National Lampoon was an adult humor magazine that ran from 1970 to 1998. The content is indeed very adult in nature, so it is probably better that we are just looking at a few advertisements from within this January 1983 issue of National Lampoon.
Vintage Video Games
Look at the graphics in these games! Although simple by today’s standards, games like these were an awesome advance in gaming for kids in the early 80’s. The difference in video games from 1983 to 2024 is incredible. It will be amazing to see where things go in the next 40 years.
Yukon Jack Liqueur
Looking at this advertisement I initially thought it said Yukon Jack Whisky, but then I realized it is actually marketed as a Canadian Liqueur.
The reason for this is that although Canadian regulations allow for a small percentage of non-whisky alcohol flavoring, Yukon Jack uses non-alcohol flavors and can’t be labelled as a whisky.
The non-alcohol flavoring is honey. This reportedly makes Yukon Jack a sweet drink with fruity undertones.
Is this where a man belongs?
Are you a real man? Many of these 70’s and 80’s cigarette ads focus on smoking as the sign of a real manly man. This one makes the statement “Where a man belongs” and shows a guy in the wilderness driving a dog sled with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.
At least in this ad the man is actually using the product that they are selling. I have seen similar ads of men doing “manly” things like hanging out of a helicopter, but there was no sign of the product in the image.
Heavy Metal Magazine
This publication ran from 1977 to 2023 and it looks like it was an adult science-fantasy comic book that contained explicit content. It was based off the French science-fantasy magazine Métal hurlant and brought to us by the same people who created National Lampoon.
Heavy Metal magazine is a publication I have seen around, but I haven’t really pursued for sale in our shop. A couple years ago I did pick up a small box of them with the purchase of a different collection, so maybe I need to go find them.
Vinyl Records Sales Surpass CDs
We have gone from vinyl records to 8-tracks to cassette tapes, CDs, digital music files and streaming music over the years. After all this transition and advancement in music playing it would seem like records should be a thing of the distant past. Instead, vinyl record sales are growing.
In 2022 vinyl record sales outpaced the sales of CDs for the first time since the 1980’s. The total record sales were over 30 million and amounted to over $1.2 Billion. I knew that there was still a demand because we see record player often go for surprising prices at auction, but I had no idea there was this much growth in record sales.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, National Lampoon content is adult in nature. Therefore, we used this opportunity to look at some of the vintage ads in the magazine. However, if you want to see the full January 1983 issue, or some of our other National Lampoon magazines, then you can find them available for purchase in our shop.
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