Ed Subitzky

In 2015, clips from an interview with Subitzky were used in the documentary film National Lampoon: Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead, and his likeness was used in one of the Rick Meyerowitz cartoon posters for the film.

In 2015, a documentary film entitled National Lampoon: Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead was released. The film is about how National Lampoon and its contributors changed American humor. The film features clips from interviews with many of the magazine's major artists and writers, including Subitzky.

Since this magazine's rebirth in 2015, Subitzky has had numerous humor pieces, written and drawn, published in the humor magazine The American Bystander.

In June 2013, That's Not Funny, That's Sick: The National Lampoon and the Comedy Insurgents Who Captured the Mainstream, by Ellin Stein was published. Subitzky is mentioned on pages 172 and 174 of the book.

A one-page comic strip by Subitzky is included in the book The Someday Funnies, a collection of original comics about the 1960s, edited by Michel Choquette. It was released by Abrams on November 1, 2011. Other contributors included the writer William Burroughs, the filmmaker Federico Fellini, the writer Tom Wolfe, and the musician Frank Zappa.

On page 13 of her 2011 book, Blabber, Blabber, Blabber: Volume 1 of Everything, American cartoonist Lynda Barry lists Ed Subitzky as one of her early influences:

A chapter about Ed Subitzky (pages 208 – 213) forms part of the 2010 coffee-table book about the early years of National Lampoon magazine, Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Writers and Artists Who Made the National Lampoon Insanely Great by Rick Meyerowitz.

In 2006, an Australian magazine, POX, ran a multipage National Lampoon magazine parody, which included a take-off of Subitzky's comic strips.

Starting in 2003, Subitzky contributed 17 pieces (including essays, stories, cartoons, and comic strips) on the subject of consciousness to a serious science journal, the Journal of Consciousness Studies. He has had over 20 letters published in New Scientist magazine. And since 2015, Subitzky's drawing and writing has been in almost every issue of The American Bystander humor magazine.

Subitzky has had a life-long interest in both science and philosophy, and he is especially fascinated by the very challenging "hard problem" of consciousness, i.e. why there is a subjective component to experience. Because of these interests, in 2003, Subitzky started contributing to the Journal of Consciousness Studies (JCS), an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed academic journal that is dedicated entirely to the field of consciousness studies. JCS is published by Imprint Academic, of Exeter, England.

From 2003 to 2016, Subitzky had nine drawn pieces and ten written pieces published in the Journal of Consciousness Studies. All the pieces made serious points, although some had a humorous perspective. The pieces included an essay, a visual essay, cartoons, comic strips, science-fiction short stories, a poem, and a fictional research paper. All of the pieces contain philosophical commentary on theories concerning the nature of consciousness.

February 16, 1998: Other Pedestrian Safety Measures

August 15, 1998: Some More Ways to Improve Our Taxi Service

October 9, 1998: Still More... Reasons for Impeachment and For Either Party... Safe Choices for 2000

June 27, 1997: The First signs of Global Warming in New York

November 22, 1997: Sure-fire Ways to improve the I.R.S.

Starting in 1997, but primarily since 2012, Subitzky has had over 20 letters, some humorous, and some serious, primarily about ideas in physics and cosmology, published in the international science magazine, New Scientist, and he has also had one letter published in Science News.

(When Letterman moved from NBC to CBS, the name of Letterman's show was changed to the Late Show with David Letterman, which ran from August 30th 1993, to May 20th, 2015, when Letterman retired. However, Subitzky did not appear on that show.)

In 1993 and 1994, three of Subitzky's cartoons ran in Natural History:

In 1992 and 1993, eleven of his cartoons ran in Tricycle: The Buddhist Review as follows:

In 1991, Subitzky co-wrote a science humor piece for the science humor magazine Journal of Irreproducible Results entitled, “A Call For More Scientific Truth in Product Warning Labels”, by Susan Hewitt and Edward Subitzky.[6] This piece was subsequently quoted by both New Scientist and Atlantic Monthly. More than 20 years after the piece was first published, it was still featured (both with and without its title, attribution, and introduction) on hundreds of websites, including versions translated into Dutch, French, German [7], Hungarian, and Spanish.

During the 1990s, several comic strips of his appeared as "Op/Art" in the op-ed pages of The New York Times.

Pieces of his have been included in several other anthologies, including the 1990 Harper/Collins Big Book of New American Humor, and more than one cartoon collection edited by the cartoonist Sam Gross.

During the 1990s, Subitzky had seven cartoons published as "Op-Art" on the Opinion-Editorial page of The New York Times. The titles of the pieces were:

During the 1990s, five written humor pieces of Subitzky's appeared in Cracked:

Starting during the 1990s, Subitzky has created a number of science-related pieces for outlets other than National Lampoon.

During the 1990s, Subitzky occasionally worked for the modeling agency FunnyFace Today, appearing in editorial images in a few publications, including Redbook.

In 1988, he was featured on the cover of the March–April issue of National Lampoon magazine, as a disappointed television viewer [17].

Subitzky conceived, wrote, and did the original drawings for, a short animated film which was then produced, and subsequently bought by Saturday Night Live, but was not aired. He co-wrote a screenplay, which was bought but not produced. He also wrote the lyrics for a country song which appeared as background music in a bar scene in another film (Kandyland, 1987).

February 4th, 1984: A year later it is the Second Anniversary of the show, which is cause for another party. During the closing sequence, Subitzky is visible (mostly from behind) as a guest at that party.

February 4th, 1983: Ed Subitzky, in what is claimed to be the First Anniversary edition of the show, is announced as being the singer Bruce Springsteen, who is arriving in a limousine as one of many celebrities who will be attending the anniversary party.

February 4th, 1983: Also in the same show (The First Anniversary edition) clips are shown of problems that Letterman says had to be edited out of some of the previous shows. Letterman explains that the following clip was an example of "audience rowdiness". Subitzky is shown as having been fatally shot through the chest with an arrow by an audience member.

March 25th, 1982: Ed Subitzky as Martin Cruz Smith, author of the novel Gorky Park

April 22nd, 1982: Ed Subitzky as Don Henley of The Eagles

June 4th, 1982,: Ed Subitzky as James Clavell, author of Noble House

June 30th, 1982, Ed Subitzky as "The Mattress Thief"

July 29th, 1982: Ed Subitzky as viewer Elizabeth Callahan of Champion, Pennsylvania

October 4th, 1982: Ed Subitzky ask the comedian Bob Hope

December 20th, 1982: Ed Subitzky as the U.S. Airforce Academy Choir

December 21st, 1982: Ed Subitzky as the Brooke Shields doll (a doll altered to look like Subitzky)

In 1980, Subitzky wrote numerous pieces for a nationally syndicated series of five-minute horror stories, which were broadcast on radio. The series was entitled The Nightwatch. Some of these stories were also made available on an album by Clack, Inc., called Ten Horror Stories: For Radio.

In 1980, Subitzky was hired as a comedy writer on The David Letterman Show (the morning show), where he helped create "The Imposter," a series of comedy sketches about a person who pretends to be celebrities in order to get on television. During the sketches, Letterman always completely accepts the fake identity that the Imposter has presented. Subitzky was soon asked to actually play the character of the Imposter, which he did four times on the morning show. He also reprised the role twelve more times on Late Night with David Letterman.

July 2nd, 1980: Ed Subitzky as the singer Donna Summer

July 18th, 1980: Ed Subitzky as the actor Gary Coleman

July 24th, 1980: Ed Subitzky as the actress Suzanne Somers

August 5th, 1980: Ed Subitzky as actor Burt Reynolds and actress Sally Field (who were a couple at the time)

The morning show was cancelled in October 1980, after only 18 weeks on the air. And it was not until early in 1982 that the first Letterman evening show, Late Night with David Letterman started airing.

In the 1980s, Subitzky was the sole actor in a television commercial for a video game called Mountain King.

Subitzky appeared in National Lampoon magazine as a character model in editorial photographs 54 times. In 1977, he appeared on the cover of the book National Lampoon The Gentleman's Bathroom Companion as the Ty-D-Bol man (a spoof of commercials for a blue-tinted toilet bowl cleaner).

Subitzky subsequently became a long-term contributing editor; one or more of his comic strips, cartoons, and written articles appeared in almost every issue of the magazine. In September 1974, he guest-edited the "Old Age" issue of the magazine. His name remained on the masthead of National Lampoon all through the 1970s, through the decline of the magazine in the 1980s, and almost up to the point of its eventual demise.

In 1974, Subitzky wrote two sections of the infamous National Lampoon 1964 High School Yearbook Parody: the first piece in the yearbook, which is the Principal's letter, and "In Memorium" [sic], which is a parody of a student In Memoriam piece.

Subitzky also conceived, wrote, and starred in a one-hour, two-episode radio play broadcast on The National Lampoon Radio Hour in 1974. The play was entitled The Sluts from Space and it was a spoof of popular science-fiction/horror dramas. The two half-hour episodes aired on May 25 and June 2. Subitzky voiced the part of the science-nerd hero, Timmy Johnson, who by clever control of the supply of deodorants, manages to save the world from alien invaders disguised as beautiful and seductive women. The Sluts from Space episodes of the show are listed in detail at: [4] and [5].

Two of Ed's cartoons ran in The New Yorker. One was a cartoon which The New Yorker bought from Ed Subitzky in 1974, in order to hand it over to Charles Addams, so Addams could draw it up as if it had been his own idea (it seems this kind of thing was not uncommon in Addams's later years). That cartoon was published in the August 12th 1974 issue of The New Yorker. It shows an invisible man begging, with a hand-drawn sign that says, "BE THANKFUL YOU CAN BE SEEN, GOD BLESS YOU.

The other cartoon of Ed's that was in The New Yorker was run normally under Subitzky's own name. That one, "Cinema East Schedule", ran in the August 26th, 1974 issue.

His approximately 100 articles and written pieces for National Lampoon included “How I Spent My Summer” in the Self-Indulgence issue (December 1973, Vol. 1, No. 45) and "Stupidworld" in the Stupid issue (March 1974, Vol 1, No 48).

Subitzky was a writer for and an occasional performer on The National Lampoon Radio Hour, which ran for just over a year in 1973 to 1974. He conceptualized and wrote all, or nearly all, of the “Public Disservice Announcements” (which were parodies of public service announcements), as well as a number of other pieces. Some selections from the Radio Hour work appeared on the CD album Gold Turkey.

His connection with National Lampoon magazine was first established in 1972, when contributing editor Michel Choquette visited the School of Visual Arts cartooning class which Subitzky attended. Choquette took a liking to Subitzky's work, and brought him over to the offices of National Lampoon.

A comic drawn by Subitzky in 1972 piece entitled "Two-headed Sam in the Singles Bar!" was included in the large-format book The Someday Funnies, which was finally published in 2011. The book was a collection of creative commentary on the 1960s, the content having been collected and compiled by Michel Choquette during the 1970s. The Someday Funnies included pieces by William Burroughs, Federico Fellini, Tom Wolfe, Frank Zappa, and 165 others.

In the early 1970s, Subitzky became a contributing editor at National Lampoon magazine, where he worked with many well-regarded humor and comedy creators including Henry Beard, Doug Kenney, Michael O'Donoghue, P. J. O'Rourke, and Michael Gross. Subitzky wrote for, and voice acted with National Lampoon comedy performers John Belushi and Chevy Chase, in many episodes of the National Lampoon Radio Hour. He also directed Belushi and Chase on his Lampoon comedy record album, the Official National Lampoon Stereo Test and Demonstration Record.

Before National Lampoon started running Ed's work, back in 1968 and 1969 Subitzky had two cartoons published in Cavalier (magazine). In 1970, six of his cartoons were published in Scanlan's Monthly, and one cartoon of his was published in The Magazine, probably in 1971.

Ed Subitzky, full name Edward Jack Subitzky (born March 19, 1943), is an American writer and artist. He is best known as a cartoonist, comics artist, and humorist. He has worked as a television comedy writer and performer, a writer and performer of radio comedy, and a writer of radio drama. He has also created comedy and humor in other media. Subitzky is a member of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and the Writers Guild of America.