Harvard Lampoon

The Harvard Lampoon is an undergraduate humor organization and publication founded in 1876 at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The erratically-produced magazine, The Harvard Lampoon, was originally modelled on the former British satirical periodical Punch, and has outlived it to become the world's longest-running humor magazine. The organization also produces occasional humor books (the best known being the 1969 J.R.R. Tolkien parody Bored of the Rings) and parodies of national magazines. Much of the organization's capital is provided by the licensing of the "Lampoon" name to National Lampoon, begun by Harvard Lampoon graduates in 1970.

Rivalry with the Crimson

The Lampoon has a long-standing rivalry with Harvard's student newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, which describes the Lampoon as a "semi-secret Sorrento Square social organization which used to occasionally publish a so-called humor magazine". A noted event in the history of the Lampoon–Crimson rivalry was the Crimsons 1953 theft of the Lampoon Castle's ibis and presentation of it as a gift to the government of the Soviet Union. Lampoon staffers retaliated recently by "liberating" the Crimson president's chair and accompanying it to Iceland.

Related Topics:
Student newspaper - Harvard Crimson - 1953 - Soviet Union - Iceland

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