NATIONAL LAMPOON'S THAT'S NOT FUNNY
Though it ran for only a year in the early 70's,The National Lampoon Radio Hourremains one of the most influential–-and consistently hilarious-–efforts at audio sketch comedy. The core of that show became the inaugural class ofSNL's "Not Ready For Primetime Players," and many of the performers on this 1977 album (that recycles some material from the radio show to great effect) also went on to fame there, as well asSCTV. The material here is as rapid-fire as it is pointed, ranging from recurring installments ofRichard Belzer's prophetic, acid-tongued radio talk show host Dick Ballantine and Christopher Guest's unsettling Mr. Roberts (a dead-on, way-too-kid-friendly take on the late Fred Rogers) to Bill Murray's obnoxiously whining public radio fundraiser and jabs at Nadia Comaneci, mindless radio fodder, hotlines,Mel Brooks' 2000-year old man, and even a Paul Shaffer-produced musical epic, "The Height Report Disco." Though not quite reaching the sublime level of some of the radio show's more surreal moments, it's consistently irreverent, wildly funny, and delivered with machine-gun efficiency, remaining one of the troupe's best satirical collections. --Jerry McCulley