User:Fantr/Alligator (1962 novel)

Alligator (1962 novel)

Alligator

Author	Michael K. Frith & Christopher B. Cerf writing as "I*N FL*M*NG"
Cover artist	Michael K. Frith
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	James Bond
Genre	parody spy fiction
Publisher	Vanitas (Cambridge, Massachusetts)
Publication date	November 1962
Media type	Print (paperback)
Pages	77
OCLC	273953022

Alligator: A J*MES B*ND Thriller by I*N FL*M*NG is a pseudonymous 1962 novel by Michael K. Frith and Christopher B. Cerf, Harvard University undergraduates and writers and officers at The Harvard Lampoon. Purportedly a spoof of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, the novel became an unexpected bestseller in the United States and got excellent reviews. Critics specifically praised the book for accurately imitating Ian Fleming's style. However Fleming himself was not amused and ordered that no further copies of the book be printed.

The novel replaces the vowels in Bond's name with asterisks.

Plot

Synopsis

J*mes B*nd's trade cover has him working for "World-Wide Import & Export Ltd." where "the few innocents who occasionally wandered in trying to import or export something were politely, but firmly, shot." B*nd is in fact a spy for the British Secret Service; the service's Chief of Staff Bill is Bond's closest friend. Crisis erupts when all bridges to the mouth of the Thames have collapsed. Further, "*" - the head of the British Secret Service - believes that Lacertus Alligator is cheating at cards. Alligator has two deaf-mute Bulgarian henchman: Kynstondi and Pazardzhik. With their help, Alligator has cheated numerous opponents at cards.

Lacertus Alligator has doll-like eyes, a football-sized head, red hair, a purple-hued face (due to a heart disease), and a mouth full of sharpened and pointed teeth made of burnished steel. Alligator also has a purple fetish: he's forever "whipping out a spray can of purple vegetable dye and liberally applying the pigment to anything and everyone around him". Alligator's parents were poor German immigrants - the father a doctor and the mother a research chemist in the field of aerosol coal-tar-derivative dyes - in their native homeland. When Hitler came to power, they snuck into the U.S. Unable to become a surgeon, the father took a job working in the New York City sewers where young Lacertus soon joined him. Young Lacertus and the sewer alligators became attached to each other. Lacertus Alligator started a successful business selling alligators to zoos and other interested buyers.

B*nd remarks, "I never trusted short people. Their mothers always tell them about how well Hitler and Napoleon did and they grow up thinking they can do the same."

At the prestigious private club Glades, B*nd outsmarts Alligator at a high-stakes game of the children's card game "Go Fish" winning £424,000.

"*" then assigns B*nd to investigate the murder of Station Head in Bermuda, chewed to death by a purple alligator. In Bermuda B*nd joins forces with Caribbean native Squabble. Alligator owns a mansion - exact replica of the British Parliament buildings, though painted purple - on a nearby island he bought from the local authorities.

“ Practically every house on the island was topped by a stepped stone roof kept carefully whitewashed. Since the sole source of water is the rain, the roofs are of vital importance, for the water is caught on them and piped into underground tanks. There every drop is jealously treasured and sparingly used."

The governor continued. "No one can build unless he first submits, and has passed, a plan of his house. The fellow's a bit of an eccentric, of course. Soon after he bought the island he submitted plans for a mansion which at first glance seemed quite unacceptable. Didn't even have a Bermuda roof! Building Authority turned it down, said it was impossible. We were all terribly embarrassed when he stormed in here and pointed out that it looked exactly like the British Houses of Parliament, even to Big Ben. Same size and everything. The Authority was a bit of a standing joke after that." He sighed and stared out of the window across the spacious Government House lawns at the city of Hamilton nestling below and the busy harbour beyond it. "As soon as he had permission to build, he sealed off the island from all outsiders, imported his own workmen, and set to it. Very mysterious. Doesn't let anyone in or out. I gather he's through now, though he's still just as secretive. I was out sailing yesterday and took a look at it. Rather a rum sight to see Parliament, right down to the last detail except that it's painted purple, sitting on the tip of Bermuda. Almost sacrilegious in a way, if you know what I mean.

”

B*nd learns that not only is Alligator a high-ranking agent for Smersh, but also the leader of the organization "The Organization Organized To Hate" ("TOOTH") who intends to blackmail the British government for £100,000,000 by stealing landmark London buildings including Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament - with the members of Lords and Commons on Board - and the Prime Minister, Queen and Lord Snowdon and floating them to Bermuda. ("Operation Parlafloat"). Alligator's companion is Anagram Le Galion, her mother an Irish mud-wrestler, who pleads with Bond to rescue her from Alligator's clutches. Alligator had held her boyfriend Agent 004 Roger Entwhistle captive and unless she found his pet alligators fresh victims, he'd feed Roger to them. When she refuses to trick Bond into becoming dinner for his pet alligator "Heinrich", Lacertus Alligator feeds it Roger instead. Further Alligator has painted her erogenous zones indelible purple.

“ 'I had best begin at the beginning. My mother was an itinerant Irish mud-wrestler, my father a French playboy. She met him at an exhibition match in Switzerland and gave up wrestling, at least with women, for a couple of weeks. Then he left her and she gave up wrestling with anything except her conscience for nine months. That was my advent into this fair world.' Her eyes searched B*nd's face for disapproval. Reassured, she continued. ”

Bond escapes from an alligator pit by sticking an aerosol spray can in "Heinrich the alligator"'s mouth; Heinrich chomps down on the pressurised can causing it to explode. Bond rescues Anagram who is naked, spraypainted purple, tied to a chair dangling above an alligator pool. Lacertus Alligator dies when he falls into the clockworks of Big Ben.

Similarities with Fleming's novels and the Bond films

The plot liberally borrows from several Fleming novels including Moonraker, Dr. No, Goldfinger and Casino Royale.

Like Lacertus Alligator, a henchman in Fleming's novel The Spy Who Loved Me - Sol "Horror" Horowitz - has steel-capped teeth. The filmmakers take this a step further in the 1977 film where the henchman Jaws has razor-sharp metal teeth that he uses to bite people to death. Alligator, like Auric Goldfinger, has a Korean manservant skilled in karate whose hands bear many layers of callouses. And like many Bond villains in Fleming's novels, Alligator's tiny pupils in his china blue eyes are completely surrounded by the whites of his eyes.

This novel also "features wrist-activated darts" that subsequently appear in the 1979 Bond film Moonraker. As in the film, the person who wield the gadget demonstrates its ability by firing a dart into a painting. The darts are tipped in philopon, a Japanese murder drug. Alligator once worked in the New York City sewer system and became attached to the alligators; the idea of alligators in the New York City sewers exists in the unfilmed Bond script Warhead which eventually evolved into the 1983 film Never Say Never Again. At one point, B*nd dodges a large alligator hidden in his bed; Bond producer Harry Saltzman proposed a similar - ultimately rejected - idea during the scripting of the 1973 Bond film Live and Let Die. An alligator explodes when it bites down on a aerosol canister B*nd forces into its mouth; in the film Live and Let Die Bond forces a pressurized capsule into the villain's mouth causing him to explode. Anthony Burgess's rejected script for the 1977 Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me also features public ridicule of Royalty and the British government.

Other changes show a deliberate intent to both parody Fleming and remain faithful to the original novels. In Fleming's originals, his Jamaican sidekick was Quarrel. Here, he's named "Squabble". Moneypenny is Pennyfarthing, and Felix Leiter is Felix Ronson, Ronson being the name of a well known cigarette lighter; Ronson too has a hook for a hand and a limp due to a mishap in a Florida caper that Bond had also been involved in. In Fleming's originals, Bond has a Scottish housekeeper named May; here, she is a Welsh woman named Llewylla. Bond's boss in Fleming's novels was "M". Here he is identified only by a single asterisk "*". He too has "damnably clear frosty grey eyes." Bond's secretary Loelia Ponsonby appears here as Lilly Postlethwaite.

The authors however attempt to model B*nd as close as possible on Bond. For example, B*nd's right hand carries "the scars of the skin graft that covered the dread initials carved into it by a SMERSH agent. He had vowed then and there to devote his life to the destruction of SMERSH and all that it stood for." B*nd's right cheek has a scar and he too resembles Hoagy Carmichael.

The novel also contains in-jokes and literary allusions. For example, B*nd's cigarettes are made by "The Barretts of Wimpole Street".

B*nd smokes more - 120 cigarettes a day, 50 more than the 70 a day Fleming had him smoke - and drinks more. In an average morning B*nd will toss down seven double martinis then swallow fourteen benzedrine tablets. Despite this, B*nd is still recognisably a sybarite. He insists that when mixing his drink, "the glass must be chilled at 28 degrees Fahrenheit. No more than two cubes of ice per measure. Basically it is two ounces of Wolfschmidt's and two ounces of Beefeater's with a half ounce of Cointreau. On the side the bartender should have mixed an ounce of creme de menthe with one ounce of light Bacardi and a dash of Angostura and Falernum (not too heavy). The whole is then firmly shaken with a half cup of sugar and poured slowly over the ice in the glass. A twist of lemon once around the lip and into the glass and it is made." This exactness also extends to how he wants his bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich prepared: "The bacon must be crisp, not, however, over-cooked. Lettuce from the inside please, but not the heart. The broad, pale leaves just under the outer covering are best. Do not peel the tomato but wash it thoroughly in very hot water then chill it for at least seven minutes in a bowl of ice. Toast the bread lightly on one side. Hellman's mayonnaise — a medium portion — on both pieces."

History

In 1962 Frith and Cerf - part of the class of '63 - were still undergraduates at Harvard University, contributing to The Harvard Lampoon magazine. They had known each other at Deerfield Academy and renewed their friendship at Harvard. The two men were physically and temperamentally unalike: Cerf, "a born instigator" was "compact and dynamic" whilst Frith was "lanky and laid-back." Frith was "tall and dark like Peter Cook, and Cerf, was short and played the piano like Dudley Moore."

The magazine - which published nine issues a year - had been a money-losing operation, at its lowest point with circulation down to 900. According to Frith who joined the magazine in 1959, unlike other college magazines which "divided up their profits among the staff", The Harvard Lampoon required its members to pay dues, "which mostly went towards the formal dinners. Any profits from sales of the magazine went back into publication." Boosted by a successful parody of Mademoiselle that saw the Lampoon's fortunes rise, Frith and his colleague Cerf set their sights on bestselling author Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond novels.

The summer of 1962, Frith invited Cerf to his family retreat in Bermuda. While there, both undergraduates read Fleming's Bond novels. Both men found Bond "so unbelievably perfect" that it invited parody. Frith and Cerf outlined the novel in a single night. Ready to settle in for the night they agreed before parting that they would take turns writing individual chapters. Needing an exotic location keeping in spirit with Fleming's books - six of the fourteen are set in the Caribbean - Frith set the novel in Bermuda where he himself had been born.

The boys happened to meet author Truman Capote, who himself had just spent a weekend at Fleming's Goldeneye estate in Jamaica. "Cerf and I happened to be at dinner one night with Capote, and he was telling stories about Fleming, so we incorporated some of that stuff into the book, thinking Fleming would get a giggle out of it."

Written during the summer of 1962,and fix grammar they eventually had a "fair-sized" manuscript - approximately 28,000 words - much longer than they had anticipated and certainly too long to be published in a copy of the magazine. As the Lampoon's president, Frith had the book printed without consulting the magazine's editorial board - a move that caused friction as some editors who did not approve of the decision.

Fellow Harvard classmate and Lampoon's treasurer Michael J. Goodkin was the book's production manager. Cerf and Goodkin had previously collaborated on the book The Ivy League Guide to New York, 1960-1961.

Though hiding behind the asterisk-ridden pseudonym, the authors cited themselves on the dedication page: "Dedicated to Michael K. Frith and Christopher B. Cerf, without whom this book would never have been possible and to Rodney Corse-Gilwiddie, whom some day I am going to kill. I.F."

Frith - an illustrator - also did the cover art in keeping with the covers of the paperback editions of Fleming's novels.

The ensuing parody was "folded into 20,000 copies of the fall Harvard Lampoon." The copyright on the book is held by The Harvard Lampoon; registered on 16 November 1962, copyright registration number A605927.

Vanitas, a division of The Harvard Lampoon, published it in November 1962 for 25 cents, and reprinted it in January 1963 now priced at 50 cents. The publisher's catalogue number for both editions was V4402. Due to its short length, the book was stapled in the centre like a magazine despite its paperback format.

A 1963 article in The Bermudian claims that the book was published in a "limited edition (with the worried permission of Signet Books, Mr Fleming's paperback publishers, and to the enthusiastic delight of United Artists, which is about to release a film on Fleming's 'Doctor No')."

The book was a resounding triumph, but the book's further success was cut off short by an agreement the Lampooners had unwittingly signed , and showed his displeasure by ordering that no more copies were to be printed, there was to be no national distrubtion and no foreign sales. The boys had agreed to this more as a coutesy to the older man, that anything else. So, when offers began to come in for movie rights, and T.V. series, Mike and Chris found they were boung to keep their word, and had to abandon dreams page 47

Fleming, upon reading the book, had decided that Alligator" would pose a threat to his own books'

"The first printing has a black and white rear cover, while the second printing has the color purple added at the back. The second printing also has a printed last page with the board of The Harvard Lampoon, and an ad for a recording where the first printing does not."

"Not surprisingly, Alligator was an enormous hit with other proto-Yuppies, becoming required reading in New York's social/literary circles and receiving glowing reviews from Newsweek and other former subjects of Harvard Lampoon parodies." Christopher Cerf's father Bennett Cerf - publisher at Random House - wanted to publish Alligator in hardcover and, Frith recalls, 'wrote Ian Fleming a nice letter that said, Dear Mr. Fleming, wouldn't it be wonderful if ....'" Bennett Cerf wanted to publish an "additional 100,000 copies, after which the rights would revert to Fleming." Fleming rejected the proposal. (Hoping to print another 100,000 copies...)

Fleming however did not see the humour nor was he open to Bennett Cerf's proposal. Fleming shot back with a furious letter "heaping scorn and calumny on the Lampoon parody." This reaction shocked the parody's authors, "who had thought the Bond books were supposed to be funny." According to Frith, "We were surprised to learn Fleming took them very seriously."

"Unfortunately, Fleming himself wasn't amused. Random House approached Frith and Cerf about publishing the parody as a book, but first wanted to get Fleming's permission as a courtesy. "I still remember the text of Fleming's telegram that came back," says Frith. "It was: "I enjoyed the joke, but I do not wish to perpetuate it.' He was furious!" Frith suspects that Fleming got wind of his and Cerf's dinner with Truman Capote. But he went through the roof."

Fleming, recuperating from his April 1961 heart attack, was still smarting from the disastrous reception and disappointing sales of his most recent Bond novel The Spy Who Loved Me - Fleming soon insisted (asked his publishers) that no further editions be printed - and was immersed in a contentious plagiarism lawsuit over his previous Bond novel Thunderball.

Eager to soothe Fleming and not jeopardize the impending publication of a Fleming title - who was about to publish the children's novel Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang for Random House.

According to xxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "All the additional Alligator copies sold out immediately, and this looked like it might only be the beginning. Frith claims that they had "movie offers, somebody wanted us to do a Broadway musical." Frith sighed, but the collegiate authors were legally unable to further exploit their notoriety.

Fifty years later, Frith was still frustrated by the experience and lost opportunities nearly fifty years later.

"Fleming's ire extended beyond the grave. After he died, the people who had obtained the rights to continuing the series approached Frith and Cerf and asked them to write the further adventures of James Bond. The collaborators accepted, but a routine check with Fleming's English publishers revealed a codicil had been added to the late author's will which prohibited in perpetuity Frith and Cerf specifically from writing any posthumous Bond books. Not even over his dead body would Fleming let his hero fall into the parodists' clutches a second time."

Frith appeared at the 2013 Bermuda International Film Festival to celebrate both the 50th anniversary of the James Bond film series and Alligator.

Cover

The cover of Alligator imitates the Signet Books paperback covers used for the Fleming novels in the 1960s, including a short Fl*m*ng biography, and a bibliography of nonexistent B*nd novels: Lightningrod, For Tomorrow We Live, The Chigro of the Narcissus, Toadstool, Doctor Popocatapetl, From Berlin, Your Obedient Servant, Monsieur Butterfly, and Scuba Do - Or Die. Inside the book where this list again appears this time culminating in Alligator, it says, "To our readers: Unfortunately all but the last of these books have been completely sold out."

The back cover shows a picture of a sneering man wielding a gun. Below that appears a biography: "I*N FL*M*NG is a spy. As a cover he pretends to work for The British Diplomatic Corps in Moscow. During World War II he hid in a large hole in the north of England and was not seen until 1951, at which time he emerged bearing several thousand sheets of pencilled manuscript."

The back cover blurb says, "J*MES B*ND is faced with the most daring, outrageous, cunning, mysterious, and insane adversary of his career: LACERTUS ALLIGATOR, multi-millionaire, master criminal, and president of TOOTH. This organization of crazed ex-Nazis is out to destroy England by holding the English Government for a huge ransom. The battle begins for the ace secret agent in a five-hundred-thousand-pound game of 'Go Fish' ... gains momentum in his fiery love affair with a sensuous blond temptress ... and reaches a chilling climax with fiendish torture at the hands of a master sadist. For incredible suspense, unexpected thrills, unbelievable nonsense, read I*N FL*M*NG."

Reception

Sales

The New York Times Book Review noted the book's surprising and unexpected popularlity. "It's news when a university press has a best seller, it probably is more so when an undergraduate publication gets one." Alligator "came out quietly, was first circulated mainly about Boston, then like the ripple caused by the thrown stone, began to reach bookstores in New York and other outlying districts. To date the sales have gone to about 50000 copies."

Marshall Field III - the Lampoon's business staff secretary - and the magazine's treasurer Michael J. Goodkin claim the book sold 6,000 copies in Boston alone; and was on sale in another fifteen cities. In two months the novel had sold more than 40,000 copies. An unexpected bestseller, the novel ultimately sold 50,000 copies and went through several editions. Shortly after publication the book was on bestsellers lists in Washington D.C. and Boston.

The book received extensive worldwide media coverage. O. F. Snelling claims numerous British reviews when it was "virtually unobtainable, caused much frustration among potential readers when they could not buy it and among booksellers when they could not supply it." Snelling, eager to get a copy "speedily of the utmost importance" himself had to special order a copy from a New York-based bibliophile, whom Snelling assumed would not know anything about the book or for that matter Fleming's Bond novels. Snelling wrote an excessively-detailed letter explaining all. The bibliophile wrote back explaining that he was well aware of Fleming and in fact admired him for his work on the esoteric journal "The Book Collector". The bibliophile found the parody so entertaining that he even wondered if Fleming himself had written it. The bibliophile had purchased and given away "more than a dozen copies" of the book in a year. He sent Snelling his only remaining copy.

Reviews

Many critics praise the work noting that it is a "note perfect" imitation of Fleming's originals. Others praise the book for being an excellent thriller in its own right.

Andrew Wheeler notes that Alligator "came out at the peak of literary James Bond, and at the last moment that a satire could be primarily about the books -- before the pop-culture steamroller of a major movie franchise flatted all of that mental real estate and remade it in a notably different style." He further praises the "wry aping of Fleming's world-weary, depressive tones, the way that it's only a half-step more silly than a real Fleming Bond novel. B*nd orders all of his food and drink in massively intricate detail -- any one instance of which would be perfectly in place in a Fleming novel, and serve to show that Bond has definite tastes." Wheeler notes that "there are no obvious jokes in Alligator, no nudges to the ribs, and no broad, slow winks -- this is a smart satire for readers who know the original, and will be amused by the twists that Frith and Cerf take to Fleming's original. It's a much drier parody than the later, more famous Harvard Lampoon work of the next generation -- Henry Beard and Doug Kenney, with Bored of the Rings and then the National Lampoon -- based much more closely on knowledge of the original than on adding in as many jokes as possible. Alligator isn't a laugh-a-minute riot, but it's quite funny, and gets funnier as it goes along and the jokes accumulate -- and as the reader settles in, realizing that Frith and Cerf know their Fleming idiosyncrasies dead to rights and will be poking them all in turn."

Author, critic and Bond author Kingsley Amis in his book The James Bond Dossier generally liked the novel. He believes that the authors had created a villain with an amusing likeness to the villains in Fleming's own novels and that the novel is "worth a look-through." However he complains that the work is "generally too close to the original. Most of the time it simply reworks Fleming incidents and phrases at a lower level of energy." Ultimately Amis believes that "Alligator is chiefly interesting as a testimony to the fascination of the Fleming manner."

Author and Bond scholar O.F. Snelling in his book Double O Seven, James Bond, A Report calls the work "hilarious" and further writes that it is a "riotous pastiche brilliantly written in the Ian Fleming manner" and that it's "surely was one of the most polished things of its kind ever done."

The New York Times Book Review crime fiction critic Anthony Boucher — described by a Fleming biographer, John Pearson as "throughout an avid anti-Bond and an anti-Fleming man" — praised Alligator for being an "acute and devastating spoof. They have managed to capture precisely all of the appealing absurdities of the adventures of James Bond, 007, from the big gaming scene to the small snobberies of insistence on the Best in Everything, on to the blind luck which always rescues Bond from his own stupidity." Further Boucher provided the publisher's mailing address to order copies if interested readers could not find a copy in bookstores. "Like all first-rate parodies, this is at its best hardly distinguishable from the real thing; comic though it is, it is far closer to satisfactory Fleming than the embarrassing The Spy That Loved Me. In a December 1963 follow-up article he calls the novel "high-proof Bonded parody [...] even funnier than the absurdities" it mocks. Boucher subsequently listed Alligator as one of the ten best crime novels of the year alongside Eric Ambler's The Light of Day and Agatha Christie's The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side; whilst Fleming's Bond novel that year - On Her Majesty's Secret Service was for Boucher one of the year's worst.

"The Vault of Buncheness" calls it "a dead-on parody of the Fleming oeuvre that's so on target that it's barely distinguishable from an actual James Bond novel, save for a few moments of quite ludicrous exaggeration of Fleming's stylistic tropes." However he complains that the novel isn't funny. "It hews far too close to its source material. What little laughs are generated depend heavily on the reader's intimate familiarity with the ten 007 books ranging from 1953 through 1962." And that the novel "is best left to Bond completists and curiosity seekers who want to check out just how closely a writer can ape one author's style."

Tim Hodgson claims that an alarmed Ian Fleming informed Frith that "The note-perfect send-up of Ian Fleming's writing style had resulted in some American readers confusing Alligator for a genuine - if particularly bizarre - entry in his 007 series."

Doug Bentin says the authors "did a great job of burlesquing both Fleming's style and substance," though he thinks the novel is "more fun for Bond readers than Bond moviegoers, and especially for those who enjoy deadpan humor. B*nd is no fool and he's certainly no Clouseau-style physical buffoon. That approach wouldn't be in keeping with Fleming."

Another critic writes that the authors "were very faithful to the original. Alligator is such a great parody of the Fleming style that the casual reader might be completely fooled except for the asterisks, abbreviated length, and a few of the unusual scenes."

However Harvard's own in-house newspaper - The Crimson - was less sympathetic, no surprise given the history of rivaly that had existed between Harvard's two journals. Anthony Hiss admits that although the book contains elements of parody, that it is not a parody of Fleming or his books. Hiss feels that the novel too closely resembles a Fleming novel by needlessly duplicating Fleming's own numerous failings. "This story-line gets lost in the telling, which is every bit as numbering [sic] as anything Fleming himself ever churned out. And that is what really troubles me about Alligator: the more one reads of it, the more one is haunted by the awful fear that I*n Fl*m*ng might easily be Ian Fleming himself."

L.R. Swainson in The Sydney Morning Herald calls it "an extra-ordinary piece of work."

Richard Christiansen writing for the Toledo Blade said Alligator is "even more enjoyable" than most of Fleming's own novels.

Library Journal called the novel "a sustained cocksnook" likely to amuse fans and non-fans."

Author Ellin Stein says "So accomplished was Alligator that it might easily have been mistaken for the real thing were it not for the giveaway context (thus anticipating the tightrope act between parody and serious intent the films based on the Bond books would walk)."

Fashion writer and newspaper columnist Eugenia Sheppard said the book was "Just about the greatest gift you can leave with any weekend hostess this summer."

Clifford Terry writing in the Chicago Tribune said that if there must be a "take-off on Ian Fleming's creation," then it should be like Alligator which he said was "handled with some style."

Gossip columnist Suzy Knickerbocker called it a "clever parody". She also believed that the book may have "gone on forever" had Ian Fleming not interfered.

The Baltimore Sun critic thinks its "difficult to parody" Bond if only because Fleming "goes about as far as one can go." But the critic believes that Alligator "is indeed so accurate it might have been written by Fleming himself."

Toadstool sequel in Pl*yb*y

Pages 71 88 continues to 94 96 101

By 1959, circulation was down to approximately 905 subscribers, primarily former editors. Frith and Cerf "headed the Harvard Lampoon in one of the most successful, entertaining periods in its history."

Another "J*mes B*nd" story titled Toadstool appeared in a 1966 Playboy magazine parody ("Pl*yb*y") published by the Lampoon as a novelette. After a disgraceful mission, B*nd has quit the secret service to raise rabbits at an abbey, where he is now known as "Brother Hilarius". Lord Toadstool, "a fungus with a flair for fiendishness" attempts to recruit Bond into his organisation "SIN".

No author is identified behind the pseudonym and it is not known if Cerf and Frith also wrote this story though they do contribute to the issue - a satire entitled Little Orphan Bosom - and are credited as "graduate editors." After graduating, Frith, Cerf and Goodkin went to work at Random House; Frith and Cerf worked in the education department, Goodkin with the Modern Library. Christopher Cerf's younger brother Jonathan was now on the Harvard Lampoon staff, also holding the rank of "ibis." (second-in-command)

The Harvard Lampoon was no stranger to parodies of respectable magazines, including Saturday Review, but at the start of the summer of 1966, Lampoon president Walker Lewis proposed doing a parody of Playboy.

Walker Lewis became Lampoon president in 1965; "breaking with tradition, a business board member had beaten the editorial candidates for the top job." Lewis's first priority was to examine the magazine's finances which proved to be nonexistent. People owed the magazine money but weren't willing to pay. Members hadn't been paying dues either nor were they in any mood to pay. Lampoon newstand sales were also down. Lewis also forced the magazine to publish on a monthly basis, instead of whenever there was sufficient material to justify a new issue. However Lewis realized that it required a "backbreaking effort to put out a monthly humour magazine." He "began looking toward special issues that would parody specific magazines as a way to make some "real money." With Playboy selling at its historical peak on college campuses in the mid-1960s, he found the perfect target."

After seeking legal advice, Lewis informed Playboy magazine of his intentions. Playboy initially threatened to sue The Lampoon if they proceeded. Unfazed, Lewis traveled to Playboy's Chicago offices and told them the Lampoon would welcome "the press coverage" a lawsuit would bring their endeavour. Playboy then hastily changed its stand and offered to assist the Lampoon, even introducing the boys to the "specialty printer that produced their centerfolds."

"Abruptly, Plaboy offered to help out in any way possible and introduced Lewis to the specialty printer that produced their centerfolds. Soon a Lampoon sales force headed to Madison Avenue, where they contracted for about twenty pages of four-color ads from major companies. Running at roughly one hundred pages, with real nudes, the Harvard Lampoon parody of Playboy (at $1 per copy) soon sold out its run of over 500,000 copies in five days on the newstand.

Magazine staff met once a week at a formal dinners to discuss story ideas. The Lampoon had its formal dinners on Thursday where the "over-educated, rich white males" all wore tuxedos. Drunk by six, they ate dinner at eight and finished off with a food fight. After leaving, they gathered around the Castle fireplace for "jokes and comic stories" and smoking joints. Doug Kenney was "always the star of the show, telling a shaggy dog story and singing silly songs for almost thirty minutes."

The parody magazine featured nude women, many of whom were girlfriends of the all-male Lampoon staff.

Pl*yb*y sold out its entire 500,000 print run in five days. As a result, Lampoon's treasury grew from "$3,000 to $150,000" in 1966 funds.

External links

Category:James Bond books Category:1962 novels Category:American satirical novels Category:Parody novels Category:The Harvard Lampoon

Misc

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• chapter by chapter plot synopsis http://www.razyboard.com/system/morethread-bondparodien-jamesbond-270-99819-0.html

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• google news
• Oy-Oy--7.com
• Then at the beginning of the summer of 1966, President Walker Lewis suggested doing a Playboy parody and everything changed.
• Cerf and Alligator or Fleming or Lampoon
• source determine copyright status, no OR
• J*M*S or J*MES?
• Saltzmann
• Fleming's quip about Castro's beard (article claim Sunday March 13, presumably 1960 http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1300&dat=19661214&id=Aq9PAAAAIBAJ&sjid=aZMDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3280,2525882 ); c.f. Ronson's quip in Alligator.
• Florida mishap -> Florida mishap
• f.com/ja_bo/alligator.htm
• Frith's parents
• summers in Bermuda
• boating experience
• Bond Files on Alligator
• Benson on Alligator
• Bennett Cerf papers, archives
• site:thecrimsonherald.com IF, Playboy, Alligator, Cerf
• Cerf Fleming google news, books
• Phyllis & Fleming google news, books
• Toadstool contain initials MKF - CBC

Harvard Lampoon president

Harvard Lampoon

Vol CLII NO. 7

Board of Editors

Michael K. Frith '63, President

Christopher B. Cerf '63, Ibis Lawrence M. Butler '64, Narthex

R. D. Swezey, Jr. '62-4 S. C. Burden, Jr. '63 J. A. Cole '63 J. D. Postman '63 F. R. Kellogg '64 R. R. Sullivan '64 J. L. Steingarten '64 H. T. Cobey '65 S. E. Dickinson '65 C. H. Shurcliff '65

Alfred C. Harrison, Jr. '63, Librarian Woodward A. Wickham'64, Culinator Bradford H. Walker '63, Extractor

Business Board Michael J. Goodkin '63, Treasurer Marshall Field III '63, Secretary Michael F. O'Connell II '63, Advertising Manager Robert V. Holton, Jr. '63, Subscription Manager William B. Bacon, Jr. '63, Circulation Manager W. P. Jones '63 S. McIlvaine '63 T. Tyler '63 R. E. Weinberg '63 D. L. Carroll '64 J. R. Leonard '65 G. A. Vera '65

"Well," said Ronson, "in the first place I've quit the CIA. They didn't have much use for a specimen such as me after the Florida caper." He laughed shortly. "Though I've a plan which will get me back in if I can only get it to one of the higher-ups." His face glowed with enthusiasm. "It's to finish up this Cuban mess once and for all, and it can't fail. If we just load up a squadron of bombers with pictures of naked girls and drop them all over the island, our troops could easily walk in, and take over while their soldiers are running around picking up the pictures. There'd be nothing to it."

B*nd gasped. The plan was brilliant in its simplicity and would be sure to work. That this man was no longer working for the CIA was a typical example of American inability to recognise genius.

"[A] barb aimed at Ian Fleming from the centre of his wife's literary circle, and [it] comes closer to hitting Fleming's distinctive style than anyone has managed since." [Andy Lane & Paul Simpson, The Bond Files, 1998]

Holmes Meets 007 (1967) by Donald Stanley: The story was published in a limited edition of 224 copies.

"Maybe one of his famous hunches - and no one could deny that on a famous occasion Major Rive's hunch had paid off when there had been a James Bond attempt to land a plane upcoast and fly out a parcel of stolen diamonds."

In one press article published in The Star (25 May 1971) Jenkins explains his failure to produce a published work during the 5 years following the publication of Hunter Killer (1966) as follows: "I took time off to re-find myself. ... I was suffering under what I call the Fleming Syndrome. Ian was a great friend of mine and gave me plenty of encouragement when "Twist" was launched. I used to look him up whenever I was in London. So I suppose it was natural my writing should drift towards the Bond style and my plots should begin to take on that form. That and an eye on the film rights. I couldn't shake it off even though I began to loathe the film industry. So I dropped everything and set about reassessing myself."

In a Sunday Times (1981) interview he describes Ian Fleming as the personification of James Bond and in another Sunday Times interview (1972) he refers to his friendship with Fleming in the late forties as follows: "He was my immediate boss... He had the famous old 4 and a half litre Bentley then. I can remember how he used to look at the clock at about 12.30 and say 'Geoffrey, old boy, time for a spot of lunch'. We would never get back until 3 o'clock."