Check Out the 'Animal House'-Style Poster for the New 'National Lampoon' Documentary

If you’ve been inside a frat house or teenage boy’s bedroom at any point during the last 35 years, the poster for director Douglas Tirola’s new Sundance documentary about the National Lampoon, Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead, should look more than a little familiar.

That’s because the artwork above, which is debuting exclusively at Yahoo Movies, was designed by Rick Meyerowitz, the artist behind the iconic poster for the Lampoon’s biggest hit, Animal House.

“Before we shot the first frame of the movie, I had the idea and hope that Rick would do our poster,” Tirola said. “The Animal House poster, in my mind, is one of the best in the history of film.”

Tirola’s documentary, which premieres on Sunday, looks back on the origins and wild heyday of the satire group. What began as a magazine started by Harvard classmates Douglas Kenney and Henry Beard in 1970 would eventually become a comedy behemoth of books, stage shows and movies, pushing the culture forward (via a mix of cutting satire and fart jokes) in a very uncertain decade.

Meyerowitz’s poster, done in his signature style, has a similar feel to the Animal House one-sheet and exchanges the Delta Tau Chi house for the Lampoon’s midtown Manhattan office, depicting some of the wilder goings-on that went down inside.

"It was sort of a grungy office with broken down couches and weird stuff up on the wall,” he remembered. “The occasional bagpiper [would walk] through, playing loud music to disturb everyone trying to type. There was cigar smoke, cigarette smoke … and other smoke. But this magazine was made by people who put in their time working — good writers and good artists who hit a deadline every month and got it published.”

Much like Chicago’s Second City, the group served as a springboard and mega-platform for some of the greatest comedic talents of the era, such as Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, and John Belushi. Drunk Stoned Brilliant Deaduses a mix of archival footage and interviews to tell stories that few have ever heard before.

Meyerowitz shared one of his own favorite Lampoon experiences in a conversation with Yahoo on Saturday, recalling the time he traveled down to the American Bookseller’s Association conference in Atlanta to see Animal House for the very first time — flanked by the film’s star, John Belushi.

“We were enhancing our mood outside this convention center near a dumpster, so we came in late and the only seats were in the front row, and Belushi fell asleep,” he told Yahoo Movies. “When it was over, we walked out into the lobby, and Belushi was staring holes into the poster. He turned to me and he said ‘You nailed it man, really nailed it.’”

Tirola, a kid back when the film was released in 1978, spent the next few years staring up at the poster in his bedroom. And now, he’s got a Meyerowitz poster of his very own.