Advertisement "Filthy, weren't they? What are college students coming to?"
Thus begins a self-parody printed in the late, great Octopus, the UW-Madison's campus humor magazine. Those naughty, naughty students were writing jokes about sex ... in 1928.
Comedy magazines once were the rage on campuses nationwide. Then, in the serious '60s, colleges seemed to lose their sense of humor. Multiple new exhibitions at the UW-Madison celebrate college humor's glory years, and especially our own magazine, The Octopus.
The exhibit is spread over three locations. The first two installments opened last week in the Memorial Union and Kohler Art Library. A third portion will open in the Memorial Library's special collections unit on Monday, Sept. 22.
Comedy does not always age well. "Some of the humor makes us cringe," says Robin Rider, special collections curator. But the art remains tart and crisp. "It's so startling to see the covers -- the design sense, the aesthetic sense."
Once, comedy was written. Before DVDs and VCRs, before film, radio or audio recordings of any sort, take-home humor came in only two media: newspaper comic strips and literature.
Two hundred college humor magazines were once published in the United States. They were produced by students for their fellow undergraduates to enjoy ... to the dismay of professors and administrators. The social revolution of the 1960s toppled nearly all. "Octy," as it was nicknamed by staff, died in 1959.
Dave Trubek, one of the last Octopus editors and a UW professor emeritus of law, says, "I suspect that what killed Octy was two things -- MAD magazine and Playboy. It was hard to match the naked women in one and the quality of the humor in both, or to compete with Playboy's introduction to a so-called sophisticated' lifestyle."
There are nine college humor magazines still publishing, most in the Ivy League. The University of Michigan's Gargoyle is another survivor. John Dobbertin, Jr., editor for Gargoyle from 1962-64, has gathered more than 1,000 college humor titles.
He and his wife, Barbara, who live in Chaseburg, Wis., recently donated them to the UW. The exhibits are drawn in large part from his collection.
Students began publishing humor at the University of Wisconsin in 1899 with The Sphinx magazine. It continued until 1917 and was followed in 1919 by The Octopus.
In its last years, Octy offices were in the basement of the University Club.
"We did an especially irreverent issue on ROTC," recalls Trubek.
To advertise the Reserve Officers' Training Corps satire, they set up a pup tent on Library Mall.
"All of a sudden, some male students came from the Red Gym, where ROTC drilled. They tore down the tent and ripped up the signs we had made. Such was the tolerance for humorous critique in the '50s!"
The oldest U.S. humor magazine of any kind -- the second oldest in the world -- is the Harvard University Lampoon, born in 1876. But the early 20th century mass-market American magazines Judge, Vanity Fair and Life (not the later pictorial magazine) inspired the college humor glory years of the 1920s.
Just as Chicago's Second City is for television today, college magazines were the training ground for comedy superstars.
Humorist Robert Benchley worked at the Lampoon. James Thurber worked at the Ohio State University Sundial. They were among the early staff of a national humor magazine that continues today in less-funny form: The New Yorker.
S.J. Perelman, a former contributor to Brown University's Brown Jug magazine, later helped boost The New Yorker -- besides writing Marx Brothers films.
Octy's alumni include Marshall Brickman, collaborator with Woody Allen for films including "Sleeper" and "Annie Hall," which notably has a scene portraying Allen doing stand-up at the Union Theater.
Two decades after The Octopus died, there was a campaign at the UW to bring it back. Vietnam was still too sensitive -- what was there to laugh at?
The effort failed, but almost immediately afterward there was a wealth of UW humor publications.
One was "Bite" magazine, led by staffers at the UW's Badger Herald newspaper. Writer Steve Marmel went on to Hollywood and so far has received five Emmy nominations for his television work.
Another publication, led by ex-Cardinal staff, was a coupon paper. It was a continuing parody first of tabloids, and later of suburban newspapers. It was called The Onion.
It started in 1988 and is now based in Manhattan. Today The Onion has more than 3 million readers weekly, through its print editions and Web site.
While the Harvard Lampoon may claim more influence -- its alumni include George Plimpton, John Updike, Chevy Chase and Conan O'Brien --The New Yorker calls The Onion "the funniest publication in the United States."
Onion alumni include Dan Vebber, writer for the animated "Futurama" television program, Ben Karlin, longtime executive producer of TV's "The Daily Show," and his successor, Rich Dahm.
AT A GLANCE
What: "The Art of College Humor"
When: Through Tuesday, Sept. 16.
Where: On display in the Porter Butts Gallery of the Memorial Union, 800 Langdon St.
Hours: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily.
Also: An exhibit podcast is available for download at www.union.wisc.edu/rss/art.xml.
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