CHICAGO — Aye Carumba! Marge Simpson has done something that Homer might not like but will make Bart the most popular kid in his school: She has posed for Playboy magazine.
After more than a half-century featuring women such as Marilyn Monroe, Cindy Crawford and the Girls of Hooters on its cover, Playboy has for the first time given the spot to a cartoon character.
And the magazine is giving the star of “The Simpsons” the star treatment, complete with a data sheet, an interview and a two-page centerfold.
The magazine’s editorial director, James Jellinek, won’t say exactly how much of Marge will show in the November edition that hits newsstands Friday — or whether she lets that big pile of blue hair down. But, he said, “It’s very, very racy” and stressed that the mother of three has a lot to be proud of.
“She is a stunning example of the cartoon form,” he said Friday at the magazine’s Chicago headquarters.
For Playboy, which has seen its circulation slip from 3.15 million to 2.6 million since 2006, putting Marge on the cover was designed to attract younger readers to a magazine where the median age of readers is 35, while not alienating older readers.
