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Chicago – Before the days of 24/7 internet access to every form of entertainment that exists, there were eras of radical performance expression that changed the landscape of attitudes toward everything – think of The Beatles evolving music and also changing social culture. The roots of another evolution, especially in comedy, began with a modest humor magazine that brought together the right mix of anarchists and misfits. What they did would influence comedy for years afterward, and their story is told in “Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of National Lampoon,” directed by Douglas Tirola.

“National Lampoon” Magazine was a national publication founded in 1970, that was spawned from the Harvard Lampoon, and brought together a team of 1960s-influenced comic radicals that changed the way humor was conveyed. No sacred cows existed on their pages, and the magazine also broke out into signature comedy records, stage performances and radio shows. This cottage industry featured...

Attention comedy geeks everywhere! To paraphrase a literary classic, this new documentary feature lets us all “look back in laughter” at one of the most influential humor magazines of the last fifty years. Actually its legacy reaches on past its newstand existence. Yes, it’s been absent from newsstands (there’s still a few of them left) for nearly twenty years. But, to paraphrase again, we’ve come “not to bury this magazine, but to praise it”. And to recall the chuckles and the mini-empire it spawned. Of course, this wasn’t the first humor publication. Puck paved the way decades before. Then Mad magazine shook up the staid 1950’s. But by 1970, that mag had somewhat settled into a (still entertaining) routine, poking fun at suburbia, and wasn’t connecting with the “counter-culture”. Younger “baby boomers” wanted their humor to have a sharper edge, to reflect the “hippie” spirit, and...

A glob of stray semen is slathered on as impromptu hair gel. A high school flutist describes all the graphic details of her "one time at band camp." A slobbering frat boy climbs a ladder for a close look at disrobing co-eds — a glimpse so revelatory that he plummets backward without batting an eye. Raunch-comedy history is littered with off-color climaxes, and the genre hasn't blown its load quite yet.

Barely Legal: 30 Nearly Pornographic Films

From full-blown sex romps to softcore substitutes spruced up with gags, Hollywood's history of...

Finally! Community, the ensemble comedy starring Joel McHale and Chevy Chase about a group of misfits who attend Greendale Community College and find each other in a Spanish study group, premieres tonight (NBC, 9:30 p.m. Et). This afternoon, we're getting to know Gillian Jacobs, the Juilliard grad with great taste in comedy, who plays Britta, the hard-to-get woman who inspires McHale's character Jeff, a lawyer sent back to college after it's revealed his law degree is fake, to start said study group. (Their Spanish professor, Señor Chang, is played by The Hangover's Ken Jeong, so they really do need each other.) • Yes, she was a fan of the The Soup before she met McHale, and their chemistry was instant. "He's so at ease that he puts you at ease. He's just like giving s-- to the casting director, throwing out lines. With those funny guys, you just got...