Nightlight
By The Harvard Lampoon
Vintage Books
Nightlight, The Harvard Lampoon's parody of the Twilight series, opens when Belle Goose first meets her dad at the airport when arriving in Switchblade, Oregon. She trips over a toddler, runs into a keychain rack, falls down the escalator and somersaults over her rolling luggage. "I get my lack of coordination from my dad, who always used to push me down when I was learning how to walk," explains Belle.
This is just a sample of the ridiculousness the writers of one of the country's oldest humor magazines employ as they mock both the writing style and the plot twists of Stephanie Meyer's best-selling four-part saga.
In this alternative universe, Belle falls for Edwart Mullen, the boy she sits next to in Biology. She begins to think Edwart is a vampire who is crazy for her blood, but really he's just a human computer nerd who builds robots. Nightlight tries to follow the storyline of Twilight for a while, but as Edwart isn't any kind of mythical creature it has a hard time doing so.
Belle and Edwart meet Josh, a real vampire, in the cemetery, and she finally realizes Edwart is a normal guy. "No Belle - I can't fight a monster! I will never live up to your abnormal and perverse fantasies!" Edwart proclaims.
Nightlight incorporates plenty of vampire pop culture references, like the nurse reading Full Moon (instead of New Moon), the kids watching True Blood and of course Twi-hard pandemonium. This parody could have been funnier. If you haven't seen it already, YouTube the "Firelight" SNL parody featuring Taylor Swift lusting after Frankenstein, it's hilarious.
