56 years.....

[sputnik]

"NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Playboy(PLA_) has released a 250 gigabyte USB hard drive that holds every issue of Playboy magazine from 1953 to 2010 for about $300."

http://www.playboyarchive.com/shop/HardDrive.htm

I'm all over this like a fat kid on a bacon cupcake.

[sunburnwilly]

Hmm , I have over $300. in the change jar just sitting there .

[LarryC]

I'm all over this like a fat kid on a bacon cupcake.

Well, let us know how well it works. I got the first decade of Playboys on DVD and it was hard to work with. It probably makes sense to put anything that big onto a separate hard drive instead.

I've been leafing through my Playboys before throwing them out -- amazingly, it's been a prodigious mag from the beginning through these 56 years, and is still going strong without its quality ever having drooped very much! That QUALITY, of production, glossy paper, printing and photography have always been at the top IMO.

An amazing body of cartoons, some famous to this day; coverage of many remarkable people in interviews (who can forget where Jimmy Carter's "lust in my heart" appeared); overwhelming information pearls in the Playboy Advisor; and even some good stories. Unfortunately, it's been too pre-internet all along, and never electronically searchable. Maybe this is different.

One of my favorites was a great article on the 10-second Mexican jailbreak by helicopter, practically the first details to appear after it became known (see http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,909935,00.html) -- and it was Playboy, not Time or some other mag that did it! This is a stunning story, btw, but sadly you can only find out about it in old, minimal Internet links or by buying the book used since it's long gone out of print (Amazon prices are high, but I only paid ~$12 for mine). The Playboy article was outstanding. I'd strongly recommend the book if you can get it cheap. If it'd happened 30 years later, there'd have been a big Wikipedia on it.

Oh, yes, the girlies -- as befits a 50+year run, there were very long cycles of beautiful to bland to great to blow-dried plastic and back (literally). But really nicely photographed.

[sputnik]

My first double post ever.

[sputnik]

Larry, we all claim to have read the articles but it's obvious that you actually did read them. Somehow, I always got distracted. You're absolutely right about the overall quality and the great photography - that's what really what elevated Playboy above mere skin mags. Sure, it was exploitive and cultivated impossible illusions of beauty and material possesions but the photography glorified the female form without debasing it and the articles did have intellectual substance. Many of the jokes and cartoons were corny and reflected attitudes about women that were already dated, but still they were nuanced and weren't really dirty. Also, it provided a safe forum of sex education for pre and early teen boys - there's way more damaging information and images easily accessed on the internet now.

As for the quality of the collection they are releasing, you can click on the "Take a Tour" button (probably NSFW) on the web page. I clicked on the April 1969 issue and I was impressed by the quality of the viewing software and the scans (and Bidgitte Bardot too.) It looks like they scanned actual magazines instead of the original paste-ups which are probably long gone. You can see the offset resulting from the page gutters in some of the images that spanned two pages but I didn't notice any staples in the centerfold after studying it for a very long time (I may have been distracted.) Centerfolds look like they are shown in higher resolution. I think the quality of the software and the imaging is as good as it could be considering they are starting with printed media for the most part.

Mad Magazine is another one I'd love to see presented like this.

[jacksonbart]

Don't forget to set aside a few bucks for:

[jacksonbart]

I must be getting old, I find many of the ads more interesting than the some of the ladies.

[sputnik]

It's also fun to look at the "modern" high tech gizmos and sports cars that were essential to the Playboy lifestyle.

[jacksonbart]

Things have changed since 1978, Bradshaw was a great QB, but as a fox desk sportscaster, he stinks. I hate the whole fox football smarmy intergames news casts.

[sputnik]

Great ad. Love the headline - "Bradshaw 12 ..... Baldness 0." I'm thinking that Baldness eventually won that game.

[jacksonbart]

Great ad. Love the headline - "Bradshaw 12 ..... Baldness 0." I'm thinking that Baldness eventually won that game.

I should say so, perhaps it was 12-0 the first quarter, but now the score is 12-48 giving Baldness a solid lead.

To each their own, I am going bald the old fashion way.

[jacksonbart]

Great ad. Love the headline - "Bradshaw 12 ..... Baldness 0." I'm thinking that Baldness eventually won that game.

I should say so, perhaps it was 12-0 the first quarter, but now the score is 12-48 giving Baldness a solid lead.

To each their own, I am going bald the old fashion way.

[jacksonbart]

Are you in the G - Power Camp?

[LarryC]

Larry, we all claim to have read the articles but it's obvious that you actually did read them.

Believe me, I read very few, just those that caught my interest. I did read many of the one-page items on justice and legal issues, and I've torn out several interviews that I'd like to read some day, like Jon Stewart's of a decade or so ago, long before I knew who he was.

The Mexican jailbreak article is by Hinckle, Turner and Asinov, pp. 80ff in the October 1972 issue. The online archives only brings up one issue per year and that's not one of them, so I can't seem to access the issue or send a link to the article -- any ideas on that?

No, they folded the centerfold (res ipsa loquitur), so it wasn't necessary to staple key parts like navels -- just as well, it might have left a wrong impression.

[sputnik]

Here's a good one, I just found this interview with Albert Speer in the June 1971 issue (included in the "tour" feature.)

NSFW

http://www.playboyarchive.com/Viewer#/2/43/68/S

[LarryC]

Here's a good one, I just found this interview with Albert Speer in the June 1971 issue

I think that's an interview I didn't save (I read Speer's book a long time ago) and sent it to recycling. They put only one issue per year online, so I can't access the rest of the issues.

Also, each page takes a while to transfer completely, at least with DSL and an aging computer. I suppose the $300 hard drive would be faster.

[sputnik]

The on-line viewer is fast and smooth on my computer with cable internet. Scrolling and zooming [6] is very Apple-like

[fini]

My niece's sister-in-law was a Playmate of the Month, back sometime in the 90s.

EDIT: Layla Roberts, October 1997

Hubba hubba!

(FWIW, I've never been allowed to meet her...)[]

[LarryC]

The on-line viewer is fast and smooth on my computer with cable internet. Scrolling and zooming is very Apple-like.

Not at all surprised. DSL used to be fast enough, but my computer is going downhill fast.

I'm also thinking of Apple.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.cs.iusb.edu/~danav/teach/i310/apple-full.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.cs.iusb.edu/~danav/teach/i310/hw1.html&h=348&w=345&sz=11&tbnid=ZNd25DpnMp8byM:&tbnh=225&tbnw=224&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dapple%2Bimages&zoom=1&q=apple+images&hl=en&usg=__iJ0CRZ7xU7TX-PChU213PDngdS0=&sa=X&ei=rCv5TJuMGsT6lweoz82yBw&ved=0CCcQ9QEwAQ'>

[sputnik]

My niece's sister-in-law was a Playmate of the Month, back sometime in the 90s.

EDIT: Layla Roberts, October 1997

Hubba hubba!

(FWIW, I've never been allowed to meet her...)

Had to google and "hubba hubba" is an understatement. I mean that in a nice way of course since we're talking about your niece-in-law.