To start off, I figured who better than the man who almost destroyed the Lampoon? Tim Matheson!
Ooooo, dreamy!!!
Tim Matheson is probably best known for his role as Otter in the first Lampoon movie, Animal House, although a quick look at his page on the IMDb and you can see just how many things he's been in! Matheson's character is one of the most memorable in the movie, a guy who can charm the pants off of anyone (literally!) He returned to NatLamp movies nearly 25 years later when he costarred in Van Wilder as Van Wilder, Sr. The role is smaller, but it's hilarious seeing him mad at his party boy son when everyone knows he played the same type of character! Tim also has one other claim to Lampoon fame: when, along with partner Dan Grodnik, he took over the National Lampoon.
You know, for some one who's been in so many movies, it sure as hell is hard to find pictures of him.In 1989, when the Lampoon magazine was falling in numbers, Matheson and Grodnik were able to buy up the majority of the shares and Matty Simmons decided to just give them control of the company instead of fighting them. I'm sure Tim is a nice guy and all, but whatever made him think he could run a magazine, I'll never know. They made themselves co-chairmen and co-presidents, and almost immediately, began cancelling lucrative deals that had been lined up for months. Instead of making more money as they had promised, they ended up losing more! For whatever reason, Matheson decided that the magazine should have a more PG-13 approach, so gone were the racy jokes, most swearing, and (gasp!) nudity that had been there since the beginning. Gilbert Gottfried did a hilarious piece on this but I can't remember what issue it was in. Well, eventually Matheson and Grodnik must have realized that they had screwed the company and were going to be screwed themselves, so they sold the Lampoon in 1991 to Jim Jimmiro, an even worse owner who managed to screw the company even worse (but that's another story for another day).
Now what lesson did we learn today kids? Actors shouldn't run companies! Leave that to people who know what they're doing! Join us next time when we take a look at another one of National Lampoon's Repeat Offenders!
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