Sometimes my job requires me to read through old girlie magazines (I know, poor me). Let’s look at a Playboy together in the garage before mom catches us! I will not post any nude content from the magazine. At worst, the images will be a little racy but quite tame by today’s standards (I can hear you booing me right now!)
Today I’m featuring excerpts from the November 1966 issue, featuring this charming snow bunny on the cover.
A quick appraisal of the magazine’s ads and content will reveal that while the magazine is written for the Roger Sterling set, its actual audience is the Pete Campbells and Harry Cranes – the white-collar desk dweebs who aspire to be the boss that has a heart attack while boning nymphette twins after hours in his stately office.
Nice socks.
It is true that at its peak, Playboy was leading the national conversation on sexuality and liberation with contributions from the leading writers, thinkers, and artists of the day. In the Playboy Forum column this month, some fancy egghead who runs some dumb peer reviewed rag discusses obscenity int he case of a fella named Ralph Ginzburg.
But who cares? That’s not gonna get anyone laid, is it? Let’s move on to my favorite section of the magazine, Playboy’s Party Jokes!
Best recited over the driest martini while wearing your hippest plaid sport coat in the swankiest of living rooms at the swellest of parties, these are intended as droll ice-breakers and jokes to get people talking. They are uniformly terrible and no human alive today should ever use them in any context. Enjoy.
And now, I regret to inform you that we have reached the cartoons. The cartoons continue that Mad Men fantasy of the sex object secretary. Men’s magazines of the midcentury, as expressed in their cartoons, were obsessed with two fantasies: being able to nail your hot bimbo secretary, and the fear/fantasy that your sweet little wife at home was getting plowed by the AC repairman. I couldn’t find an example of the second one in this particular issue, but I assure you it’s everywhere.
That said, a lot of the cartoons are in full color and as this was truly a golden age of print, quite expressive and thought-provoking when they wanted to be. I liked this one, even if I’m not entirely clear on the message.
Anyway, let’s get to some babes! Featuring the grooviest bathing suits of 1966! I bet your mom was super into that clear plastic-black cone-phone cord bikini!
And lastly, a plea to your best buddy in the world out there to keep the Playboy club in business with a key to the club! Includes a complimentary bottle of champagne! Look at that stud in the picture! Doesn’t he look suave and sophisticated! The women find him so clever and dashing! Cheers! Order now!
That concludes our quick read-through of the best ads and features of Playboy November 1966! If you like this, let me know and I may do it regularly with other Playboy or similar entertainment magazines of the time (Esquire, Vanity Fair, Saturday Evening Post, etc.).