I Met The Kid On The Cover, Man
A. Fichera | CHAPEL HILL, NC USA | 07/11/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"National Lampoon's Radio Dinner album revolutionized my view of comedy back in the mists of 70s High School. By turns savagely cynical, trippy and often borderline dirty, this album was a revelation in a time when Cheech and Chong were being idolized by countless stoners across the land. But for Radio Dinner to work you need a solid grounding in 60s politics and, most importantly, you need to know LOTS about the George Harrison "Concert for Bangladesh" album, which serves as a thematic touchstone for the whole work's flaying of 60s counter culture ("I met the kid on the cover, man...He was at Amherst majoring in Economics and he was so stoned he didn't even mention it...") culminating in an infamous "Concert IN Bangladesh, where two sadsack Bengali comics--Raza and Kar--(the forerunners of The Simpsons Apu?) trade hideously lame jokes while distant crowd noises of groaning and suffering linger in the background ("My hotel room is three by three by three and made of cardboard"--"What is that, the Bengali Hilton?"). Along the way, various radical chic celebrities (Barbara Streisand, Joan Baez, John Lennon [savage beyond belief]) get skewered as well. Anybody under 30 won't get it and anyone over, say, 45 will get it all too well. Perverse and priceless."
