit with his wife, Heather, and their rescue dog, Buckaroo.

Phone showing make the switch message

Limited-time offer

Get two free audiobooks!

Nowโ€™s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new one credit per month membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, weโ€™ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.

Sign up today
Libro.fm app with gift bow

Gift audiobook credit bundles

You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.

Start gifting