My Gig with Danielle of the Double D's
by
Chris

Early in 1971, Doug Kenney, National Lampoon’s esteemed editor and co-founder, invented the foto funny.  He crafted and acted in the first bunch of them, and then resident madman, Michael O’Donnehugh, took over and turned out the next bunch.  Then came my turn.

It seemed that Michael had been offered a handbill one day while returning to the office from lunch by some funky-looking guy on 42nd Street.  That’s the old 42nd Street, with the whores, bums and drug dealers, not the current, wholesome, Disneyfied one.  The handbill advertised a peep show and bore the photograph of a young woman with the largest gozongas Michael had ever seen.  Sensing the humor inherent in such outsized mammary appendages, he brought the handbill back to the office, suggesting that the young woman be found and hired for a modeling gig.  This is when he contacted me.

He told me that he wanted to do some foto funnies featuring said young woman, whose nomme de poitrine turned out to be Danielle.  And who better to star in them, he exclaimed, than you!  I hardly need add that I jumped at the chance.  I composed four such foto funnies and, in some guy’s apartment on the Upper West Side, doffed my clothing and climbed into bed with Danielle to shoot them.  The results were so successful that Danielle became our Foto Funnies Girl and I became the regular writer, director and co-actor in them for quite some time.  Not that anyone noticed me—Danielle was clearly the star.

She proved to be a terrific actress and a playful, if somewhat naughty, ally in turning the things out over the next few years.  After one of the shoots, she invited me over to her apartment in Brooklyn.  I was only too happy to accompany her.  We were having a wonderful time together until I noticed that under the bed was a large set of barbells.  When Danielle told me these belonged to her husband, I was out of there like a flash, pulling on my clothing as I raced down the hall like a character in some French farce.

Here is a sampling of the serious and rigorous works of art we created together.  If you wish, you may take off your clothes to view them.