The Yale Record

The Yale Record is the campus humor magazine of Yale University. Founded in 1872, it is the oldest humor magazine in the United States.

The Record is currently published eight times during the academic year and is distributed in Yale residential college dining halls and around the nation through subscriptions. Content from the magazine is made available online and entire issues can be downloaded in .pdf form.

History

19th century

The Record began as a weekly newspaper, with its first issue appearing on September 11, 1872. Almost immediately, it became a home to funny writing (often in verse form), and later, when printing technology made it practical, humorous illustrations. The Record thrived immediately, and by the turn of the century had a wide circulation outside of New Haven—at prep schools, other college towns, and even New York City.

As Yale became one of the bellwethers of collegiate taste and fashion (especially for the younger universities looking East), so too The Record became a model—F. Scott Fitzgerald referred to the magazine as one of the harbingers of the new, looser morality of collegians of that time. But it wasn't just laughs The Record was serving up—during the 1920s, The Record ran a popular speakeasy in the basement of its building at 254 York Street (designed by Lorenzo Hamilton and completed in 1928). and Judge.

20th century

In 1914, J.L. Butler of The Yale Record and Richard Sanger of The Harvard Lampoon created the first annual banquet of the College Comics Association, which drew representatives from 14 college humor magazines to New Haven. The college humor style influenced—or in some cases led directly to—the Marx Brothers, The New Yorker, Playboy, Mad magazine, underground comics, National Lampoon, The Second City, and Saturday Night Live.

thumb|Cover of the September 1925 issue of [[College Humor (magazine)|College Humor]]

From the 1920s to the 1960s, The Record placed special emphasis on cartooning, which led many of its alumni to work at Esquire magazine and especially The New Yorker. Record cartoonists during this time period included Peter Arno, Reginald Marsh, Clarence Day, Julien Dedman, Robert C. Osborn, James Stevenson, William Hamilton, and Garry Trudeau.

From 1920 through the 1940s, many Record staffers and alums contributed to College Humor, a popular nationally distributed humor magazine. Additionally, comedy first published in The Record was re-printed in national humor magazines like Life and College Humor.

thumb|[[Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau in 2012]]

By the late 1940s, the magazine's ties to The New Yorker were so strong that designers from that magazine consulted on The Records layout and design.

By the 1950s, the Record had established the "Cartoonist of the Year" award, which brought people like Walt Kelly, the creator of Pogo, to New Haven to dine and swap stories with the staff.

In the early 1960s, cartoons and comic writing from the magazine were regularly re-printed in Harvey Kurtzman's Help!, a satirical magazine that helped launch the careers of Monty Python's Terry Gilliam, R. Crumb, Woody Allen, John Cleese, Gloria Steinem, and others.

In the late 1960s, the magazine played an integral role in editor-in-chief Garry Trudeau's creation of his epochal strip Doonesbury. In addition to editing the Record, Trudeau (and Record chairman Tim Bannon, basis of Doonesbury attorney T.F. Bannon of Torts, Tarts & Torque) organized Record events such as a successful Annette Funicello film festival, a Tarzan film festival (with guest Johnny Weissmuller) and a Jefferson Airplane concert featuring Sha Na Na.

The 1970s and 1980s are known as the "Dark Ages" amongst Record staffers. Economic conditions in New Haven were abysmal and despite its impressive pedigree, The Record sputtered along, self-destructed and was revived numerous times throughout this period. Boards were convened and issues were published intermittently in 1971–1981, 1983, and 1987.

Then in 1989, Yale students Michael Gerber and Jonathan Schwarz relaunched The Record for good. Their more informal, iconoclastic version of The Record proved popular, and a parody of the short-lived sports newspaper The National garnered national media attention. Gerber also created an ad hoc advisory board from Record alumni and friends, including Mark O'Donnell, Garry Trudeau, Robert Grossman, Harvey Kurtzman, Arnold Roth, Ian Frazier, and Sam Johnson and Chris Marcil.

In the fall of 1992, Record contributor Ryan Craig founded popular Yale tabloid the Rumpus.

21st century

While The Record continues to publish paper issues, the magazine began publishing web content on April 1, 2001.

Themed issues

Each issue of the current magazine features a particular theme. Aspects of the magazine include:

Snews - One-liners in the form of headlines.
Mailbags - Humorous letters to the editor, historical figures, or inanimate objects.
The Editorial - Written by the editor in chief of the magazine each issue, giving a brief overview of the contents and making of the issue.
Cartoons - Captioned, "New Yorker style" cartoons that hail back to the magazine's early beginnings.
Lists and Features - Staff generated content pertinent to the magazine's theme.

Parodies

From time to time, The Record publishes parodies. These include (but are not limited to):

The Yale Daily Record, a parody of the Yale Daily News (May 2016)
"Yale's 50 Best Personalities," a Yale Rumpus parody (April 2015)
The Yale Daily Record, a parody of the Yale Daily News (April 2014)
Yale Bulldog Days Program Parody (April 2013 – 2016)
"The Please Your Man Issue" (April 2009), a parody of Cosmopolitan
"The Yale Protest Club: Fill Out Your Very Own YPC Petition!" (April 2008)
"Parents' Weekend Brochure" (October 2007)
Yale Blue Book Parody (September 2007)
"Yale Map" (for visiting pre-frosh) (April 2007)
Yale Blue Book Parody (September 2006)
"Yale's 50 Best Personalities," a Yale Rumpus parody (February 2006)
Yale Blue Book Parody (August 2005)
"YaleRecordStation" (March 2004), parody of "YaleStation"
Yale College Coarse Critique (September 2002), a parody of the Yale Course Critique
Yale Handbook Parody (September 2001)
The New York Tomes (April 1, 1999), a parody of The New York Times
The Yale Harold (1992), a parody of the Yale Herald
Parody of The National Sports Daily (April 1991)
Football Program Parody (November 1990)
New Haven Abdicate (1990), a parody of the New Haven Advocate
National Enquirer parody (1975)
New York Times parody (1974)
Yale Daily News parody (1970)
Pwayboy (1964), a parody of Playboy
Twue (1963), a parody of True
Liff (1962), a parody of Life
Reader's Digestion (1960), a parody of Reader's Digest
Timf (1960), a parody of Time
Yale Alumninum Manganese (1955), a parody of the Yale Alumni Magazine
Esquirt (1955), a parody of Esquire
Tale (1954), a parody of Male
Yale Daily News parody (1954)
Paunch (1952), a parody of Punch
Yale Daily News parody (1952)
Yale Daily News parody (1951)
The Smut! Issue (1951)
Yale Daily News parody (1949)
Record's Digest (1943), a parody of Reader's Digest
Phlick (1939), a parody of photo magazines
Adam McKay, former head writer of Saturday Night Live and co-writer/director of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
Upright Citizens Brigade co-founders Matt Walsh and Ian Roberts, and Lawrence Blume, director of Martin & Orloff
Fred Armisen of Portlandia and Saturday Night Live
Stella (David Wain, Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter)
Alec Baldwin of 30 Rock, Knots Landing, Beetlejuice, The Cooler, The Hunt for Red October, The Aviator, Blue Jasmine and MSNBC's short-lived Up Late with Alec Baldwin
Neil Goldman of Scrubs and Community
Comedy writer Mike Sacks
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Oscar-winning actor known for Boogie Nights, The Big Lebowski and Capote
Demetri Martin
Wesley Willis
John Mulaney, Marika Sawyer and Simon Rich of Saturday Night Live
Comic artist Kazu Kibuishi, known for Copper

Pranks

1902: The Yale Record pranked temperance activist Carrie Nation. Pretending to be a Yale temperance group, they brought her to Yale. During her visit, they took a picture with her. At the time, nighttime indoors photography required turning off all artificial lights before exposing a photographic plate and illuminating the scene with a single flashbulb. However, in the darkness, the students from The Record pulled out a beer stein and other props to create the impression of what the Yale Daily News would characterize as a "Bacchanalian orgy."
2015: The Yale Record hosted a mock protest on Broadway. The students called for Yale administrators to bring a second Kiko Milano store. “When we heard that Yale had decided to replace the affordable food store up on Broadway with Kiko Milano and Emporium DNA, we were really excited to have the chance to buy more luxury products at Yale because that was really hard before,” Gertler said.

"Old Owl"

left|thumb|150px|"Old Owl"

For over a century, the mascot of the Record has been "Old Owl", a congenial, largely nocturnal, 360-degree-head-turning, cigar-smoking bird who tries to steer the staff towards a light-hearted appreciation of life and the finer things in it.

"Old Owl" is a Cutty Sark connoisseur of some repute and enthusiasm. In artists' sketches, he is often portrayed as anthropomorphic.

Documenting the birth of American football

The Yale Record of the late nineteenth century chronicled much of the birth of American football:

right|thumb|150px|[[Walter Camp, the "Father of American Football", pictured here in 1878 as the captain of the Yale football team]]

The Yale Record and the Nassau Literary Magazine of Princeton printed the only accounts of the first Yale-Princeton game (1873), the first game played using the Football Association Rules of 1873. These were the first consolidated rules in American football; before this, each of the handful of colleges that had football teams played by its own set of rules.
The Yale Record documented the organization and playing of the first Harvard-Yale game (1875). Yale proposed the game. Harvard, which had just rejected an offer to join the association of soccer-playing colleges, accepted the challenge, on condition that the game be played with what were essentially rugby rules. These were the rules used by Harvard, different to the rules of the other colleges. Yale agreed to this condition and was soundly defeated. In reflecting on this crushing defeat, one Record editor blamed the loss on Yale's willingness to adopt the "concessionary rules", complaining that Yale "should not have given so much to Harvard."
The Yale Record documented the creation of the Intercollegiate Football Association in 1876. The Harvard-Yale game of 1875 ushered in a national shift from the soccer form to the rugby form of football. Within a year, Princeton had adopted the rugby rules, and in the fall of 1876, Columbia joined Princeton and Harvard to form the Intercollegiate Football Association, which officially adopted English rugby rules. Although Yale agreed to adopt English rugby rules and played Harvard, Princeton and Columbia, they did not join the association as they favored a game with eleven rather than fifteen players, as well as points allowed only for kicked goals.
The Yale Record documented the creation of the first American football championship. The Intercollegiate Football Association created the first championship game, which was played between Princeton and Yale on Thanksgiving Day in 1877.</blockquote>

The magazine published its own history of The Yale Record/"hot dog" connection in its April 1998 issue.

However, the term hot dog in reference to the sausage-meat appears in the Evansville (Indiana) Daily Courier (September 14, 1884):

<blockquote>even the innocent 'wienerworst' man will be barred from dispensing hot dog on the street corner.</blockquote> And hot dog was used to mean a sausage in casing in the Paterson (New Jersey) Daily Press (31 December 1892):

<blockquote>the 'hot dog' was quickly inserted in a gash in a roll.

Notable alumni

Notable Yale Record alumni include (but are not limited to):

Franklin Abbott
Cecil Alexander
Peter Arno
Grosvenor Atterbury
Thomas Rutherford Bacon
Donn Barber
Hugh Aiken Bayne
Daniel Levin Becker
Lucius Beebe
Clifford Whittingham Beers
William Burke Belknap
Stephen Vincent Benét
William Rose Benet
Senator William Benton
Peter Bergman and Phil Proctor of The Firesign Theatre
Walker Blaine (editorial board, 1874–1875)
Edward Anthony Bradford (editorial board, 1872–1873)
Howard S. Buck
John Chamberlain
Walter B. Chambers (editorial board, 1886–1887)
Roy D. Chapin Jr.
George Shepard Chappell
Cherry Chevapravatdumrong
William Churchill
Gerald Clarke
River Clegg
Thomas Cochran
Elliot E. Cohen
Charles Collens
Paul Fenimore Cooper
James S. Copley
Raymond Crosby
Walter J. Cummings
Clarence Day
George Parmly Day
Julien Dedman
William Adams Delano
Rep. Charles S. Dewey
William Henry Draper III
Fairfax Downey
John C. Farrar
Henry Johnson Fisher
Matt Fogel
Karin Fong
Henry Ford II
Jay Franklin
Asa P. French (editorial board, 1881–1882)
A. Whitney Griswold
Robert Grossman
Philip Hale (editorial board, 1875–1876)
Eddie Hartman
Clovis Heimsath
Geoffrey T. Hellman
David Hemingson
Jerome Hill
Hrishikesh Hirway
John Hoyt
Cyril Hume
Walter Hunt
Richard Melancthon Hurd
Rex Ingram
Samuel Isham (editorial board, 1874–1875) (editorial board, 1873–1874)
Lorenzo Medici Johnson
Gordon M. Kaufman
Stoddard King
Eugene Kingman
John Knowles
Brendan Koerner
Jason Koo
Arthur Kraft
Jack Kukoda
Dick Lemon
Robert L. Levers, Jr.
David Litt
Huc-Mazelet Luquiens
Reginald Marsh
Grant Mason Jr.
Tex McCrary
Thomas C. Mendenhall
Charles Merz
Eric Metaxas
Glen Michaels
Gouverneur Morris
John C. Nemiah
Robert C. Osborn
Jack Otterson
Greg Pak
Ed Park
Sidney Catlin Partridge (editorial board, 1879–1880) (editorial board, 1874–1875) (editorial board, 1876–1877)
Cole Porter
John A. Porter (editorial board, 1877–1878)
Kenneth Rand
Erik Rauch
John Francisco Richards II
Clements Ripley
James Gamble Rogers
Henry T. Rowell
John M. Schiff
Preston Schoyer
Charles Green Shaw
Howard Van Doren Shaw
Michael Shear
Sherman Day Thacher (editorial board, 1882–1883)
Garry Trudeau
Sonny Tufts
Frank Tuttle
Jose Antonio Sainz de Vicuna (editorial board, 1884–1885)
Hillary Waugh
Edward Whittemore
Herbert Warren Wind
Jerome Zerbe
Christopher Buckley
George Carlin
Michael Colton and John Aboud
Scott Dikkers
Neil Goldman
Garrison Keillor
Lewis Lapham
Charles McGrath
Adam McKay
Bob Odenkirk
Super Dave Osborne