405. Jordan Motor Car Co. Ad Parody

December 14, 2025

Q. I am trying to track down the parody of the Jordan Motor Car Company’s “Somewhere West Of Laramie” ad.

A. I had a little trouble tracking this down. Turns out it didn’t appear in National Lampoon at all. But I knew for sure that I’d seen it before, and that it had been written by Bruce McCall. So I checked Zany Afternoons, a collection of his articles from NL and other magazines. Sure enough, there it was.

It’s in a four-page article about American automobile advertising titled “Somewhere East of Laramie,” with eleven fake car ads from 1900 through 1976. It looks very much like the work he did for the Lampoon, but includes no information about specifically where it was published. There is some credit information in the front of the book that says the articles came from the following magazines in addition to NatLamp: Esquire, Crawdaddy, Playboy, New Times and Oui. I can confirm that it did not appear in NL, but I don’t know in which of the others it was published. Esquire seems most likely, but it’s just a guess.

Comments

No comments yet.

Original material (excluding quoted material) © 1997-2024 Mark Simonson.
Mark's Very Large National Lampoon Site is not affiliated with National Lampoon or National Lampoon Inc.
Click here for the real thing.