Lampy's recent reprint issue shows clearly that the main faults of his present writing have been present for a good many years: the humor is mostly situational and the situations are all trite.

"At a Small Dance," for instance, is a pointless story describing a young gentleman's adventures at a debutante ball. The characters, descriptions, and impressions are Lampoon stock in trade apparently passed down from generation to generation. "Atmofphere Pluf" is a gag story built around the use of the Old English "f" to replace "s" on the menn of a country restaurant; this is conceivably a suitable practice around which to build a witty story, but the writer merely thinks of all the words he knows that have "s" in them and substitutes the antiquated "f". If any attention at all had been paid to the plot, this piece could have been very humorous.

The issue's one redeeming story is "As Who Likes It?," a moderately funny parody on Shakespeare's comedy. Its humor comes from a take-off on the supposedly unconvincing disguises of Rosalind in "As You Like It"; in this case, the writer gets some humor out of having both lovers in disguises that fool nobody in the east but themselves. But the plot here too lacks effort and the promise of a reasonably funny climax is never realized. The parody on Kittredge and Coleridge footnotes comes off very well indeed.

Fred Gwynne's only contribution to the issue is the fine cover, and the cartoons are far below the quality of those in recent issues. With the exception of a small poke at the Phillips Brooks House clothes drive, none of them merited reprinting. Certainly there have been some funnier attempts from the 'Poon's drawing boards in the past than this collection indicates.

It would seem that Lampy cannot find much humor by rummaging through the past. If he is ever going to be funny again, he will have to shake off conventions as dull as these reprint articles and substitute the freshness of new plots and entertaining descriptions.