Search - NATIONAL LAMPOON :: National Lampoon's Rules of the Road

As if Van Wilder wasn't clue enough, the National Lampoon's once-vaunted imprimatur on a comedy project is hardly the guarantee of satirical reverie it once was. This first album of new material to bear the NL logo in a couple decades should be cause for celebration instead of mere chuckles--and perhaps a little head-scratching. It's not that the slickly-produced tracks on this faux greatest hits collection (authentic down to mock artist bio's and illustrated lyric sheet) don't work as amusing white trash send-ups, it's just that in their prime, the Lampoon might have seen fit to season an album with but one of these rambunctiously obnoxious trucker jibes. The satire is mostly all-too-predictable--trucker as lonely, sexed-up deviant/crossdresser/closet homo/drug abuser/fat ass, etc.--and one in which the socio-politico (the off-key sing-along "There's No I in Teamster") and surreal (the furniture-tweaked mall-prowlers of "Antiquin'"; the boozy Dean Martin send-up, "Mama Mia That's a Truck") jabs that once characterized Lampoon projects in their prime get decidedly short shrift--or is it shift? Indeed, parodying the likes of C.W. McCall in the age of Eminem may be its most sublime joke. --Jerry McCulley