# I miss Omni **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 17, 2010, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-omni/550551 "2010-08-17T18:49:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-omni/550551/21 "2010-08-18T04:25:07Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > I subscribed to it for many years, and still have the first issue, in pristine condition. I’ve got the last. How to build a robot. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-omni/550551/22 "2010-08-18T04:29:07Z")
The first few years of OMNI were fantastic. It was straight-up science fiction and science fact. The speculative science articles was written by people like Ben Bova and Martin Gardner. And OMNI’s back page contained “Deep Thoughts” by Jack Handey, long before he made it onto Saturday Night Live. But eventually it started to go downhill. The quality of the writers went down, and it became more and more focused on paranormal and supernatural crap. Eventually it became just another schlocky “UFO’s Reamed my Bum!” magazine. But man, those first few years were great. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-omni/550551/23 "2010-08-18T05:13:58Z")
I remember a “Last Word” article (these were typically spoofs) about useless psychic abilities, including someone who go into a trance and behave as though witnessing a fatal fire that took place 80 years before, or the guy who claims to be able to tell what playing card is being pictured in the mind of a squirrel. And, yes, the increasing tendency toward pseudoscience doomed the mag, at least for serious readers. ---
**Author:** ![Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a9a28c/32.png) [@Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oslo_Ostragoth)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-omni/550551/24 "2010-08-18T06:25:58Z")
I have every issue ever printed. Probably in less-than-pristine condition, though, having been stored for 15 years. Gotta dig them out one day to see. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-omni/550551/25 "2010-08-18T13:23:25Z")
Save the Flying Vampire Toad!! ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-omni/550551/26 "2010-08-18T13:36:20Z")
Here’s the Wikipedia entry on _Omni_: > **[Omni (magazine)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omni_(magazine))** > > Omni was a science and science fiction magazine published for domestic American and UK markets. It contained articles on science, parapsychology, and short works of science fiction and fantasy. It was published as a print version between October 1978 and 1995. The first Omni e-magazine was published on CompuServe in 1986 and the magazine switched to a purely online presence in 1996. It ceased publication abruptly in late 1997, following the death of co-founder Kathy Keeton; activity on t Omni w... Does anybody here know about the financial state of _Omni_ through its history? I wonder if it ever made any money. I suspect that it was always no more than a pet project for Kathy Keeton. Bob Guccione (her boyfriend and later husband) indulged her by letting her start a magazine. It sold a lot of magazines at the start, but it also spent a lot of money during those years. Toward the end it was clearly losing money. Back in the 1980’s I heard the following story, which I have no way of confirming or denying. _Omni_ only managed to get a big push at its beginning because Guccione had connections among magazine distributors, who were often Mafia-connected. Omni only got prominent display on newsstands because the distributors were able to tell the newsstand owners, “Look, if you want to keep getting your copies of _Penthouse_, you got to take this magazine _Omni_, and you got to put it right up front.” Apparently Guccione has always been highly leveraged in his finances throughout his life: > **[Bob Guccione](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Guccione)** > > Robert Charles Joseph Edward Sabatini Guccione (/ɡuːtʃiˈoʊni/ goo-chee-OH-nee;\[a\] December 17, 1930 – October 20, 2010) was an American photographer and publisher. He founded the adult magazine Penthouse in 1965. This was aimed at competing with Hugh Hefner's Playboy, but with more explicit erotic content, a special style of soft-focus photography, and in-depth reporting of government corruption scandals and the art world. By 1982 Guccione was listed in the Forbes 400 wealth list, and owned one o... ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-omni/550551/27 "2010-08-18T13:42:28Z")
And who can forget Dr. Grant Swinger and the Breakthrough Institute? ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-omni/550551/28 "2010-08-18T13:54:07Z")
Omni! I used to read that as a kid when I was munching on my breakfast cereal! Crazy stuff imbued with all the hope for the impossible that came out of the 70s. Now we have…what? Discover? I recall being vaguely aware that Omni was roughly the same size and heft as a skin mag like Playboy, Penthouse or Oui. And being mildly disappointed, following such observations, that it wasn’t in fact Playboy, Penthouse or Oui. ---
**Author:** ![carlb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carlb/32/5930_2.png) [@carlb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carlb)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2010, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-omni/550551/29 "2010-08-19T14:23:22Z")
I watched the movie 2010 the other night, for the first time in maybe 20 years. Watching it in the year that the story is supposed to occur is strange; there’s a weird mix of anachronistic and not-yet-achieved technologies. Just look around the _Leonov_; we obviously don’t have long-distance manned space travel, let alone suspended animation processes. These contrast glaringly with the CRTs and vector graphics that comprise the ship’s displays. There’s a scene in the first act of the movie where Dr. Floyd (Roy Scheider’s character) is sitting on a beach, presumably working on details of the mission. The thing that jumped right off the screen at me as the most dated prop was not the [Macintosh Portable](http://oldcomputers.net/macportable.html) he was working on. It was the copy of _Omni_ sitting amongst his stuff. I hadn’t even thought of that magazine for 15 years or more. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2010, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-omni/550551/30 "2010-08-19T20:48:10Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > Omni! I used to read that as a kid when I was munching on my breakfast cereal! Crazy stuff imbued with all the hope for the impossible that came out of the 70s. Now we have…what? Discover? I recall being vaguely aware that Omni was roughly the same size and heft as a skin mag like Playboy, Penthouse or Oui. And being mildly disappointed, following such observations, that it wasn’t in fact Playboy, Penthouse or Oui. No coincidence, _Omni_ was published by Bob Guccione of _Penthouse._ ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2010, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-omni/550551/31 "2010-08-19T21:42:25Z")
So it was basically brainporn. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2010, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-omni/550551/32 "2010-08-20T00:50:42Z")
I loved Omni, mainly because of the short stories, but also the odds and ends of pop science. One story stuck in my head for years: Sandkings. I just looked it up, and I’ll be darned if it wasn’t written by George R.R. Martin…probably dashed off when he was supposed to be writing something else. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-miss-omni/550551.md?page=1)