Cigarette Ads

Before vaping, before warning labels, before your lungs were legally allowed to file a restraining order against you—there were cigarette ads. And friends, no one did unintentional comedy quite like a 1970s magazine ad trying to sell you lung darts.

Flip open a TV Guide, Sports Illustrated, or literally any magazine that wasn’t Highlights for Children, and you were guaranteed to find full-page glory shots of grizzled cowboys, high-society couples, or ski bunnies in short shorts and fur boots—all puffing away like they were trying to smoke the Devil out of their souls.

Let’s talk the Marlboro Man. A man so rugged, he made John Wayne look like a figure skater. He wasn’t just smoking a cigarette. He was taming it. On horseback. In a canyon. At dawn. With the look of a man who had no idea what a dentist was. You think that guy ever used moisturizer? No. He exfoliated with gravel and regret.

Over at Newport, it was all about laughing couples in white tennis outfits, flinging frisbees and enjoying a cigarette like it was part of their cardio routine. I don’t know what was in those menthols, but apparently they cured depression, made you more attractive, and increased your vertical leap.

Virginia Slims gave us ads aimed at women with slogans like “You’ve come a long way, baby,” which was code for “It’s feminism, but with emphysema.” The visuals usually included a woman in a power suit, holding a Slim like it was both a weapon and a fashion statement. Nothing said liberation quite like matching your lipstick to your tar intake.

And who could forget the absolute insanity of Camel ads? Half the time they featured Joe Camel, a smooth-talking, sunglasses-wearing anthropomorphic camel who looked like he was the keyboard player in a jazz-funk band. What child wouldn’t want to be Joe Camel? He had a Corvette, a cigarette, and more swagger than Prince at a roller disco.

Of course, all these ads conveniently skipped the whole “your lungs will eventually resemble an old catcher’s mitt” part. No coughing. No warnings. Just windblown hair, perfect teeth, and the implication that if you lit up, you too could look like a bronzed god or a yacht-owning fashion model.

By the late ‘80s, the feds finally realized, “Hey, maybe letting cartoon camels sell smokes to kids isn’t a great idea,”and the ads started disappearing. But for a solid two decades, cigarette ads weren’t just marketing—they were cinematic masterpieces of delusion and denim.

So next time you see a modern ad for gluten-free oat milk or sugar-free gum, just remember: there was a time when people in tuxedos smoked indoors on airplanes, and they looked damn good doing it. At least according to Timemagazine and their three-page spread on “The Bold Taste of Benson & Hedges.”