Word: lampooning
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...rift in the 'Poon coterie was apparent yesterday as a candidate to the Lampoon editorial board admitted that he and his fellows had premeditated the prank...
PROFILE: Dedicated, Incisive. A real leader, on and off the field. ABC-TV offensive player of the game for his performance vs. Cornell last season. Voted "Gourmet of the Month" by Harvard Lampoon's parody of Better Homes and Gardens Magazine. A high school winner of the famed Betty Crocker Future Homemaker of America Award. Had a great season with the undefeated freshman team of 1969, completing 45 of 83 passes for 779 yards. Led the Ivy League in completion average last leason...
COSMOPOLITAN itself poses some competition for the Lampoon, and they fail to meet it. Between the Hearst Corporation's reputation for intellectual journalism and Helen Gurley Brown's personal style in running her magazine, most of the potential areas in which a parody can play get squeezed out. The distance between an article like "The Bugaboo of Male Impotence" (in the October genuine Cosmopolitan) and "The Myth of the Male Orgasm" is not that great. The Lampoon carries a picture with its story showing a guy holding crossed fingers behind his back and tentatively approaching a girl waiting...
...fears of the Lampoon in putting out a Cosmopolitican parody was that college students would not be familiar with Cosmopolitan and much of the humor would miss its mark because of the audience's ignorance. One result might be that people would not buy the issue, and the Lampoon would lose as much money on it as they have on other parodies...
...comparison of the parody and the genuine article is a pretty convincing demonstration that the only thing worse for the Lampoon than writing for an audience unfamiliar with Cosmopolitan would be writing for one that is familiar with it. The Lampoon's article on acupuncture beauty tips doesn't compete with Cosmopolitan's on the undiscovered joys of having a Chinese lover. It must be kind of galling at the Lampoon to realize that they've come closer to plagiarism than humor...