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Hellbent on Insanity
ISBN reused for The Castle on Hester Street by Linda Heller
A rollercoaster ride with the best college humor of the 1970's (and a smattering from the 1980's while your back was turned)
A rollercoaster ride with the best college humor of the 1970's (and a smattering from the 1980's while your back was turned)
- GenresHumor
226 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
14 people want to read
About the author
Joey Green
69 books32 followersJoey Green, a former contributing editor to National Lampoon and a former advertising copywriter at J. Walter Thompson, is the author of more than sixty (yes, sixty) books, including Not So Normal Norbert with James Patterson, Last-Minute Travel Secrets, Last-Minute Survival Secrets, Contrary to Popular Belief, Clean It! Fix It! Eat It!, the best-selling Joey Green's Magic Brands series, The Mad Scientist Handbook series, The Zen of Oz, and You Know You've Reached Middle Age If...—to name just a few.
Joey has appeared on dozens of national television shows, including The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Good Morning America, and The View. He has been profiled in the New York Times, People magazine, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and USA Today, and he has been interviewed on hundreds of radio shows.
A native of Miami, Florida, and a graduate of Cornell University—where he was the political cartoonist on the Cornell Daily Sun and founded the campus humor magazine, the Cornell Lunatic (still publishing to this very day)—Joey lives in Los Angeles.
Joey has appeared on dozens of national television shows, including The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Good Morning America, and The View. He has been profiled in the New York Times, People magazine, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and USA Today, and he has been interviewed on hundreds of radio shows.
A native of Miami, Florida, and a graduate of Cornell University—where he was the political cartoonist on the Cornell Daily Sun and founded the campus humor magazine, the Cornell Lunatic (still publishing to this very day)—Joey lives in Los Angeles.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 8, 2021
This compilation of college humor hit me at an impressionable age and steered the course of my life.
December 28, 2025
The five-star review has less to do with the book and more to do with the influence the book has had on my life.
I asked my mom for a copy of this book for Christmas, 1982. Being the indulgent mother she was, she obliged. Hellbent on Insanity has been a constant presence ever since, shaping my sense of humor over the decades—for better or for worse.
As Christmas approached, I decided to read it from cover-to-cover. Over the last forty-three years, I've repeatedly read favorite passages, Xeroxed pages to share with my friends, scanned pages to share with my friends, and taken pictures with my phone to share with my friends. However, I had never read the entire book. I spent the last three days doing that.
Yes, a lot of this sounds like the sense of humor I've developed since I was fifteen. Maybe it hasn't developed all that much, really.
When I was fifteen, college humor seemed sophisticated. When I was in college (I took it with me and was beloved by my friends there), this book made sense. Now, in my later fifties, it feels juvenile. I suspect it was all along. Maybe I grew up, and the book stayed the same.
Honestly, though, I wouldn't want it to change.
I'm also amazed at the 70s generation's ability to laugh at the horrors of war, famine, and political upheaval. Especially towards the end, the humor focuses on some very unfunny situations (Vietnam, Cambodia, Charles Manson, etc.). That generation seems to have coped through humor and lampoonery. Do we still do that? Is the current generation capable?
Do we need that kind of humor?
I'm asking . . . I have no idea.
Anyway, it was a great three-day read, and I was amazed at the parts I could recite from memory. There were a couple of points in reading when I had to say to myself, "Oh, so that's where I got that!"
Oh, and Joey Green is fantastic. His ability to turn a phrase is . . . umm . . . phrase-turner-ific!
Ok, back on the shelf with this book. I'm sure I'll be flipping through these pages again soon.
I asked my mom for a copy of this book for Christmas, 1982. Being the indulgent mother she was, she obliged. Hellbent on Insanity has been a constant presence ever since, shaping my sense of humor over the decades—for better or for worse.
As Christmas approached, I decided to read it from cover-to-cover. Over the last forty-three years, I've repeatedly read favorite passages, Xeroxed pages to share with my friends, scanned pages to share with my friends, and taken pictures with my phone to share with my friends. However, I had never read the entire book. I spent the last three days doing that.
Yes, a lot of this sounds like the sense of humor I've developed since I was fifteen. Maybe it hasn't developed all that much, really.
When I was fifteen, college humor seemed sophisticated. When I was in college (I took it with me and was beloved by my friends there), this book made sense. Now, in my later fifties, it feels juvenile. I suspect it was all along. Maybe I grew up, and the book stayed the same.
Honestly, though, I wouldn't want it to change.
I'm also amazed at the 70s generation's ability to laugh at the horrors of war, famine, and political upheaval. Especially towards the end, the humor focuses on some very unfunny situations (Vietnam, Cambodia, Charles Manson, etc.). That generation seems to have coped through humor and lampoonery. Do we still do that? Is the current generation capable?
Do we need that kind of humor?
I'm asking . . . I have no idea.
Anyway, it was a great three-day read, and I was amazed at the parts I could recite from memory. There were a couple of points in reading when I had to say to myself, "Oh, so that's where I got that!"
Oh, and Joey Green is fantastic. His ability to turn a phrase is . . . umm . . . phrase-turner-ific!
Ok, back on the shelf with this book. I'm sure I'll be flipping through these pages again soon.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews