Penthouse and the launch of Omni

Penthouse and the Launch of Omni

October, 1978

October, 1978, and atop the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart we find the band Exile with their unusual amalgamation of country and disco, 'Kiss You All Over.'  Also in the top Five are A Taste of Honey, with their disco hit 'Boogie Oogie Oogie.' Album oriented rock is represented by Boston and their single 'Don't Look Back.'

The October issue of Penthouse magazine is on the stands, and publisher Bob Guccione has dedicated much of this issue to promoting the release of a new magazine, Omni, this same month. Formerly titled Nova (it was dropped to avoid confusion with the PBS television show), Omni was to provide 'science fiction and science fact' to the discerning reader.

 

 

While Guccione didn't explicitly mention it, Omni was to be run by his girlfriend, Kathy Keeton. Keeton was of course still in charge of Viva, Guccione's attempt to mimic Playgirl. While Viva would be cancelled in 1980, Keeton was much more successful in helming Omni, which was published until 1996.

 

This October issue of Penthouse had a lengthy article, 'Science Fiction Fever,' by journalist Tom Nolan. The article covers the science fiction boom then sweeping the popular culture. It's a good overview of a transformed genre, and illuminates the impact the success of Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind had on science fiction and its foremost practitioners. 

Nolan presents some interesting observations on the genre as it was in 1978:

 

• Star Wars merchandising sales are expected to reach the $200 million mark by the end of 1978.

• Starlog magazine has a circulation of 500,000 (for comparison, in October 1972 Good Housekeeping had a circulation of 5,601,207, and True Confessions, 442,111).

• Robert Silverberg is "....mulling over a six-figure offer to return to the typewriter" (presumably this was the impetus for his 1980 novel 'Lord Valentine's Castle').  

• Bantam Books has sold a total of around 17 million Ray Bradbury paperbacks.

• Frederik Pohl estimates there are about 2 million dedicated readers of sci-fi in the USA.

• Nancy Neiman with Avon Books estimates that the average print run for a science fiction paperback is 60,000 to 75,000 copies, as compared to 40,000 "a few years ago."

•  Some 2,000 science fiction courses are being taught at approximately 60,000 high schools and colleges nationwide.

• Joe R. Haldeman's 1977 novel 'Mindbridge' set a record when its paperback rights were sold for $100,000.

 

The October issue of Penthouse features an excerpt from the forthcoming Anthony ('Clockwork Orange') Burgess novelette, '1985.'

According to Burgess, '1985' was intended to be a sort of sequel to George Orwell's novel '1984.' In Burgess's novelette, the UK is in sad shape. Mass migration by third worlders means the London streets are ruled by 'cocoa-colored youth' who rob, rape, and kill with impunity. Arab ownership of the British government means that the call to prayer sounds throughout the city and the bars serve only soft drinks, and no bacon.

There are perpetual strikes, one of which - by the firemen's union - has caused the death of the wife of the protagonist, a 40 year-old man named Bev Jones. As the excerpt ends, Jones has lost his job due to going to work despite his union's implementation of a strike. Jones finds refuge in an abandoned factory off Hammersmith Broadway, with a cohort of men in similar straits, who are hoping that British society will collapse and allow them to regain some measure of power.

'1985' reads very presciently, here and now in 2025...........

 

Elsewhere in the issue we have an advertisement for the film Midnight Express, starring Brad Davis. One of the more impressive films released that year.

There is an interview with Leonard Nimoy. No real revelations or provocations here, Nimoy stays in character, so to speak, as he has been involved in filming the Star Trek feature film (a film whose production was so troubled it would be another year, until December 1979, before it would be released). Nimoy coyly avoids mentioning that he only agreed to do Star Trek: The Motion Picture because Paramount gave him a pot of money to settle Nimoy's dispute over residuals from the TV series. Nimoy also insisted on having script approval over the feature film.

 

We've got a risque cartoon in this October issue...........

 

And, of course, a Penthouse Pet portfolio ! Our Pet for October 1978 is the lissome, Paris-born Veronique de Valdene. I can't say that the inclusion of clothes, boots, blankets, and other accoutrements brings all that much to the portfolio, but that's how Bob Guccione wanted things.

 

 

 

 

And thus we say goodbye to Penthouse, Omni, and that October of 1978, 47 years ago............