• by Lynn Russo Whylly , January 26, 2007

It’s best known for hits of the ’70s — the classic movie “Animal House” and, of course, the magazine — but National Lampoon remains a comedic powerhouse today. The multimedia giant encompasses feature films, television programming, interactive entertainment, home videos, audio CDs, a college TV network, and book publishing.

But its heart and soul is its online portal, the National Lampoon Humor Network (nationallampoon.com). Last November, it was ranked the No. 1 site in the humor category with 4.6 million unique visitors.

Success can be credited to CEO Dan Laiken, who took over in 2005. Throughout 2006, Laiken broadened the company from being strictly a distributor of Lampoon-created content toward being a virtual Wal-Mart of all things funny. He orchestrated partnerships with more than 40 affiliates, including barjokes.tv, dead-frog.com and Zipperfish. And he’s on track to add 15 more partners by the end of Q1 ’07.

National Lampoon also launched TogaTV, a broadband video channel for the college-age market; Knucklehead Video, a social networking and user-generated video content channel; and an exclusive AOL channel.

Stay tuned: Early this year, National Lampoon will launch a new online advertising platform called “This Week in History,” where it puts a funny spin on a historical moment.