Monday, January 4, 2010

Hippie Ads (Part One)


I've been looking through old issues of National Lampoon magazine lately - fascinated by the ads. They really capture a bygone era when rolling papers and stereo equipment seemed to be the top priorities.

The stereo ads are especially interesting. I've attached one today. (You can click the image to make it bigger).

Note how you need a masters degree in sound engineering to begin to understand how the phonograph needle works. (You did realize it was an ad for a phonograph needle, didn't you?) In fact, I think (not sure) it's a needle that can play quadraphonic (4-track) vinyl records, and we all know how popular they turned out to be.

"This phenomenal cartridge will track any record below 1 gram and trace all the way to 50,000 Hz..". Well that's good to know!

Note also the R.Crumb-inspired "Keep on Trackin'" and zany cartoon style so popular with "heads" at the time (1974).