DYNAMITE MAGAZINE

Before the days of VHS, cable TV,  and video games, kids growing up in the 1970s and early 1980s could occupy their time with activity books such as Dynamite. Published by Scholastic, the magazine offered games, gags, puzzles, and a healthy dose of pop culture fluff. Kids in the UK had already enjoyed hardcover annuals based on popular TV shows for decades that featured similar content, and Dynamite was kind of a mass-market US version- albeit with no ties to a specific franchise or property. What caught my eye as a kid were the covers. Each issue (published between 1974 and 1992) featured a captivating image under the magazine's dynamic title. Here are a few fun examples that really serve as a time capsule. This was an era when variety shows still reigned as entertainment -even when the performers were puppets- and it seemed that new programs were constantly being fashioned around current chart-toppers. Stars made the constant rounds of shows like Love Boat, Fantasy Island, and Murder She Wrote. It was the time of cutting-edge comedians like Gilda Radner (SNL), Steve Martin, and Robin Williams, as well as cultural critique (All in the Family, Family Ties). My weekly viewing included programs that looked back (Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Sha Na Na), and looked ahead (Space 1999, Incredible Hulk, Logan's Run, Buck Rogers, Six-Million Dollar Man, Bionic Woman, Mork and Mindy, Battlestar Galactica). In many ways, we were our own variety show hosts as viewers, moving easily between genres as we tuned into an eclectic stream of shows on any typical night. The culture seemed less pigeonholed back then, perhaps because there were fewer channels and choices. These Dynamite covers capture it all so well! Enjoy!