For those of us who grew up in the 1960s-1970s, certain things jump out at us and just shout ‘groovy!’ Avocado-colored refrigerators. VW Beetles. Richard Nixon. OK, not Nixon, but you get the point. Like all generations, we are nostalgic for what we had as children and teenagers/young adults. And one of the things we almost all had to grace the walls of our suburban bedrooms (other than wood paneling) were wall posters. Groovy wall posters! Here is a list of ten of the most iconic wall posters from that era. I deliberately left off this list wall posters that depicted the following – sports figures (Joe Namath, Ali, etc.), movie stars (Farrah Fawcett and her red one piece swimsuit pose), musicians/music/bands (Woodstock, Hendrix, etc.), movies (Star Wars, Jaws, etc.), and celebrities (John Travolta, Raquel Welch, etc.). These could be topics for future lists.
This list will focus on ten of the top iconic posters from that era. Artwork, genres, images, symbols and ideas that are still around today, or which have long since slipped into obscurity. Though wall posters peaked in popularity with the end of the 1970s, you can still find these vintage posters on Ebay and other locations – many of them commanding top prices in good condition. So turn on the AM radio station, turn off the lights, fire up your black light bulbs, light a joint, sit back and enjoy ten top iconic 1960s-1970s wall posters.
10
Marijuana
Most wall posters from this era were either meant to be funny, psychedelic, sexual, a depiction of a piece of the culture of the time (a movie or sports star, a popular type of muscle car, a TV show, etc.) or a protest movement. Probably the most popular drug-related wall poster of the 1960s-1970s were those depicting the most popular drug of that era – marijuana (pot, dope, etc.). Some were black light posters with black velvet backgrounds and bright green marijuana leaves in the foreground. Others pictured bongs and water pipes and various drug paraphernalia. Still other posters depicted groovy people of the era smoking a joint. Probably the most popular of this variety and perhaps the most iconic pot wall poster of the era was entitled ‘Who Rolled Mary Jane?’ This poster depicted the ‘Zig Zag’ man, the iconic three quarters image profile of a hippie smoking a doobie that graced the Zig Zag rolling paper line. The words ‘Who Rolled Mary Jane?’ were printed above and below him.
