Douglas C. Kenney

Career National Lampoon While at Harvard University, Kenney was a member of the Signet Society, president of the Spee Club and editor of The Harvard Lampoon. Kenney frequently collaborated with Henry Beard; the two wrote the short novel Bored of the Rings, which was published in 1969. Kenney graduated in 1968. Beard and fellow Harvard alumnus Robert Hoffman founded the humor magazine National Lampoon.

Kenney wrote much of the National Lampoons early material, such as "Mrs. Agnew's Diary", a regular column purporting to be the diary of Spiro Agnew's wife, chronicling her life, Richard Nixon, and other famous politicians. The feature was an Americanized version of Private Eyes long-running column "Mrs. Wilson's Diary", written from the viewpoint of Prime Minister Harold Wilson's wife.

To escape the pressures of running a successful magazine, Kenney sometimes took unannounced extended breaks; despite these absences, "Mrs. Agnew's Diary" was always submitted to the Lampoon. During one of these breaks he wrote a comic novel, Teenage Commies from Outer Space. Kenney threw the manuscript in the trash after Beard reacted to it negatively. It was based on an earlier two-page piece by Kenney and Michael O'Donoghue, a National Lampoon writer and editor.

Kenney had a five-year buyout contract with the Lampoons publisher, Twenty First Century Communications. Kenney, Beard, and Hoffman took advantage of this, dividing a sum of $7 million among them. Kenney remained on the staff until 1977, when he left the magazine to co-write the screenplay to National Lampoon's Animal House with Chris Miller and Harold Ramis.

Kenney said of his time with the National Lampoon:

Kenney had a small background role in Animal House as Delta fraternity brother "Stork", with one line of dialogue. Kenney selected this role for himself as he felt it was the one that fit him best. Produced on a very modest budget, National Lampoon's Animal House was, until Ghostbusters in 1984, the most profitable comedy film in Hollywood history.

Caddyshack Kenney produced and wrote Caddyshack with Brian Doyle-Murray and Harold Ramis. Kenney also had a small role in Caddyshack as a dinner guest of Al Czervik's.

When Caddyshack opened to negative reviews from critics in July 1980 despite being a box-office success, Kenney became deeply depressed, although Ramis joked that the film was "a six-million-dollar scholarship to film school".

Kenney had traveled alone to the island of Kauai on August 26, 1980. On August 27, he fell to his death from a cliff called the Hanapepe Valley Lookout. Police found his rental car near the lookout point the following day, and his body was located on August 31. Found in Kenney's hotel room were notes for projects he had been planning, jokes, and an outline for a new movie. A gag line that he had left was also discovered: "These last few days are among the happiest I've ever ignored."

Krassner described Kenney's wake:

I attended a memorial wake for Doug on the rooftop of the Magic Castle in Hollywood. There was an all-you-can-eat buffet provided by a Japanese restaurant. [A friend] and I considered starting a food fight, inspired by that scene in Animal House in honor of Doug — 'He would have wanted it that way' — but we decided it would be in terrible taste, and out of respect for all the other mourners, we resisted the temptation."