Kurt Andersen has put up a cover gallery of all the issues of Spy with which he was associated. This will be of particular interest to those of us who are old enough to remember Spy but also old enough that we don't really remember anything these days. If you are too young to know what Spy was, sit back and let me teach you some history.
Spy was a humorous publication that actually played music videos instead of relying on tawdry reality TV crap for attention. It came in three formats: 45, 8-track, and cassingle. It starred Erik Estrada and David Soul, and its final episode was the most watched television program in America until this year's Super Bowl. Spy's famous catch phrase was "Where's the beef?" and it could often be found at Studio 54 partying with Andy Warhol and Bianca Jagger. Spy committed suicide on April 5, 1994, although there have long been some unsavory rumors blaming its wife for its passing. After several years in purgatory Spy resurrected itself in a flash of light and fire as The Waverly Inn. Now you know.
Let's just say it was the pre-internet Gawker.
Thanks for clearing that up!
Sincerely,
a 24 year old
One day, people of today's younger generation who never actually watched Conan O'Brien's Tonight Show will bore future generations by talking about what a great show it was - much like people of my generation who never actually bought Spy magazine continue to bore today's younger generation by talking about what a great magazine it was.
its the same crowd that never actually liked Sonic Youth but goes on and on about what a seminal rock blah blah blah.
...or the 14 million boomers who were at Woodstock...
Did anyone ever figure out who Michèle Bennet was?? She was my favorite.
And who can forget those George Lois covers?
Great. Now I somehow know LESS about Spy then when I entered this post. Thanks a lot!
I have a box of Spys in a box in my closet. I plan to retire on their value in a few years!
I have a couple of duplicates that will be sending my kids to Space Harvard!
If there were no Spy there would be no snark. Without snark there would have been no Suck.com. Without Suck.com there would have been no {insert favorite part of internet here}.
I there were no Private Eye there would not have been SPY.
If...nevermind.
In all seriousness: It's nice that the covers are now online, but when will somebody post an archive of the actual articles?
I'd love to be able to re-read, for example, Joe Queenan's "Admit it! It Sucks! Part 1: Jazz" (one of the funniest things I ever read).
Not full articles, but lots to enjoy here: http://fawny.org/spy/home.html
I have a few old issues and it staggers me that they put it together pre-internet and mostly pre-desktop publishing. I was working as a designer in the 80s and I remember how time-consuming it was just to put a damn brochure together, but that fucker was dense. Modern magazines just wouldn't look the same without it.
(Sorry, was that too earnest?)
That's a pretty cool site.
I like this note on his homepage, which reinforces the problem I described above:
"Need a copy of an article?
If you've ever written me to request that I hunt through my pile o' Spy to find an article for you, then copy it and mail it your way, be advised that I won't be doing so even if I told you I would."
Nope. Just accurate.
I would love that. I am dying to re-read the food review of premium wet dog food. The reviewer actually ate all of the dog food he reviewed, and it was disgusting. I think this was the Teri Garr retro '70s cover issue. This was when people still thought retro '70s was a joke. God, I am old.
Jay Leno was on two different covers unironically. How the mighty sell out.
I grew up reading Spy magazines my dad left lying around. A weird thing to have shaping your world view as a 9 year old. Still I'm glad it was that and not like, the bible or something.
I can still quote verbatim some of my favorite lines from Spy. Does that make me old and sad? Old and too-cool-for-school? Or just old?
"thick-fingered vulgarian"
I still prefer "Queens-born casino operator." Though all-time best was "elderly gossip stenographer Liz Smith."
"short-fingered," no?
Bosomy dirty-book writer Shirley Lord!
Yes, "short-fingered." It came off the tongue more poetically than "Lynn Swann."
Yes, "short-fingered". Curse my thick-fingered memory.
I remember that Very Special Issue of Spy when Mr. Carlson touched Dudley.
God, you got me, I was actually expecting a servicey rundown. I'm so millennial!
If you fed Spy after midnight, it turned into Sassy. If you fed it mescaline after midnight, it turned into Raygun.
Jeeeeezus. Raygun? Had completely forgot them.
Yeah, that's sort of my equivalent of everyone else's Spy reminiscences; my big sister bequeathed me a stack Raygun when I was 13, and even at that point I remember thinking, Jesus fucking Christ who gave these people a magazine? Long story short, 17 years later, I read the Awl.
Hahaha, Raygun. Raygun! Raygun: "I get it, but why?"
Can you get your Dad to explain National Lampoon next?
This post makes me nostalgic for Balk's News of the Day wrapups from Awl 0.1. Those were the days.
Those wrapups were gunned down shortly after leaving an Annie Leibovitz photo sesh.
That reminds me: Whatever became of the "Shift Memo"?
and the emails!
I saw Tama Janowitz and the time warp actually knocked me down.
Also, I really miss 'Separated at Birth.'
Do you remember when "Vice" was a magazine?
Immersing yourself in Spy back then was like kissing the sun.
Did it a few times and now remember nothing.
I have a stack of SPYs in my closet. They're for sale at a price only slightly higher than that for my soul.
Spy invented the thing where you compare one thing to another thing and say doesn't this thing look like this other thing they must be the same thing.
I also have a giant stash in my closet, including the replacement issue for the one my stoner roommate defiled. He had borrowed and then immediately lost the one with Chevy Chase on the cover, the one that had the "irony" article. I found it two months later in his room, under a pile of filth. Boy, I really "gave it to him."
<---Actually had her picture in Spy magazine! Did I save that issue? Yes!
I really read it, though, for the pictures.
I just threw away all of my issues of Spy a few weeks ago. I probably should have gone to the trouble of selling them on eBay, but eh. I do wish I'd saved "Colleges of the Dumb Rich," at least. Years after reading that I met a guy who went to Rollins, and I delighted in his actual dumb richness.
"Washington, D.C. is populated by former student government presidents driving Honda Civics."
-- from the issue with Ted Kennedy being doused with a bucket of water.
I trust you all realize I am the writer of Ten Years Ago in Spy?
The world is smaller than you think even if you think it is already pretty small and you ran into it just the other day at Zabar's.
Incidentally, I still need certain back issues.
omg that is AWESOME. But I'm not letting go of my back issues ... well I might, if you will tell me who Michèle Bennet is.
I had a poem printed in the letter section of Spy. It began: "I dreamed I was fucking Bill Clinton...." Ahhh. Fun times.