You probably read my post a few weeks ago celebrating my love of Heavy Metal illustrated fantasy magazine, my love affair with it having begun in my tweens from an enabling 7-11 clerk.

Well, I’ve been getting reacquainted with my old treasures in-between current novel and comics reading projects, and I forgot how, especially in the early years of the magazine, Heavy Metal ran ads for albums and movies which became legends of their time and forevermore. 

We’re talking classic rock albums like Rush’s Moving Pictures, the Scorpions’ Blackout and Meat Loaf’s Dead Ringer. Okay, so Dead Ringer is hardly one of Meat Loaf’s critical gems, but it’s no surprise Epic Records took an ad here, since its cover was done by famed horror and fantasy artist Berni Wrightson. Wrightson being a standard at Heavy Metal in its pages and its 1981 animated film.

What really slayed me was the full-page ads for some of my all-time favorite movies: Blade Runner, Excalibur, the original Conan the Barbarian, Twilight Zone: The Movie, even the first Vacation film. Again, no surprise in the latter case, which ran a two-page spread with Chevy Chase as a nutty yuppie champion of the wasteland theme. The recognizable movie poster was helmed by fantasy art royal, Boris Vallejo, whose covers for Heavy Metal were always mandatory pickups for me.

I confess to being a nostalgic sap while taking cautious steps forward, but even TJ will tell you I got all extra sappy uncorking these advertisements from my youth. 

Sidebar, I was able to get my hands on these adult-oriented comic magazines at age 12 in 1982, but nobody would take me to see Blade Runner because of its R-rating. My mouth hung agape when I spotted Harrison Ford in that ad in Heavy Metal, being a total freak for Han Solo. Blade Runner became an immediate obsession I never got to satiate until seeing it on VHS at age 15. 

Funny to think I was delving into sci-fi softcore porn but denied entry to a hard-edged sci-fi noir film. Seeing my dismay, however, my grandfather bought me a Blade Runner movie magazine as a consolation prize. 

Check ’em out:

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

With a ho-ho-ho and a cough-cough-wheeze, it just wasn’t cookies and egg nog Santa Claus was craving if you were alive during the 1950s and early Sixties.

Now let me get this down right off-the-bat: I despise smoking, especially as I lost my father to COPD due to his debilitating chain habit. My mother and stepfather successfully quit decades ago and I applaud them for it. With all the warnings and evidence of self-destruction out there, it pains me to see people still running to cigarettes in modern times. That’s just me, though, and if I’ve offended any smokers out there, no direct judgment. It’s all good. You do you. Peace.

It’s damned near laughable to think of a halcyon, manufactured holiday totem nearly as sanctified as Jesus Christ as anything less than pure and, except for any romps in the sack with Mrs. Claus, virginal. Santa Claus to children everywhere is the symbol of all that is right in the world at Christmastime. To parents, a means of both staying young themselves while having a figurehead of righteousness with which to reinforce good behavior. If not, forget the coal; there be ol’ Krampus to contend with.

Okay, so Santa Claus has been shown to have a nasty side, such as Black Christmas and the Silent Night Deadly Night films. Those bloody exploits catering to the sicker crowd (I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t fess up to enjoying those dreadful arcs of dreck), can you really fathom, in this age of cancel, a Santa Claus as pitchman for cancer sticks?

We’re talking about 70 years ago, when you might find (according to advertisers of the day) Lucky Strikes, Chesterfields, Camels, even Prince Albert loose leaf tobacco in a can in your stocking if you were not only good all year, but “cool.”

While smoking was a huge pastime of the entire 20th century, it was the 1950s where your hip factor was at stake if you smoked or not. My parents told me the stories, I heard it from many others of their generation. You can see it in films and old t.v. ads and radio jingles back then. The Fabulous Fifties were extra faboo with a smoldering ciggie out of your mouth.

I mean, even Alan Hale, aka “The Skipper” in Gilligan’s Island, once did a bit in cosmopolitan Santa Drag to hawk Chesterfields. Chesterfield also utilizing a little ABC motif to create a tongue-waggling, Pavlovian buzz phrase, “Always Buy Chesterfield.” Hit ’em all, no matter the age bracket, current and future customers alike.

Gee, Santa, do you prefer them filtered or unfiltered? Was the Surgeon General on your naughty or nice list? I mean, okay, sure, who doesn’t want a little release after something as magnanimous as delivering presents down chimneys to households worldwide, never once explaining how he gets into apartments and homes relying on central heat instead of fireplaces? The way the world is today and legalization coming into play, don’t be surprised to see Santa wearing a rasta-colored hat with all eight reindeer as high as him in a cloud of reefer. Now we’d finally know why Rudolph’s nose is so red!

Personally, I prefer Santa’s caffeine addiction over nicotine, just sayin’ I don’t drink soda much anymore, but Coke always was it for me, and I left Santa Claus that with cookies more than I did milk back as child. Because I’ve seen a lifetime of Santa really taking a shine to Coca-Cola and I’m grateful for that.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

An annual posting tradition of mine at the holidays. I’ll never forget when it came on MTV during Headbangers Ball, then other times in the middle of the night. I was howling like an idiot teen at this doofy station promo clip of a moshing Santa and will love it to my last breath. So punk rock!

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.