Hey, That's Not Bad!

You find the strangest things when you look through the Usenet archives, and one thing I found was a copy of one of my favorite pieces from the early, funny years of the National Lampoon. (The good years of the publication were roughly 1970 to 1975, or perhaps even 1974 when Michael O'Donoghue left.)

This is "Chums in the Dark," written by Hugo Fleisch and Lampoon co-founder Henry Beard, a great parody of the Hardy Boys that captures all the gee-whiz-gosh narrative style of the books. Apart from the accuracy of the parody, most of the fun of the piece comes from forcing poor Frank and Joe Hardy to deal with subjects, like sex and drugs, that they've literally never heard of before in any of their many adventures, and consistently fail to understand.

Chapter 1 * Chapter 2 * Chapter 3 * Chapter 4 * Chapter 5 * Chapter 6

If you want a "legit" copy of the piece, try to get a used copy of the excellent This Side of Parodies, a collection of parodic material from the 1970-1974 Lampoon.