[Playscript]: National Lampoon's Lemmings

[No place]: 1973.

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Softcover. Draft script for the wildly successful 1973 play at the Village Gate/Downstairs which ran for 350 performances and featured future *Saturday Night Live* cast members John Belushi and Chevy Chase. Black spring binder containing stiff black folder with 47 photomechanically reproduced leaves laid in, printed rectos only. Very good with wear and splitting at the gutter near the crown with near fine lightly worn and toned sheets. This script belonged to performer and uncredited writer Bob Hoban with his name written on the inside front pastedown in ink and printed on the laid-in one-page program.

In 1973 *National Lampoon* magazine was at its circulation peak when editor Tony Hendra enlisted another *Lampoon* editor Sean Kelly, to produce a live sketch comedy show which would include a satire of the Woodstock music festival. It helped launch some of the most iconic comic performers of the late 20th Century, John Belushi (doing, among other things, an early impersonation of Joe Cocker), Chevy Chase, and Christopher Guest (who composed much of the music) as well as showcase writers Harold Ramis, Henry Beard, Doug Kenney, P.J. O'Rourke, and Anne Beatts (some of whom, two years later, would go on to help form *Saturday Night Live*).

Hoban joined the cast of *Lemmings* in late July 1973, as cast and bits changed and evolved throughout the run of the show, notably the Watergate and Nixon references. Accompanying the script is a two-page letter by Hoban which goes into detail explaining the many ink, pencil, and marker annotations found throughout much of the document as being from the hands of Belushi, Chase, Hendra, Kenney, Nate Herman, and Michael O'Donoghue, along with how the scuffed heavy spring binder itself was marred by Belushi throwing it into a door jamb at a Kentucky Fried Chicken. Also laid in is a one-page program from "the new opening night performance" of *National Lampoon's Lemmings* as stated by Hoban ("new" referring to a first performance with a change of casting). The listed cast includes John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Rhonda Coullet, Nate Herman, Bob Hoban, Tony Scheuren, Zal Yanovsky, as well as other credits.

Rare and fascinating documentation of a show that became an important catalyst in popular culture, comedy, and music.


Item #438414

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Item #438414 [Playscript]: National Lampoon's Lemmings. John BELUSHI, Harold Ramis, P. J. O'Rourke, Paul Jacobs, Christopher Guest, Sean Kelly, Bob Hoban, Henry Beard, Ann Beatts, Doug Kenney, Chevy Chase.
[Playscript]: National Lampoon's Lemmings
[Playscript]: National Lampoon's Lemmings
[Playscript]: National Lampoon's Lemmings
[Playscript]: National Lampoon's Lemmings
[Playscript]: National Lampoon's Lemmings
[Playscript]: National Lampoon's Lemmings
[Playscript]: National Lampoon's Lemmings
[Playscript]: National Lampoon's Lemmings
[Playscript]: National Lampoon's Lemmings
[Playscript]: National Lampoon's Lemmings
[Playscript]: National Lampoon's Lemmings
[Playscript]: National Lampoon's Lemmings
[Playscript]: National Lampoon's Lemmings