Sketch comedy has been around for ages, but when it comes to the business of pushing the envelope, you’ve got to piss people off, humiliate, endure criticism, and get casually banned.  In the early seventies, a few bastardized souls got together and laid the groundwork for the generations that followed this seemingly absurd but crazed bandwith of comedy.  Britain had their Monty Python, and we had our National Lampoon.

You might recognize a few of the faces as the Not Ready for Primetime- Saturday Night Live cast members from the very first generation of the iconic NBC show, but way before Lorne Michaels and company kidnapped the heart and soul of the comedy troupe, there was plenty of story to tell from the Lampoon side of things, so this is their story, crammed in a brilliant documentary morbidly titled Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead that is currently airing on Showtime and destined for a BluRay release on April 19th.

All the insanity that we laugh at, and are used to, pretty much started with these amazing group of folks.