Four and a half decades have passed, fads and teen idols have come and gone and died young and left pretty corpses — but through it all, Tiger Beat has endured. Sadly, the teeny bopper magazine has also survived its founder, Charles Laufer, who died earlier this month at 87. Laufer described the pin-up mag as “guys in their 20s singing La La songs to 13-year-old girls,” which sounds about right to us. We celebrate his legacy by collecting some of our favorite Tiger Beat covers, from its debut issue in 1965 to the current, Bieber-centric edition. Get ready to laugh: there are some weird ones in there.
’60s
September 1965: Tiger Beat’s debut issue
October 1965: Byrds vs. Stones? Not Beatles vs. Stones?
November 1965: Dylan!
November 1967: Hey, hey we’re the Monkees… and Spock!
April 1969: Was “Bobby’s Near Disaster” that he had King Davy growing out of his head?
’70s
January 1970: Now poor Bobby’s got a football player “hiding” in his head!
December 1971: Oh, Donny
July 1973: Yes, apparently, the Osmonds were this big a deal.
December 1975: Poor Linda!
February 1976: This feels wrong.
June 1976: Before there was Photoshop…
Super Special 1977: Bay. City. ROLLERS!
Summer 1979: And here you have it, the hottest man-boys of 1979.
’80s
May 1980: Yup, it’s the ’80s! Hey there, Tom Petty.
April 1982: Hot tub Scott Baio wants you to insert Hot Tub Time Machine joke here.
October 1983: John Stamos, pre-Uncle Jesse
1984 Poster Special: Oh, girls of 1984. Probably best not to dream too deeply about Michael Jackson. Or Culture Club. Or Tom Cruise, for that matter.
1987: You didn’t see a whole lot of ladies on the cover of Tiger Beat. Madonna, as always, is the exception.
1989: This might be Tiger Beat‘s Tiger Beatiest issue of all time.
’90s
October 1990: NKOTB, Zach from Saved by the Bell, “Cowabunga” — yup, it’s the ’90s.
Brad Pitt Special Issue 1996: Somehow, a grown-up man on a Tiger Beat cover seems wrong. Facial hair!
1999: Remember when the Backstreet Boys were known as “BSB” instead of “Who?”
21st Century
July 2000: Kind of want to see what the Blink-182 pin-up photos looked like.
November 2005: Five years later, it’s kind of amazing how many of these people are no longer famous.
March 2010: All about the Biebs
May 2011: Tiger Beat‘s current issue
