A university that can’t take a joke has a bigger problem than the joke itself.
From the 1940s through the early 1960s, UF was home to The Orange Peel, a satirical magazine that skewered campus life with raunchy and biting material. According to the Smathers Libraries exhibition “Alternative UF: Counterculture Through the Decades,” The Orange Peel, inspired in part by Playboy Magazine, ran cartoons, essays, short stories and even an “Orange Peel Girl” (clothed) in the centerfold. At its peak, it was one of the most popular college magazines in the nation, with subscriptions pouring in from beyond Gainesville.
For a campus magazine, that’s about as good as it gets. Of course, the very things that made it beloved by students made it impossible for the administration to stomach.
The Peel didn’t start out as a joke. In the 1930s, UF put out The Florida Review, a literary magazine of student work judged by none other than writer Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. By the decade’s end, the campus was crowded with earnest literary journals, but the chance to tell a joke was still wide open.
In 1941, The Review staff reinvented itself as The Orange Peel. It was an instant hit with students, and by the 1950s, The Peel had fully hit its stride. Don Addis, a student cartoonist who later became a celebrated editorial artist, filled the covers with work that gave the magazine a distinct edge.
That rebel streak became The Peel’s signature. The bawdy jokes and cutting satire tapped straight into student angst. It was smart, it was shameless, and it gave UF a reputation for producing something funnier – and more risqué – than the administration was ever comfortable with.
By 1962, UF had seen enough. The administration seized control of The Peel and replaced it with the New Orange Peel, a sanitized knockoff with none of the original bite. Attempts at humor now came in safe and forgettable flavors. Outraged students and former staff of The Peel tried to fight back by releasing the Old Orange Peel. The first issue’s cover even depicted a satirical cartoon of then-UF President J. Wayne Reitz. It was an admirable attempt to preserve the spirit of the original, but without the same reach, it sputtered out. By the mid ’60s, both Peels were gone. UF’s administration had managed to snuff out a beloved magazine in the name of keeping things clean.
The loss of The Peel mattered. Satire gave students a way to laugh at the absurdities of campus life, to mock authority and to hold up a mirror to a university that often took itself too seriously. A magazine full of gags can be the student voice that says what others won’t. For over two decades, The Peel gave UF national recognition as a campus with a sense of humor. When the administration pulled the plug on The Peel, it set a tone: UF was above satire, and comedy was expendable. That absence still lingers.
Today, UF has several student publications, and each plays an important role. But they often lean serious, literary or political — not satirical. The closest thing to The Peel now lives online in the form of memes and student-run social media. Those get laughs but vanish with the next swipe. What UF lacks is a permanent space for humor, something students can hold in their hands and remember.
UF could use a magazine that makes fun of itself. Every university has its share of nonsense, scandals and bureaucracy. Humor is a way for students to process them. When satire disappears, so does a piece of the culture. A new Peel could put modern absurdity into something longer lasting than a meme. But it would have to be independent. The moment the university tries to manage the jokes, the jokes stop mattering. UF killed The Peel 60 years ago. It doesn’t have to keep going without one.
Dylan Santana is a 21-year old UF media production, management and technology junior.
