Playboy magazine, October 1972
Time once again to go back in time, 50 years, to October 1972. At the top of the Billboard Top 40 charts: Mac Davis with 'Baby, Don't Get Hooked on Me', and Michael Jackson, with 'Ben'. The top-rated TV shows are the 'ABC Sunday Night Movie', 'All in the Family', and 'Marcus Welby, M.D.'. Priced at one dollar, the latest issue of Playboy magazine is on the newsstands. This is another thick issue, 236 pages, with copious advertising for liquor, clothing, cigs, and shampoo......
The Interview section features the 'militant' rabbi Meir Kahane, the founder and most prominent member of the Jewish Defense League (JDL). A controversial figure, Kahane was murdered on November 5, 1990, by an Egyptian Muslim named El Sayyid Nosair, who later was convicted for his part in the attempted February, 1993 'landmark' bombing plot. We are given a series of grainy photos of actor Jim Brown, embracing black and white women, as part of a promotion of his upcoming Blaxploitation film Slaughter. This month's playmate is a healthy young woman named Sharon Johansen...... The 'Bunnies of 1972' overview provides us plenty of imagery of lissome early 70s chicks......remember, back in those days, there were no filters a la Kardashian. What you saw, was all real. There are the usual cartoons...... The 'On the Scene' section highlights two up-and-coming New York City pornographers, Al Goldstein and Jim Buckley, who are publishing a sleazy tabloid called Screw. This issue features a nonfiction piece on the marathoner Ron Daws. Although he was not particular gifted with running talent, Daws was a fanatical trainer and competed in the 1968 Summer Olympics. During the 1970s and 1980s he was a prominent speaker and consultant on running and personal health. He died in 1992 at age 55, of a heart attack. Well, there you have it. Playboy, October 1972, with its insights into American popular culture and social mores !
