National Lampoon Strip Poker Series
“I want to say one word to you, just one word
. . . Plastics.” That one-word bit of advice given to the disillusioned Ben Braddock in The Graduate was echoing in my head as our plane touched down in L.A. on a recent business trip made for Booble. As an L.A. neophyte, I finally began to understand the true meaning of that line only after numerous meetings and luncheons with genuine, real L.A. business people. In L.A. nothing is genuine or “real” – it’s all so plastic. From the water, which is piped in from the Sierra Mountains and the Colorado River, to the palm trees, which are trucked in by developers, to the baseball and basketball teams (transplants) to the people (who have plastic boobs, noses and hair), nothing in L.A. is original. Even that line from The Graduate isn’t altogether genuine. Buck Henry added it to the screenplay as an after thought and it was never part of the original novel by Charles Webb,
a guy who ditched his L.A. upbringing and lifestyle, it should be noted, to start a nudist colony in New Jersey with his wife Fred (her name is a long story). How original.
And speaking of nudity, one of my meetings in L.A. was with the fine folks at National Lampoon who are producing a strip poker series to be available this summer on DVD and on cable in-demand/pay per view. The one thing L.A. deserves credit for is coming up with unique and interesting ideas that drive fun and engaging entertainment and this certainly fits the bill. Shot on location at Hedonism II in Jamaica, the series features a group of supermodels who play Texas Hold ’em with a set of chips and the clothes on their backs as buying power. Once they’ve used their chips, they’re allowed to buy their way back in to the game with their clothes. Nice! These women are not very good poker players. Nicer! And apparently they’re pretty concerned about the tan lines caused by what little clothing they’re wearing, so, needless to say, things progress rather quickly. Woo hoo! I can’t say enough nice things about National Lampoon. I grew up watching Animal House, then the Vacation series, then Van Wilder, and now National Lampoon’s Strip Poker! 
Brilliant. This series features Kato Kaelin, the former O.J. Simpson house guest, which, of course, means instant laughs. Just say the name — Kato Kaelin – and all those images of him botching media queries during the O.J. Simpson trial come to mind. He should have a cameo in every comedy coming out of Hollywood. Instant laughs, I tell ya!. Anyway, Booble is a proud sponsor of the National Lampoon Strip Poker Series, and we can’t wait for the release. Be on the lookout for more blog entries as we approach the release date this June.
