# Boy's Life Magazine - Still At It After All These Years **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** magazines-newspapers\ **Created:** [November 15, 2014, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-life-magazine-still-at-it-after-all-these-years/704668 "2014-11-15T02:43:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-life-magazine-still-at-it-after-all-these-years/704668/21 "2014-11-15T20:14:38Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I was being serious. Look at it closely. It depicts a really filthy scene. Yes, but it’s sub-tle. Very sub-tle. I started at it a _long_ time before I realized what was going on in it! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-life-magazine-still-at-it-after-all-these-years/704668/22 "2014-11-15T21:09:46Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > A few years after that, _ **National Lampoon** _ published a parody issue called _ **Boy’s Real Life** _. It had articles on things like how to play frog baseball, how to start smoking, and how to compute the correct trajectory for dropping rocks on cars from overpasses. It also had a humor page filled with every dirty joke you heard in sixth grade, told exactly the way a sixth-grader would tell them. This was the first thing I thought of when I saw the thread title. I got _Boy’s Life_ for several years as a kid. Don’t really remember anything about it. But the parody is with me forever. Here’s the whole issue of _National Lampoon_ that contains it. NSFW. [https://archive.org/details/NationalLampoon1974\_10](https://archive.org/details/NationalLampoon1974_10) ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-life-magazine-still-at-it-after-all-these-years/704668/23 "2014-11-15T21:26:46Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > This was the first thing I thought of when I saw the thread title. I got _Boy’s Life_ for several years as a kid. Don’t really remember anything about it. But the parody is with me forever. Here’s the whole issue of _National Lampoon_ that contains it. NSFW. > > [https://archive.org/details/NationalLampoon1974\_10](https://archive.org/details/NationalLampoon1974_10) Oh … my … God! I haven’t laughed that hard in ages! 😛 Pure comedy gold!!! ---
**Author:** ![Lucky\_13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucky_13/32/13209_2.png) [@Lucky\_13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucky_13)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-life-magazine-still-at-it-after-all-these-years/704668/24 "2014-11-15T22:05:17Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > When I was in junior high, I used to read _ **Boy’s Life** _ whenever I went to the school library, which was often. > > A few years after that, _ **National Lampoon** _ published a parody issue called _ **Boy’s Real Life** _. It had articles on things like how to play frog baseball, how to start smoking, and how to compute the correct trajectory for dropping rocks on cars from overpasses. It also had a humor page filled with every dirty joke you heard in sixth grade, told exactly the way a sixth-grader would tell them. > > Here’s the cover of the parody. I’m willing to guess you’ll stare at it for a minute or two before you realize what’s so funny about it: > > [VOLUPTUARY IN A ONE-HORSE TOWN: Image](http://jerome1951.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/boys-life.jpg) It took me a while to get it, but I did eventually. Now I’m wondering if I shouldn’t be on some sort of government watch list 😃 ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-life-magazine-still-at-it-after-all-these-years/704668/25 "2014-11-15T22:34:38Z")
youngsters these days can’t read and need pictures. why back in my day the only picture stories were the heroic rescue and camping hints. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-life-magazine-still-at-it-after-all-these-years/704668/26 "2014-11-16T00:41:44Z")
Boy’s Life might have had the first science fiction I ever read- I believe it was some sort of serial about a guy from the far future, where brains were huge and bodies frail. That’s all I remember of it. Late 50s or early 60s. ---
**Author:** ![DingoelGringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@DingoelGringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DingoelGringo)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-life-magazine-still-at-it-after-all-these-years/704668/27 "2014-11-16T00:51:14Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I was being serious. Look at it closely. It depicts a really filthy scene. And aren’t you posting child porn yourself? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-life-magazine-still-at-it-after-all-these-years/704668/28 "2014-11-16T00:54:00Z")
Boys Life still runs some of the same comic strips it used to back in the 1960s, when I got it. Although the style for _Pee Wee Harris_ has changed radically. Make fun of Boys Life if you want, but it had some good stuff in it. Bobby Fischer had a chess column (! – at least, there was one with his name on it). It frequently featured science fiction by significant SF writers. Arthur C. Clarke’s _Sunjammer_ first appeared there (they later changed the title to “The Wind from the Sun”), and had a GREAT cover illustration. Isaac Asimov Poul Anderson, and Robert Heinlein also had stories in there. There were directions for making some decent camping contraptions – I still have the combination pack frame/folding stool/folding table I built from plans in BL. They had interviews with famous people – like Salvador Dali – and “how to” instructions on wood burning with a magnifying glass and the sun, and such things. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-life-magazine-still-at-it-after-all-these-years/704668/29 "2014-11-16T01:11:59Z")
They did have a lot of good stuff, that’s true. The thing I remember best is when they reprinted chapters from Bertrand Brinley’s _ **The Mad Scientists’ Club** _. God, how I loved that book back then (and still do)! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-life-magazine-still-at-it-after-all-these-years/704668/30 "2014-11-16T01:12:34Z")
Great OG! Pee Wee Harris has been around a LOT longer than I realized. He pre-dates Boys Life. Next year he’ll be a century old! > **[Pee-Wee Harris](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pee-Wee_Harris)** > > Walter "Pee-wee" Harris is a fictional Boy Scout who has appeared in several series of boy's books by Percy Keese Fitzhugh as well as in a long-running comic strip in the magazine Boys' Life. Originally spelled "Pee-wee", his name has occasionally been spelled "Pee-Wee" and is spelled "Pee Wee" in the Boys' Life comic strip. > Pee-wee Harris first appeared in 1915 as a supporting character in Fitzhugh’s series of novels about the Boy Scouts of "Troop 1, Bridgeboro, NJ". Though Pee-wee is small of ... ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-life-magazine-still-at-it-after-all-these-years/704668/31 "2014-11-16T01:44:20Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > They did have a lot of good stuff, that’s true. > > The thing I remember best is when they reprinted chapters from Bertrand Brinley’s _ **The Mad Scientists’ Club** _. God, how I loved that book back then (and still do)! +1. Soooo… did you ever try tilting your head back to make blood flow to the part of your brain where the good ideas lived? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-life-magazine-still-at-it-after-all-these-years/704668/32 "2014-11-16T01:54:58Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > +1. > > Soooo… did you ever try tilting your head back to make blood flow to the part of your brain where the good ideas lived? 🙂 As a matter of fact, yes, I did. I also used to keep m glasses pushed up on my forehead. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![eulalia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eulalia/32/457_2.png) [@eulalia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eulalia)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-life-magazine-still-at-it-after-all-these-years/704668/33 "2014-11-16T08:08:01Z")
I used to read my brother’s copies when I was a kid. I thought it was way better than _American Girl_, which never had any science fiction or much of anything else I found interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-life-magazine-still-at-it-after-all-these-years/704668/34 "2014-11-16T16:30:50Z")
I loved it, in the 70s. Their Mascot, Pedro The Mule, had his own letter column. He’d sign his replies with a double horseshoe mark. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-life-magazine-still-at-it-after-all-these-years/704668/35 "2014-11-16T16:36:33Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > I loved it, in the 70s. > Their Mascot, Pedro The Mule, had his own letter column. He’d sign his replies with a double horseshoe mark. What kind of correspondence did “Pedro The Mule” have? ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-life-magazine-still-at-it-after-all-these-years/704668/36 "2014-11-16T20:15:09Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > Boy’s Life might have had the first science fiction I ever read- I believe it was some sort of serial about a guy from the far future, where brains were huge and bodies frail. That’s all I remember of it. Late 50s or early 60s. When I was a Scout in the early '80s, they ran John Christopher’s _The Tripods_ as a serialized comic strip. One of my earliest exposures to Sci-Fi. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-life-magazine-still-at-it-after-all-these-years/704668/37 "2014-11-16T21:46:44Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > What kind of correspondence did “Pedro The Mule” have? Wasn’t he kind of the _ **BL** _ version of Ann Landers? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-life-magazine-still-at-it-after-all-these-years/704668/38 "2014-11-16T21:57:05Z")
I do have to say that Boy’s Life really did a great job of tapping into the mentality of its target demographic. I was a Boy Scout so I got my own issues in the 1980’s but the ones I really liked were the large format ones from the 1950’s that my father got and my grandparents saved. I read all of those dozens of back issues many times. It was like a time capsule but still seemed somehow relevant to me. I wanted to go camping in the ways they were describing and I tried out the exercises to get really good at basketball and everything else. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-life-magazine-still-at-it-after-all-these-years/704668/39 "2014-11-16T22:02:38Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > **Boy’s Life** is funded as much by Scout dues as by advertising; I don’t recall ever seeing it for sale on a newsstand, and I got it free and unasked-for when I was in the Scouts. Things that are divorced from market forces tend to hang around for a good while. It’s for sale at a nearby chain bookstore, and our library carries it. I often read the section where they show (in comic strip form) how Scouts earned medals for saving lives. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-life-magazine-still-at-it-after-all-these-years/704668/40 "2014-11-16T22:57:57Z")
> [@AppallingGael](#): > > I guess I got a free trial subscription to Boys’ Life when I was a Cub Scout, mid 1970’s. I remember a couple of cartoon features, “Tracy Twins”, about a couple of Cub Scouts who did goody-goody things, such as calling people up to remind them to vote, and “Peewee Harris”, a Boy Scout, who did slightly cooler things. Then there was “Boy Scouts in Action”, real-life illustrated stories of Scouts doing heroic things. I remember seeing issues of Boy’s Life in my middle school library (1974-76 - actually, for the first year, it was a K-8 library). It was a rare thing when the Scout in the “Scouts in Action” story received something other than the Honor Medal (for saving a life - although the picture of the medal in the magazine had the words “For Saving Life” on it, but the medal on the Boy Scouts web site (a) does not seem to have this on it, and (b) says that it can be awarded for “attempting to save a life” as well). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-life-magazine-still-at-it-after-all-these-years/704668.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-life-magazine-still-at-it-after-all-these-years/704668.md?page=3)