The National Lampoon Show

The National Lampoon Show, a spinoff of the humor magazine National Lampoon, was a 1974–1976 stage show that helped launch the performing careers of John Belushi, Brian Doyle-Murray, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, and Harold Ramis. The company's stage successor to National Lampoon's Lemmings (1973), some skits from the show made their way into the 1978 film National Lampoon's Animal House.

The show was produced by Ivan Reitman. It was mostly written improvisationally by its original cast ("overlooked" by National Lampoon writer/editor Sean Kelly).

The National Lampoon Show toured colleges in the U.S. in 1974, including Rider University, Slippery Rock University, and the University of Texas at Arlington, with those productions directed by cast member Belushi. It opened Off-Broadway in New York City at the New Palladium Club on February 17, 1975, directed by Martin Charnin. The original Off-Broadway cast starred Belushi, Doyle-Murray, Bill Murray, Radner, and Ramis. It ran for 180 performances, closing in July 1975. After closing in New York, it went on a second, nine-month-long, national tour.

Shortly after the show closed in New York, Belushi and Radner joined the original cast of Saturday Night Live, with the Murray brothers soon joining the SNL cast as well. Ramis, meanwhile, used some of the sketches from the show in the script of National Lampoon's first film production, Animal House, released in 1978.