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By Bob Wieder '67, M.A. '69 In 1903, Earle C. Anthony, who would graduate and go on to make fortunes with car dealerships, bus lines, radio networks, and other enterprises, founded Cal’s first and foremost humor magazine, the Pelican. My life with the Pelly--and it pretty much was my life: hobby, obsession, dating service, crash pad, study hall, vice den, and hideaway--began almost the minute I hit campus in September 1962 and continued with dogged shamelessness into 1969. We worked out of the Pelican Building (now--shudder--the Graduate Student Assembly quarters), a cozy, Maybeckish structure on the banks of Strawberry Creek. Old Mr. Anthony had funded its construction around 1957 with the stipulation that it would forever house the Pelican and only the Pelican. It took the University years of legal weaseling to undo the terms of his will. We raised hell as we cranked out a humor magazine every six weeks or so. Each issue involved at least two official all-nighters--deadline night and layout night--not to mention such nocturnal exercises as poker, dalliance, and misdemeanor hedonism. Despite or because of this, the Pelican was always number one or damn near in the various college humor mag rankings. The fact was, the Pelly enjoyed a remarkable array of real talent in the ‘60s. Many of our writers went on to become professionals: Jon Carroll is now the San Francisco Chronicle‘s marquee columnist, Dexter Waugh became a crack San Francisco Examiner reporter, “Susan Savage” later wrote heralded short fiction as Susan McCorkle (and still later was celebrated as jazz singer Susannah McCorkle).
Indeed, many of our main contributors were nonstudents. Gaston had just mustered out of the Navy and wanted an outlet for his work, which was of extraordinary, Marvel Comics quality. Carroll dropped out of Cal around 1964, but contributed copiously for another four years. I submitted stuff from UCLA one semester, and after I graduated. Dick Corten, known as the Grover Cleveland of Pelly editors because he served two nonsuccessive terms in the early ‘60s, specialized in ironically pointed, Esquire-esque covers. Dick made the Pelican a polished, literate, and witty production. In the fall of 1965, however, I became editor, and quickly put an end to that, dragging Pelly from its highbrow perch into a mudbath of slapstick, scatology, and pop culture. I pounced on targets that Dick might have eschewed as too easy. We also exuberantly broke all the “bad taste” rules. Back in 1961, editor Don Wegars had been placed on probation for unsavory usage of the phrase “run it up your old wazoo.” By 1966, amid growing student radicalism, the administration was just grateful that we weren’t setting fire to anything. Thus we were able to present nude “Miss Pelly” spreads, a big “Pelican Goes to a Pot Party” pictorial, a “How to Beat the Draft” primer, and to festoon the text with vulgarities unthinkable in 1963. On one hand, it was the best of times for college humor, with no holds barred and no competition in the Irreverent Offensive Humor game (this was before the National Lampoon or Saturday Night Live). On the other, it was the worst, the decade having become a dreary pageant of assassins, war, and drug busts, of marches and beatings and induction notices, until humor grew increasingly elusive and gritty. It was the No Laughing Matter era, and the Pelican nearly lapsed in the spring of 1968. Simply to fulfill the advertising contracts, I was asked to come out of retirement and produce a closeout April issue. The result was the “Up Pelly revived that fall and continued publishing on and off into the 1980s, but was booted from the Pelican Building around 1973 and gradually withered away in Eshleman Hall. But the mag still lives on for those of us who had the privilege to work there. Even now I get the occasional e-mail asking for copies of those special issues. I think Earle Anthony would be proud. |
We invite alumni to write about their Cal experiences for “Recalling Cal,” California Monthly, Alumni House, Berkeley 94720. Contributors will be paid $100 upon publication.
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