Mr. Mike: The Life and Work of Michael O'Donoghue - Hardcover

Now that the National Lampoon is virtually defunct, and Saturday Night Live has turned into just another late-night network cash cow, you can be excused for forgetting about Michael O'Donoghue. But back in the glory days of the 1970s, O'Donoghue gave both their distinctive edge of viciousness, death, and celebratory mayhem. Even though O'Donoghue died (prematurely) in 1994, his legacy in American comedy is still strong. Dennis Perrin has done a boon service by bringing this American original out of the shadows.

For the devoted fan of O'Donoghue--you're likely either one of those, or nothing--Mr. Mike is often more tantalizing than completely fulfilling. Though his life and career are described in welcome detail, the author's attempts at analysis are less sure. For example, Perrin lets O'Donoghue off much too easily when discussing the sinister elements of his work: Was his obsession with Nazis--one of his tried-and-true comic devices--anti-Semitic? What was his fascination with S&M, mutilation, and torture all about, and how much did the readers really connect with it? Was O'Donoghue a self-made artist in the right place at the right time, or did the culture around him create his distinctive double-dark worldview? Since O'Donoghue himself was highly intellectual and analytical regarding his feral art, one expects answers to these questions, but they are not forthcoming.

Gaps in analysis aside, fans of American humor owe Perrin big-time; for better or worse, O'Donoghue remains as unique and seminal as ever, and Mr. Mike goes an awfully long way towards ensuring that its subject doesn't fade into literary obscurity, at the very same time that the style of humor he created becomes more and more mainstream. --Michael Gerber