“Eureka!” read the tweet from Karen Hurley.

Nine days after the crowd-sleuthing began in the search for the origin of that extraordinary “advertisement” for the National party …

… Karen has cracked it. As expertly recalled by ChrisH in the comments thread on that post, it comes from the 1973 edition of the Massey University capping magazine, Masskerade. Chris was even right about the “Norm Kirk farts in the bath” line.

The mysterious ad was one of a pair of spoofs of the material produced by National in the 1972 election campaign, and introduced as follows:

Yes National’s last ditch smear campaign was great stuff. They didn’t go down without a struggle. No sir they scratched and pulled hair to the bitter end – but that’s nothing – here are the National Party ads the papers were too gutless to print -

Photographs from the magazine, by Karen Hurley, below.

Many thanks to Karen, Chris, and the good people at the Massey University Library.