Lampoon Goes ‘National’

Magazine readers nationwide may have been surprised yesterday when they picked up what looked like a thin April issue of National Geographic—and found Paris Hilton cavorting with a stuffed elephant and gorilla on the cover.

No, it’s not an actual copy of the iconic nature publication, but an April Fools’ parody issue distributed across the country in a collaborative effort between National Geographic magazine and The Harvard Lampoon, a semi-secret Sorrento Square social organization that used to occasionally publish a so-called humor magazine.

The Lampoon provided and controlled the content for the issue, with articles poking fun at the wildlife magazine’s stories on nature and international events.

“I think they’ve been asking for it for a long time, being all high-minded about nature and the world,” said Christopher R. Schleicher ’09, co-president of the Lampoon.

National Geographic designers helped the ’Poonsters lay out the issue and will be distributing 210,000 copies “strategically around the country” along with the real magazine, according to Ross E. Arbes ’08 and Hayes H. Davenport ’08-’09, who edited the spoof.

The parody features fake letters to the editor—“RAAARRRRR!!!” comments a “Literate Bear”—and a facetious preview of the Beijing Olympics, presenting new events like “Dragon Catching” and “Overpopulation.”

Another “story” features a reporter infiltrating a honeybee colony while disguised as an “unpollinated daffodil,” while a photo essay explores the outsourcing of the “American lava lamp industry to the islands of Indonesia, where lava is cheap, plentiful, and harvested by thousands of natives.”

A spread features a picture of a lion composed of many smaller pictures of human breasts, described by the Lampoon Web site as “Boobs you can look at in the dentist’s office.”

“Parody is a form of flattery,” National Geographic magazine editor Chris Johns said in a statement. “We may not agree with everything in it, but we take it as good fun.”

As for the Lampoon’s next target?

“The identity of the next parody is kept in a lockbox under the ocean,” Schleicher said.

—Staff writer Maxwell L. Child can be reached at mchild@fas.harvard.edu.