Al Jaffee and Arnold Roth, HUMBUG, MAD MAGAZINE cartoonists: Mr. Media Audio Interview

Cover of Humbug (2-volume slipcased set)

My mother bought me my first MAD magazine off the newsstand at a Stop & Shop supermarket in 1969. The cover featured a Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid parody that I believe was drawn by Jack Davis.

I read that issue over and over again—at least until I convinced mom to buy the next month’s issue. I was nine and it was the funniest thing I ever saw.

Over the years, I subscribed to MAD and bought the paperbacks collecting the material I missed in earlier years. MAD was my gateway drug—I dabbled in Sick and Cracked, although they left me unsatisfied. Stan Lee started publishing CRAZY at Marvel Comics and I even managed to get a few letters published there.

As I grew older, I started focusing on the names of the artists and writers I liked best—Al Jaffee, Arnold Roth, Dave Berg, Jack Davis and Sergio Aragones—the usual gang of idiots. I also heard about MAD’s precedents such as Trump and Humbug but they were never available until now.

Today, not only do I have a hardbound collection of the entire 11-issue run of Humbug, but I’m also honored to welcome two of its top contributors and co-owners, Al Jaffee and Arnold Roth, to the show.

You can LISTEN to this interview with legendary cartoonists AL JAFFEE and ARNOLD ROTH, contributors to MAD, TRUMP and HUMBUG magazines, by clicking the BlogTalkRadio.com audio player above!

Copyright 2009 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!

Chip Rowe, PLAYBOY MAGAZINE, The Playboy Advisor: Mr. Media Interview

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Chip Rowe has one of the greatest jobs on earth.

He’s the Playboy Advisor.

You know, the guy who gets letters from C.J. in Chicago that begin, “What is the proper way to tip a blackjack dealer?”

Or maybe this automotive inquiry, from A.K. in Harrisburg, Virginia: “Ever since I was a child, I have fixated on women in cars that won’t start. I suppose you could call this a fetish, because it gets me incredibly turned on. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

In his first published collection, Dear Playboy Advisor: Questions from Men and Women to the Advice Column of Playboy Magazine, Chip has whole chapters devoted to everything from “Affairs” and “Anal” to “Swingers” and “Threesomes.”

So I’ll only say this once: If you’re under 18 or easily offended, please stop listening right now.

For those of you remaining, please welcome Chip Rowe – the Playboy Advisor - to Mr. Media.

You can LISTEN to this Mr. Media interview with CHIP ROWE by clicking the BlogTalkRadio.com audio player below!

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Copyright 2008 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!

Stacy Collins and Breann McGregor, "Playboy Special Editions" editor and model: Mr. Media Interview, Part 1

Guys, Stacy Collins has your dream job.

As a managing editor of Playboy special editions, she spends day after day looking at the world’s most beautiful, mostly naked women. Some are in photographs, but many meet her discriminating eye in the flesh.

And now that I say that out loud, it’s not hard to understand why she’s in the job and you’re not.

Breann McGregor is one of the beauties Stacy works with. They actually spent a lot of time together this past year and will probably be just as inseparable in the coming year considering that Breann was named “Playboy Special Editions Model of the Year” and “Playboy’s Cyber Girl of the Year.” She is featured on her own website www.breannmcgregor.net. I’ll say it again cause I know you guys are pre-occupied – www.breannmcgregor.net.

You can LISTEN to this interview by clicking the BlogTalkRadio.com audio player below!

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BOB ANDELMAN/Mr. MEDIA: Stacy, let’s start with you right now. What exactly are Playboy Special Editions, and how are they different from the monthly Playboy magazine?

STACY COLLINS: Sure. This question comes up quite a bit. And what happened was back in the eighties when Playboy magazine spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on pictorials and photographs, and they only used a select number in Playboy magazine, an archive of material became available. And the powers that be in Playboy said well, we should really be doing something with these amazing images, and viola, the idea of Playboy Special Editions, actually they were called newsstand specials or newsstand flats back in the day, and it was literally just a place to showcase all these beautiful photographs. Not a lot of editorial content, really just a lot of pretty pictures. That’s how it started back in like ’84. Now we actually have 25 issues a year. We do 2 issues every month. They’re thematic in nature so there’s Lingerie, College Girls, and Vixens. We do themed playmate titles. And now, instead of just re-using content that was available from the Playboy library, we actually commission our own images, and we have our own models. And we’ve sort of built our own little business here and have become a content provider for not only our special editions but for Playboy magazine, for playboy.com, for our cyber club, and we’ve got our own little business unit happening here. And we’ve become sort of a brand within or underneath the Playboy umbrella.

ANDELMAN: So I want to make sure I understand cause I’m a little slow. Special editions are for the guys who hadn’t been reading the articles anyway.

COLLINS: That’s correct. That is correct. There’s not a lot of copy to get in the way, no fussy ads and articles to compete with the beautiful women. So, again, it’s really just a way to showcase the beautiful young ladies that we find all around the country. There is a little bit of information about the girls inside of each of the issues, but it’s really meant to showcase the beauty and glamour of our girls.





ANDELMAN: Now don’t tell my wife, but I have a copy of Playboy’s Lingerie in front of me which, of course, has Breann on the cover. And I think after you get past the necessary information, well, there is about four paragraphs of information about Breann right up front, but then I don’t think there’s another word other than the name of the model until maybe the inside back page.

COLLINS: Right, and that is on purpose. And that particular issue is a little bit unique in that we do showcase the “Model of the Year,” which was clearly Breann. But for the most part, some of the other issues we do don’t have any copy whatsoever. And we’ve heard a little bit from our consumers. They do love the photographs, but they’d like to know a little nugget, a little tidbit about the young lady. They like to know is she 5’4”? Is she 5’10”? Is she curvaceous? What’s her cup size? So we’re trying to incorporate a little bit of information in there without detracting from the photographs.

ANDELMAN: Guys want to know the model’s cup size? I’m shocked at that.

COLLINS: Yes, they do.

ANDELMAN: And, Breann, I just can’t imagine, in conversation, that that comes up very often.

McGREGOR: I’m sorry?

ANDELMAN: I can’t imagine that when you’re in conversation with someone that someone is going to ask you what your cup size is.

McGREGOR: No, it doesn’t happen often.

ANDELMAN: One more thing, Stacy, before we actually bring Breann more into this, but what have been some of the bigger sellers over the years for special editions?

COLLINS: Well, there are a couple things here. We actually publish Lingerie six times a year so that is the only special edition that is available by subscription, and we make it available in print subscription and also via Zinio, which is a downloadable version of the magazine which is becoming incredibly popular. So Lingerie is sort of our staple. It’s sort of our cornerstone of our publishing program. We will continue to publish 6 issues for the foreseeable future. And then we sort of mix and match other titles. Guys have their favorites. Vixens sort of focuses on girls who have a little more…

ANDELMAN: Cup size?

COLLINS: …ample assets, if you will. Curvaceous, bodacious, that type of thing. We have an issue entitled Natural Beauties where only girls who are completely natural, have no enhancements, are featured in that type of a magazine. And then we have College Girls which is, College Girls and Lingerie, are really pretty much our 2 major titles. And I think College Girls just because of the young, fresh coeds and sometimes there are girls from the conferences that Playboy does their searches so it might be the SEC or the Big Ten or the Pac 10 or Big 12, whatever those conferences are. And then we take that film and take it a little bit further because, again, the magazine can only use so much of the images. But, again, Lingerie, College Girls, Vixens, and then a lot of our Playmate titles are pretty popular. They’re all popular, Bob.

ANDELMAN: Well, as a Gator, I can’t imagine that once you’ve seen an SEC girl that you ever go back to any other conferences, but I guess you do.

COLLINS: Yeah. I’m a Big Ten girl, Bob. Be careful.





ANDELMAN: Breann, I did not forget about you. Did I read where you had wanted to pose since you were a little girl?

McGREGOR: Yeah, I have since I was 5.

ANDELMAN: Why, pray tell?

McGREGOR: Well, my dad would…I’d go get the mail, and I just remember asking my dad, “Why was this magazine in plastic?” And he’s like, “Oh, honey, don’t touch that. That’s for daddy.” Well, when you tell a kid “No,” it brings the curiosity out in them. The next month I just remember getting the mail and that one happened to be there so I snuck into the closet and opened it and was just like stunned by all the beautiful women. I was just like, “I want to be one of them.” I was like, “Wow, they’re gorgeous.” I’ve always wanted to do it.

ANDELMAN: This is why when, as my daughter was getting a little older, my wife made me start hiding the Playboys. So when my daughter said to me at one point, she said, dad, I want to be a baseball player, I said well, why is that? She said cause you’ll come and see me play. But it never occurred to me that she would see a Playboy and think I want to be one of those girls. But that’s okay. What was the first modeling that you ever did? Was it for Playboy, or was it for something else?

McGREGOR: No, it was for Playboy.

ANDELMAN: Really? How did you get in the door to do this?

McGREGOR: I went onto playboy.com, and they have their address there. And I sent in four Polaroids and from there got a call back, and then we communicated back and forth. And I sent in some other photos and then they called me to come in in August for a photo shoot.

ANDELMAN: And what was it like to actually do the photo shoot because I imagine thinking about it for years is one thing, but to go in and I don’t know, maybe it’s my own hang-up, but to go in and take your clothes off for strangers, be in a studio setting, that’s a little different?

McGREGOR: I was so comfortable. They made me feel very comfortable. It was surreal. I brought my mom up there with me. She was kind of like, “How do you know this is real? Are you sure?” I’m like, “Yes, mom.” She was a little scared about it. She was like, “I’m not gonna believe until I see the issue.” But when I was there, I remember the first photographer I shot with. The first scene that we did he was like, “Could you show a little bit of your shoulder?” So I dropped my slip down a little bit. He was like, “Okay, show a little bit of your breasts,” and I just dropped the dress down. He’s like, “Okay, we’ll get started there.” I had a good time. It was great. It was a lot of fun.

ANDELMAN: So, Stacy, is that pretty much the way these things go, that someone is either very into doing it, or they get there and they just don’t do it at all?

COLLINS: For someone to go this far into the process of submitting pictures and communicating with us and then showing up on set and not going through with it, that is incredibly rare. Usually, this is a dream come true for a young lady, and we are very particular about the photographers that we work with. We do have seven sets of photographers and producers around the country and in the U.K. and Canada, and they’ve been with Playboy for a very long time, and they know the drill. They know how to make a model feel comfortable. They know how to make her feel beautiful, and it just really sort of happens naturally. I have been surprised sometimes by a girl who’s incredibly green. We’ve just plucked her out of Midwest USA, put her on a set, and she comes alive in front of the camera because the comfort level is there. And I think, again, the excitement level to be affiliated with a brand like Playboy that is world-renowned, that is respected, that they know that they’re going to be treated properly and that the pictures are going to be beautiful.

ANDELMAN: So what was it like, Breann, to see yourself in the magazine the first time?

McGREGOR: I remember the first issue that I was in, it was College Girls. There’s a main girl on the front cover and then on the back, they’ll put a picture from a couple of the pictorials like one of each girl or a couple of the girls on the back of it just to show kind of what’s on the inside. And I was right there in the middle, in the center, and it just drew your attention. It was just like, “Oh, my God, I don’t know!” The Playboy editors called me, and it shocked me, and I’d gotten all excited. Like I was getting into the car, and they called me with some news, and I literally just fell out of the car while they were backing up cause I wasn’t in the car yet. I was just like, “Oh, my God!” It’s like excitement. I can’t explain it. Like she said, it’s like a dream come true. It’s just like wow, this is really happening.

ANDELMAN: Who was the first person you showed the magazine to?

McGREGOR: I showed my mom, and I think everybody went out and got it that day. The next day I was signing forever. Everybody was like, “Oh, my God, I saw your issue!” I think actually my friend had called me ‘cause he saw it first, and he was like, “Oh, my God, you’re on the back, you’re inside!” I’m like, “Oh, my God!” So I went and got it.

ANDELMAN: Was there anyone that you hesitated to show it to?

McGREGOR: No. No. My grandma is 79, so she’s kind of old-fashioned. She supported me. She went to Barnes & Noble, and she’s like, “Do you have a Playboy?” And they looked at her all weird, and she’s like, “My granddaughter’s in it!” She supports me. Everybody’s really supportive. They know this is what I want, and it makes me happy, and they’re happy for me.

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© 2008 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.

Stacy Collins and Breann McGregor, "Playboy Special Editions" editor and model: Mr. Media Interview, Part 2

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BOB ANDELMAN/Mr. MEDIA: Stacy, what is it about Breann that made her stand out? And were you the first to kind of recognize that in her? How does that sort of happen when you have so many models to choose from and so many pictures probably coming in everyday?

STACY COLLINS: There is absolutely something to when a girl has the “It” factor, and there’s something about Breann that connected with myself and the executive editor and publisher for special editions, Jeff Cohen. And immediately, it was like this girl has something, not only an amazing, curvaceous figure, but something in her face and her eyes that just lights up with the camera. And that first photo session then led to a cover and then another cover and then another cover. Breann has worked her way through the ranks of Playboy, coming through Special Editions and then becoming a “Cyber Girl of the Week,” a “Cyber Girl of the Month,” and then “Cyber Girl of the Year,” and our “Playboy Special Editions Model of the Year” because the fans, again, connected with her. She also has a very sweet presence about her, and I think that connects with the male audience because she’s kind of sweet, but there’s something sexy underlying and you just want to know more about her. You want to kind of know what makes her tick and is she really sweet or is she really sexy or is there a combination of the two? So, again, there’s an “It” factor that Breann has.

ANDELMAN: I could see that. And I’m on record; I have read the magazine for over 30 years so I’ve seen a lot of the women who’ve been featured. And, Breann, you just seem to have that kind of Playboy look that some of the women who get featured have it, and it’s something you can’t quite put your finger on, and some of the women don’t have it, and they disappear from view very quickly.

BREANN McGREGOR: The Model of the Year issue is one of my favorites. I love it, and Stacy was actually on set on that one. I have to say that was probably, by far, out of all of them besides the one that’s out this month that you liked as well, Stacy. I don’t know. Stacy can make you feel very comfortable in your skin, and that photo shoot was just different. I was very comfortable. With Stacy in my presence, I don’t know. She’s a gorgeous woman. She’s five feet, and she makes me feel comfortable in my skin. Just being chosen to be Model of the Year was just…I was just so honored and just so thankful. And everything about that photo shoot was just like…I was so like wow, this is amazing. Very thankful for all of it. But that’s the issue that I believe that you have in front of you.





ANDELMAN: I think we’ve got someone who has a question for one of you.

CALLER: Hello, Bob?

ANDELMAN: Yeah.

CALLER: Hi, Bob. Pete Williams here.

ANDELMAN: Hey, Pete, a friend of Stacy Collins here, I think.

PETE WILLIAMS: Yes.

COLLINS: Hi, Pete.

WILLIAMS: Hi, Stacy, great to hear you and Breann.

McGREGOR: Hello, Pete.

WILLIAMS: Hi there. Just wondering, Stacy, from a scouting standpoint, I know you go all over the country looking for new faces and figures for your magazine. How do you begin to cull the herd, for lack of a better term, with all these thousands and thousands of sure deserving women that could possibly appear in your magazine?

COLLINS: That’s a great question, Pete. It’s not an easy process, and what we actually do now is we hold a monthly casting call in a new city every month. In fact, we have a crew and a team in Houston today from 9 to 6 and tomorrow from 10 to 6 where we’ve got almost 200 girls signed up each day to come in and have their 5, 10, or 15 minutes with Playboy. And they meet a Playboy photographer, and they take their test shots, and that really gives a young lady an opportunity to let her personality shine through other than just submitting photographs. What’s happened now is you really have to weed through and cull through and really find that diamond in the rough is have a little personality behind it because sometimes a static photograph just doesn’t do a young lady justice. So through these casting calls, we’re finding tons and tons of girls, in fact, so many girls that we can’t utilize them all, but we’re then providing a lot of these girls opportunities within a lot of arms in the Playboy universe. So there are website opportunities. There are catalog opportunities, just any sort of other Playboy opportunities that might not be specific to Playboy Special Editions or Playboy but any number of the other properties that are branded sites that we have under the Playboy umbrella. So we’re trying to make as many young ladies’ dreams come true but still being selective. Again, it takes something really special for a young lady to be accepted by Playboy. Clearly, Hef, Mr. Hefner, chooses 12 girls a year, and every young lady wants to be a Playmate and not everyone can so we try to find as many other avenues and opportunities to give these young ladies a chance to have a Playboy experience.

WILLIAMS: I wonder, too, with everyone seemingly being a figure model, fitness model, their own website, MySpace, everything else, does that help or does it create a professionalism that maybe you’re looking to get away from when you’re looking for fresh faces?

COLLINS: You know what, the quick answer is we take both. We love the young ladies who have an entrepreneurial spirit who are already doing their own thing, but they look at Playboy as a way to take them to another level, and they’re really their own promotional machine and can also drive business back to us, so we’re thankful for that because as big a company as we are, we don’t have enough manpower to support the hundreds and hundreds of girls who appear in Playboy Special Editions every year. So, actually, we’re kind of thankful and grateful that some of these gals have their own marketing machine behind them, and we try to be supportive and make sure they’ve got issues to sign and promote and sell. And then by the same token, we love the fresh face, the girl who this is their first modeling opportunity, and they’ve not really been exposed to all the things that are available in the Playboy universe and otherwise. So we really sort of accept both. Now, I would say we don’t want somebody who’s so over-exposed that someone’s like why would you put her in the magazine? She’s not this or that. But, again, we try to keep that balance of truly fresh faces, new girls, and the girl who hey, this is her career, this is her livelihood and adding a Playboy notch to her resume is great for her and good for us as well.

WILLIAMS: I see. Breann, congratulations on everything you have won.

McGREGOR: Thank you very much.

WILLIAMS: And I hope you can help me in finally convincing Stacy to appear in the “Employee of the Month” feature.

McGREGOR: I know. I tell her she’s gorgeous. She’s very sexy.

COLLINS: Okay.

McGREGOR: She just has that look that you just can’t put your finger on, as Bob was saying earlier.

ANDELMAN: Or you can’t put your camera on, either, apparently.

WILLIAMS: Thanks everyone.

ANDELMAN: Breann, your picture is all over the internet and these magazines, but Pete raises an interesting point. Tell us about Stacy.

McGREGOR: She is gorgeous. Not only does she have a very sexy voice, but she’s just got something about her, her face and her eyes. She’s very sexy, and she’s got a charm to her. She really does. Doing a photo shoot, to have a gorgeous woman tell you, make you feel comfortable and like I said, just feeling good in your skin was just like…that’s a good thing. That’s very good. I don’t know. She’s got something about her. She really does.

COLLINS: I’m blushing.





ANDELMAN: Stacy, you think it’ll ever happen?

COLLINS: I don’t think so, Bob, but thanks for asking. I will say that a lot of young ladies will say, “Have you been in the magazine” or “When were you in the magazine?” And what I like to do is sort of mentor and guide some young ladies through this process that, “Hey, take advantage of this amazing opportunity while it’s at your fingertips. Do as much as you can with this opportunity -- you’re smart, you’re bright, you can do things after this.” I sort of have that nurturing mother hen instinct. I’m not sure where it came from, but I want to protect them. I want them to enjoy the experience. I want them to get as much out of it as they can. And I think they, in some way, they trust me because I’m not a 400 pound man or bearded lady, so they sort of trust how I would guide them and herd them through this or shepherd them through this process. They can say okay, if you were to do it, I would trust you so I trust you helping me through the process.

ANDELMAN: Stacy, a lot of people feel that Playboy -- and this is an old thing -- but they feel that Playboy and magazines of this type exploit women. Do you ever feel that you’re in that role? How would you argue that?

COLLINS: I would not and have not ever felt that way only because I’m incredibly comfortable with the philosophy of Playboy and the way that we do business, the way that we conduct ourselves, the way that my department, for example, goes about recruiting and finding young ladies. We know what we’re doing in terms of giving these girls an opportunity. We know what we’re delivering into the marketplace. We do it with style and class and grace, and no one young lady comes into the door and is in any way made to do something she’s uncomfortable with. That’s just not our style. That’s not what we do. And there are enough young ladies in the world who want to just at least have a piece of this Playboy experience that we don’t have to do anything unsavory or stoop to any level that we’re not comfortable with. So if anyone ever has a question about my morals or my standards of being involved with Playboy, I just look to look at what this magazine has accomplished since 1953. It’s iconic. It’s been responsible for some amazing things in the literary arts, with music, with politics, and I have no qualms whatsoever being affiliated with that brand. And like I said, a whole new generation is becoming exposed to the Playboy brand through the show “The Girls Next Door” to our licensing and merchandising. You see rabbit head logos everywhere. So it is something that I defend if anyone has any questions or concerns. And I, in no way, feel as though we exploit women whatsoever.

ANDELMAN: Breann, when Pete called before, he was asking Stacy about whether women who had their own websites, that kind of thing, if that was good or bad for the situation. Did your website come after you did your first modeling? How do you use the website?

McGREGOR: Actually, yes. I did the website about 2 years ago, which was about a year after I had been into Playboy. And I was new to it when I first started it and was kind of doing research on what other girls who had websites did and stuff like that. And then some things happened and a year later, I got “Cyber Girl of the Year,” and with a contract was unable to have my website. But I use it pretty much just to promote any events that I’m doing, and I just can put up glamour pictures, or I have an event calendar, any news that’s going on, any awards or appearances that I’ve done, and it’s basically just for fans to kind of see what’s going on in my life and just a journal and any issues that are out or any upcoming news and stuff like that.

COLLINS: What tends to happen, Bob, is that when a young lady comes through the Playboy family, and they really do start to build a fan base, and we’ve got message boards where our fans are able to communicate back and forth. And they really start to follow these models, and they want to make sure that they get every issue, and they want to see when the new pictures are out, and they want to know if she’s going to appear at a nightclub or host an event. Again, if we’re not able to as Playboy, as an entity, promote that on our site because it’s not really conducive to that, for a young lady to have that opportunity to promote herself and give herself a platform to communicate with their fans is fantastic. And many models have a membership part of their website where, for a few extra dollars, you get to see some never-before-seen pictures or get some little added extras. That takes a lot of management from behind the scenes, but I know that it’s become lucrative for any number of Playboy models to have membership-driven parts of their site.

ANDELMAN: And Breann, where do you want to go with all this? I saw that you are actually up for 2008 Cyber Girl of the Year, I think.

McGREGOR: For Model of the Year.

ANDELMAN: For Model of the Year, I’m sorry. And so the voting is going on now, and guys, you can go to breannmcgregor.net, and there’s a link there to the Playboy page. You can vote for her. But where do you want all this to take you?

McGREGOR: Before I had got into Playboy, I was going to school for a molecular biology. I wanted to go to med school, and it’s not happening. Honestly, like Stacy said, when you have it at your fingertips, take advantage of it and make the best of it. And I’m really, honestly, enjoying my two titles and traveling. I’ve done so much traveling this year. I want to build up my website. I like the marketing and the advertising. I’d like to start my own business of some sort someday. What it is, I’m not sure. It’s just wherever my heart takes me. I’m still, like I said, I’m traveling, and I’m enjoying every moment of it while I can.

ANDELMAN: Some of the girls you see over the years who do this kind of thing, they wind up going in very different directions. Some wind up doing more modeling. Some wind up maybe doing movies. Some wind up doing soft-core stuff. Some wind up, you see them at the, not that I have, but you see them advertised at neighborhood strip clubs. It doesn’t sound like any of that is the way you’re going with this.

McGREGOR: No. No. I’d like to start my own business. I don’t know. Part of me wants to go to culinary school cause I want to learn to cook, and I’m like maybe one day I can open up my own restaurant. I don’t know. This entrepreneur in me is coming out. And I say, if anything, Playboy has definitely given me the opportunity if I take advantage of the exposure that they have given me and use it to an advantage and make something of it. So, again, wherever my heart takes me. Honestly, before Katrina and all this, I thought I wanted to go to med school and go to anesthesia school, and honestly, that’s not really where my heart was. You really can’t plan anything. You kind of have to take each day by day and just be very positive, follow your heart, and make the best of it. Life is short.

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© 2008 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.

Stacy Collins and Breann McGregor, "Playboy Special Editions" editor and model: Mr. Media Interview, Part 3

(Return to Part 2)

(Return to Part 1)


BOB ANDELMAN/Mr. MEDIA: How far into the future are you obligated to Playboy at this point?

BREANN McGREGOR: For Cyber Girl, it’s a year contract.

ANDELMAN: Okay.

McGREGOR: But as far as working with them in the future, I’ll always be there. They’re like family to me. They’ve been there through some of the hardest times, and so whatever they need, I’m there for them. It’s not something that’s ever gonna end.

ANDELMAN: I want to ask you both. Strictly by coincidence, I got the new issue of Playboy yesterday, and there’s an interview with Tina Fey. Have either of you read it?

STACY COLLINS: I have not had a chance to read that yet, and I’d actually like to. I took the issue home, and some guy in my house swiped it so I have to find another issue around the office.

ANDELMAN: Some “guy” in your house, huh?

COLLINS: Yeah, I can’t really disclose, but yeah. Some guy.





ANDELMAN: Well, it’s a very funny interview with Tina, but there’s this one part and I can just read it to you. I have it in front of me. There’s this one part that I’m kind of curious to get your response to. She was talking about women who feel that they have to get super skinny and get a fake tan and fake boobs, and the interviewer was very surprised that she wanted to talk about this in Playboy of all places, and she says, “I don’t want to seem like a bad guest, but I have a few general theories. If you look back at old Playboys from the ‘60s and ‘70s, the Playmates represented the girl-next-door and some of them had maybe different size boobies, perhaps with brown nipples or large areolas. There are even ladies with their actual hair, with hair that wasn’t blond.” What she’s saying is that a lot of women feel they have to change themselves physically to be part of this universe. And I was kind of curious what each of you thought of that.

McGREGOR: Stacy?

COLLINS: Well, I was gonna let you talk first, but I’d be more than happy to address that. Again, part of what I believe Playboy Special Editions brings to the table is an avenue for all types of different girls. We showcase exotic beauties and natural beauties and the voluptuous vixen. We know that there’s a different taste out there for every customer so we try to accomplish that through some of our themes. But there is, definitely, an overriding social expectation about what the ideal girl is for Playboy: blond hair, blue eyes, big boobs, tiny waist. And there have been any number of those types of girls in the magazines throughout the years, but people tend to forget that there’s always a nice balance of different types of women in the magazine. So I feel like Playboy does get pigeon-holed in that, and I think because Hef’s personal taste has sort of trended that way in terms of his girlfriends and the women that he surrounds himself with, but that doesn’t mean that all of the Playboy universe. There is a spot in the Playboy universe for all different types of women. Different shapes, colors, sizes, ethnic backgrounds, the whole nine yards. So I would like to dispel that myth. If someone asked me do I have to have a boob job, I say absolutely not, but I still have to see how you look naked. I still have to see are your breasts perfectly proportionate? Are they nice? How do you look with…I would never automatically say you have to have a boob job, you have to have blond hair and blue contacts. That is not the criteria that we use to select the young ladies that are featured in Playboy.

McGREGOR: I’ve never felt being in Playboy I had to lose weight. I’m a curvier model. I’m not bone-thin. I’ve got curves. And I feel that Playboy likes that about me and so do my fans, and that’s why I’ve been able to have a career with them for as long as I have. But I’ve never felt that I’ve had to look a certain way or, of course, you have to, like Stacy said, you have to keep up with yourself. I work out, and I diet because I want to because it makes me feel good about myself, but it’s not anything that I felt like I had to do it. I do it for my health and again, because it makes me feel good. But, again, I’m a curvy model. I’m not like a zero or a one. I never will be. And it makes me feel good that I, being a I don’t want to say bigger model, a more curvaceous model, I guess, I don’t know, a curvier model that other women can see that you don’t have to be a size zero to feel beautiful or to be in Playboy cause I’m not. I hope I can help other women feel comfortable in their skin as well.

ANDELMAN: Before we come off of that topic, I have to ask about tattoos. Stacy, I guess this is particularly to you. You see so many women. Are we seeing any lessening of the tattoos on these women? And if you see a woman who is particularly beautiful, but she’s got a tattoo in the wrong place, can you airbrush that? Do you cover it up? How do you handle that?

COLLINS: I will tell you it actually is very regional in terms of ink. We seem to find New York is pretty ink-heavy. Miami can be a little bit ink-heavy. But we were just in Denver two months ago and Memphis last month, and it was not very prevalent. It really is somewhat regional. And sometimes tattoos are a nice enhancement and a beautiful addition to a woman’s body, and then other girls who see their bodies as a canvas, and tattoos are a work of art on their bodies, they sometimes take it a little too far. If, for any reason, myself or Jeff Cohen, the executive editor, find that it’s a little overwhelming or a little too intrusive, doesn’t really complement the photograph and the pictorial, we will remove it. But it’s an expression of a young lady’s personality and how she feels about herself, but sometimes, they are a little too much. I can’t lie to you. We try to leave as much of the natural beauty and inner beauty of the girls shine through in the photographs, but if something detracts from that, whether that be an unsightly scar or a tattoo that’s just a dragon spitting fire, we might use our best judgment and remove it.

ANDELMAN: Breann, I don’t want to look too closely. I looked generally over a couple pages. I don’t see any tattoos there.

McGREGOR: I don’t have any.

ANDELMAN: Okay. Good. Good! My faith in these things is restored.

COLLINS: I do have young ladies email or say, “Will you reject me if I have a tattoo?” and that’s not the case. It would never be something that we would automatically say, “If you’ve got a tattoo, you can’t be in Playboy.” It’s part of the culture. It’s part of the pop culture phenomenon, to be tattooed and pierced, and I hope I don’t offend anyone here but bare down there. We’re in an age where there’s not a lot of body hair, and that’s up for debate with a lot of our customers as to whether they like that or they don’t like that. But it’s just a way that young ladies are expressing themselves these days, and so we let them express their beauty.





ANDELMAN: I’m not gonna touch the body hair issue. I’ve got to draw the line somewhere. When the cup issue came up at the start of the conversation, I didn’t ask what size, and I’m not gonna ask about body hair at this point. So let me change gears slightly before we wind up. Stacy, you were a book editor for, I guess, about seven years before joining Playboy. Now you’re dealing everyday with models, a professional category not renowned for intellectualism. And no disrespect, but what’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard out of a model’s mouth?

COLLINS: I don’t know that it’s necessarily out of a model’s mouth, but we have a bio form that we have our young ladies fill out when they’re coming through a casting and ask all kinds of different questions so that we can really kind of get a sense of their personality. And the one thing that never fails to crack me up is they’ll say, on the bio form it says “birthplace,” and sometimes they put “hospital” rather than Indianapolis, Indiana. They put hospital! That is one that really never ceases to get a giggle out of me. But that’s maybe a little unfair because a lot of young ladies that we see are pursuing higher education, are entrepreneurial, are business owners who just happen to be beautiful and say, “Hey, you know what, I’ve always wanted to try to be in Playboy. I’m gonna give it a try. If it doesn’t work out, at least I gave it a shot. I submitted my pictures, or I came to a casting call,” and they can walk away and say, “You know what, I did something for me, and it made me feel good” and be happy with their decision. And sure, there are girls who might be challenged with spelling or identifying capitals of the states, but that’s not really what we’re interested in. We’re trying to create a fantasy and fulfill a need that still exists in the marketplace whether that’s via print or online or other mediums. And that’s just finding the most beautiful, exotic, sultry young women and giving them a platform to be adored and worshipped.

ANDELMAN: Breann, as a former molecular biology student, I want to give you a chance at the last word here. Do you want to defend the intelligence of models, or do you want to add a story of your own to the legend?

McGREGOR: As far as the women, I just think it’s stereotyped. I guess they think blond Playboys, all blonds, and you know how the blonds have the dumb blond stereotype, but I have a lot of friends that model in Playboy, and they’re in nursing school. A friend of mine has her own body shop where she sells her own lotions and stuff. And they’re very smart, and I think they’re very smart to take advantage of what Playboy has done for them to have given them exposure, and they use that to their advantage. And I think that’s very smart, but I have to say, I think it’s all stereotyped. Yeah, there are some girls that are a little ditzy, but that’s what makes them cute or makes them different. I don’t know. Sometimes I say things that are really dorky or just like did you just say that? Sometimes I find myself saying the dumbest things, but I think we’re all like that. But I think it’s all stereotyped, the dumb blond model. I think there are a lot of very smart, intelligent women in Playboy.

© 2008 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.

Clare McHugh, "Maxim" editor: Mr. Media Interview Classic

Originally published March 31, 1997

Does America really need another men's magazine?

Do men need another 172 pages every month or so telling us how to behave, how to get lucky more often, how to pick wine, who's hot and what's not?

If subsequent issues of a new magazine called Maxim are as ticklishly unsubtle as the first, the answer is a testosterone-cup-runneth-over yes.

Mr. Media reads piles of magazines each month, but the men's category is his favorite. Not for the pictures, either, although . . . The quality of writing in Playboy, Esquire, and GQ, for example, is generally excellent. But no matter how much older, wiser and wealthier Mr. Media gets, he never quite sees himself as the model reader for those publications. In his 20s, he thought he'd grow into that debonair, literate, sophisticated fella.

But now, in his mid-30s, all those guys seem much younger!

Maxim, on the other hand, is a perfect fit.




What makes it so different? Is it that Maxim is the American edition of a popular European magazine? Or could it be that this is the only major men's magazine in this country edited by a woman? A woman with a tree house sense of humor, that is, who could hang out and be accepted by your average bunch of guys talking sports, knocking back a few, checking out babes and scratching themselves. Okay, maybe not that last thing.

"I spent a lot of time studying men because I always wanted them to be interested in me and think I was good fun," says Maxim editor Clare McHugh.

McHugh, 35, certainly pushed the right buttons in her first issue. On the cover is Christa Miller, Drew Carey's TV gal pal; inside is a photo of Star Trek's Spock and Kirk; a directory of women who guest starred on "Seinfeld" and went on to greater glory -- providing an excuse to run Teri Hatcher's picture; a comparison between Macintosh and Windows users; and useful advice on buying lingerie for the woman in a man's life -- accompanied by 11 photos, natch.

But it's that very lingerie story -- "The Gift That Keeps On Giving" -- that spins the editor's gender. "It's a match made in heaven," reads the subhead. "Women love wearing lingerie; we love seeing it in action."

Not to be too picky, but if the editor is a woman, that sounds a little, um, funny.

"Some guy did write that," McHugh protests. "You have to assume the 'we' is a masculine voice. Besides, I don't think people will realize right off the bat that there is a woman editor."

C'mon! Mr. Media protests. There's a picture of you on page 16 over the headline, "So who's the chick?"

"I hadn't thought of that, really," McHugh says demurely, chuckling.

And it is a small point, but one that's important in a business where men's -- and women's -- magazine are closely identified with their editors -- Hugh Hefner is Playboy; Ed Kosner is Esquire; Art Cooper is GQ, Helen Gurley Brown was Cosmopolitan.

"Helen Gurley Brown is a brilliant editor because she really speaks to the readers where they are," McHugh says. "If I could wish for anything for Maxim it's that I could address men where they are, not in some idealized place or role of what masculinity is or means."





Staking out a piece of the newsstand to call her own, the fast-talking editor litters her magazine with politically incorrect lines her male counterparts couldn't pull off, such as "Hot Babe Management Tips."

"You've uncovered my secret!" she says, laughing. "I think I can get away with things that male editors can't."

Doesn't she care about potentially offending members of her own team?

"I don't care, in fact," she says rather bluntly. "In my mind, I think that if women are not upset by it, I'm doing something wrong. It was very important to strike a very male tone and attitude toward women. Not in an antagonistic way. But for lots of men, women are confusing and mysterious -- and also annoying! So we really had to write about women the way men thought. I'm not trying to explain women to men as much as I'm trying to address men's concerns about women."

McHugh's last job was launching another European import, Marie Claire, in an American edition. And her boss there was Bonnie Fuller, who recently stepped into Brown's fashionable shoes at Cosmo. Before that, McHugh worked her way up the Big Apple media food chain: New York Post, The New York Observer and New York magazine.




Joining a previously all-male fraternity, McHugh doesn't seem the least bit worried about comparisons with her "brother" magazines in the category, based on these blunt assessments:

Details -- "Cool. Maybe too cool."

Playboy -- "Nobody reads it just for the articles."

GQ -- "It's a fashion magazine."

Men's Health -- "A great magazine. Practical. It turns off people who aren't that interested in health. And it does tend to be the same issue over and over again."

Esquire -- "It's a literary magazine. For older gentlemen."

"Women's magazines in this country have done a better job of addressing women than men's magazines have done addressing men," McHugh says. "Men's magazines lag behind the development of men. I don't think men really changed through the ages. Feminism affected them in a way that it's given men more opportunities to do what they want. They don't have to fall into the stereotype of what it means to be masculine. You know, the good provider, the mountain warrior, the Hemingway wannabe. Other men's magazines address this heroic, iconic man, whereas most guys I know are very warm and interested in having a good time. They're in touch with themselves in that they know they like sports, they like women. They drink beer. They like to know stuff. They like to have a little something up their sleeves so they seem like experts. They don't spend a lot of time worrying if they're 'adequate' or not."

McHugh is surrounded by men, both at the office and at home. Beside her husband, renowned freelance writer Mark Lasswell, and their two-year-old son, Charlie, she also has two younger brothers and an "overpowering" father, who is a distinguished professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins.

Still, won't guys doubt you know what's going on?

"I hope to prove worthy of the job," McHugh says. "It is strange to edit a magazine for a group that you are not a member of. On the other hand, it does give me freedom and it's a new slant on doing men's content to have a woman's touch. I hope it works out for readers; I hope it works out for me."

© 2007 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.

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Chris Napolitano, "Playboy Magazine" editor: Mr. Media Interview, Pt. 1

When I was a student at the University of Florida, studying film during the day and writing freelance stories at night, I landed two choice assignments. Choice, that is, for a horny, unrequited, socially awkward twenty-year-old.

First, I got to spend an afternoon hanging out with Russ Myers, a notorious film director and king of loopy seventies porn, the man who gave movie critic Roger Ebert his notorious film credit on Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens. That was a wild day.

The other unforgettable assignment was interviewing Playboy magazine photographer David Chan, who came to Gainesville to uncover the most delectable Gator coeds for “Girls of the Southeastern Conference” pictorial. Chan was a delightful guy with an enviable job. Hundreds of beautiful women were lined up outside his headquarters at the University Holiday Inn to bare their, uh, natural assets.

But Playboy and I go back about a decade or so earlier to the time when I discovered my dad’s prized stack of 1960s Playboy s in a cardboard box in the attic on top of an old cedar wardrobe. And by the time I was thirteen, I ordered a subscription of my own. And once a month ever since, I’ve looked forward to the arrival of the next issue.

A female friend jokingly asked if I read Playboy for the articles. Articles? I answered. Are there articles in Playboy ?

Apparently, there are because my guest today is Chris Napolitano, the magazine’s editorial director. If you look at the masthead, the only name listed higher is the magazine’s founder, Hugh Hefner.

Napolitano began his career with Playboy in 1988 as an editorial assistant in the fiction department and now, in his 20th year with the magazine, is responsible for the day-to-day editorial policy and operations of Playboy magazine. He reports to Hef and is based in the company’s New York publishing headquarters.


ANDELMAN: So, when did you guys start slipping articles in between the photos?

NAPOLITANO: When did that happen? Ever since the first issue in 1954. In fact, we started slipping more nude photographs in the book over the next ensuing years and decades. It was pretty article-heavy right from the very beginning.

ANDELMAN: That’s true. I do know that because I have read an awful lot of articles in there. I’m a huge fan of the Playboy interviews in particular, which are a wonderful part of the magazine, and I think there’s probably a lot of women out there who only read the magazine for things like the interview.

NAPOLITANO: It’s the one that gets attention. We have a great tradition going back more than 40 years with the Playboy interview.



ANDELMAN: How do you decide who’s appropriate for the interview?

NAPOLITANO: Well, the rule of thumb is household name. We usually don’t introduce personalities or thinkers no matter how interesting we might feel the things that they have to say are. They need to reach a certain point of critical mass where people are going to seek out the magazine based on who we’re talking to.

ANDELMAN: It seems like in recent years the folks interviewed in there, it’s broadened a bit, it’s gotten a bit younger at times. It seems like there’ve been some rap stars in there, maybe some film stars that maybe 20 years ago might not have quite qualified.

NAPOLITANO: That’s right. One of the things we used to talk about was that we don’t get Al Pacino and Godfather I, we get Al Pacino and Godfather II. In other words, somebody who’s clearly established themselves as having a strong track record. But in terms of actors, the movie industry has very much changed since then and with films being in theaters for about two weeks and then going to DVD, everything moves a little bit faster. The actors are a little younger and perhaps not quite as iconic. We had a great interview with Bruce Willis that we just ran in the July issue. And we all agree that Bruce Willis is somebody that was pretty high up on the list of guys that our readers liked. And then we scratched our heads a little bit and realized that this was the third interview with Bruce Willis, which was pretty extraordinary. It was quite an unusual thing to go back to him. And I think that’s because they don’t make stars like they used to. So we’ve adapted.

ANDELMAN: I read that that was the third time for Willis. Some people would probably scratch their heads and say, “You’ve interviewed Bruce Willis at length three times?” What’s interesting, it seems, about a guy like Willis is he’s always got something to say. This time I think the big takeaway was that he has changed political parties. And you got into that, and that was quite shocking thinking about how adamantly Republican he had been in recent years.

NAPOLITANO: We see a lot of the information that we publish in that long-form interview informs a lot of the coverage that Bruce Willis will get now for the next year or two. Any lengthy profile, everyone will use our interviews as a source and a sourcebook for various personalities. And that’s another thing that we are very proud of with the interview.



ANDELMAN: And I imagine that’s something that you look for, too, in terms of deciding who the interview will be. It’s someone who the public or the rest of the press will have to refer back to Playboy .

NAPOLITANO: That’s right. They’re gonna be able to speak on a number of different subjects in depth, coherently and in an interesting way. These are all things that we think about when we assign the interview. A taciturn guy is not necessarily the best thing for us.

ANDELMAN: It’s got to be someone who has something to say and is willing to say it.

NAPOLITANO: Right. Exactly, exactly.

ANDELMAN: Who are the big guests out there right now that you haven’t been able to get or, for whatever reason, have not been able to bring into the Playboy interview?

NAPOLITANO: Well, very often the hardest guests for us would be on the political side. I think that Hollywood responds very well to the kind of things that we do with the interviews. So, the guests usually come in Hollywood, it’s just a matter of time, when they feel that their project is right and that they’re willing to step out or that they want to finally let loose a little bit. So on the Hollywood side, I would love to hear from Angelina Jolie. On the political side, we’ve got a whole roster of political candidates for President out there. And I’m gonna cross my fingers and not really go into it too much, but we have had some good success with interesting some people in doing the interview for us, and as we roll out through the end of the year, you’ll see who they are.

ANDELMAN: I’m gonna take a guess, and I don’t expect you to confirm these, but I’m gonna guess that running for President, the three most interesting for your purposes would probably be Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, and maybe Bloomberg if he runs. I’m guessing that Hillary Clinton just probably will not do it at all. Has she been asked and approached?

NAPOLITANO: We’ve been in conversation with Hillary and Bill, so we know where they stand with us.

ANDELMAN: That would be a no?

NAPOLITANO: Pretty much, yeah. At this point. The idea is to kind of come around and make them have to say yes because everybody else is talking to us.

ANDELMAN: And what about in the literary area, the cultural area? One of the things that used to be fascinating to read is there were a lot of literary figures who would be interviewed in there, whether it be Norman Mailer, people like that. There doesn’t seem to be as many of those these days.

NAPOLITANO: I’ve kind of put on the slate that we should have our eye on John Updike for an interview. He’s a regular contributor to the magazine, but I think that he’s a shy guy and a shy public speaker. But he’s a very engaging guy, and I think that our readers would be interested, and it’s kind of funny that we haven’t quite covered him. Philip Roth is another guy that I want to bring in and land. Thomas Pynchon would be another person that I think would make headlines, perhaps a little bit off-beat for the bulk of our readers, but that would be another kind of literary find for us. But in general, the reason why you don’t see as many writers these days is when we look at the total package of the magazine, we’ve had extraordinarily good fortune in landing writers to write for us. So if we have them contributing pieces, we’re less inclined to try to find a way to get them in the magazine using the interview as a platform.



ANDELMAN: That makes sense. Of course, besides the interview, the other thing that Playboy tends to be known for is getting celebrity women to pose for the magazine. I’m thinking that’s the other big part of the equation in terms of if Playboy wants to make a big splash this month, it would love to have a big celebrity interview and a big celebrity photo spread.

NAPOLITANO: That’s right.

ANDELMAN: Is that a fair…?

NAPOLITANO: Uh huh, yep, yep, although we don’t tie the interview and photos together.

ANDELMAN: No, it’s just nice to have two big ones in the same issue.

NAPOLITANO: Absolutely, absolutely.

ANDELMAN: Two big features, pardon me. I don’t want to suggest I meant anything other than that. Again, there was talk in the last couple years that celebrities, women, were not as inclined to pose for Playboy as maybe they had been in the past, that they didn’t see it as the same path. Do you see that as true these days?

NAPOLITANO: Yes. I mean, I think that it’s a more complicated environment than it has been in the past. I think that, personally, a lot of celebrities would be more than happy to pose for us, but there are a number of people who have a lot at stake in their individual decisions. It’s not the same as when Sharon Stone and Philip Dixon decided to take some photographs. There’s a whole bunch of ramifications. They have endorsements, commercial endorsements, they have appearances at stake, and a bunch of advisors, and so it’s a really complicated process these days. And what we try to do is just reduce it to the idea that never mind the money, naturally the PR and establishing yourself and showing another side of yourself to the public is a major factor, and they should definitely consider that as a plus. But, also, it’s about taking a great photograph, a kind of photograph that will be seared in the memory of the national consciousness, and I think that’s something that doesn’t come up as often as it should in our conversations with them.

ANDELMAN: If the phone rings when we’re done, and it’s Angelina Jolie’s people and they’re calling to say, “Listen, Angelina would love to do the magazine, your choice, she’ll either do the interview, or she’ll do the photo spread,” which do you choose?

NAPOLITANO: Well, I certainly would choose the photo spread first. Absolutely.

ANDELMAN: Okay. So this is good. This is consistent with what I expected. I’m afraid I’d be disappointed if you said anything else, Chris. Who else would you like to have do a photo spread in the coming months to year?

NAPOLITANO: Oh, well, there are plenty of people. Anybody that is attractive and willing to embrace the sort of Playboy spirit and the Playboy lifestyle is on that list. It’s a great platform for reinvention and rejuvenation, so there’s a handful of young celebrities out there right now who are struggling a little bit or having personal struggles, and I’d see us as a great venue for them to kind of break out of that.



ANDELMAN: Let me guess. Lindsay Lohan?

NAPOLITANO: That would be one name.

ANDELMAN: Alright. Were you surprised at how upset Jessica Alba was when you ran a photo of her clothed on the cover of the magazine?

NAPOLITANO: Well, that’s a tricky area. That’s a tricky subject for us. Again, I think that it’s a group decision for when people embrace us or decide to cooperate with us. And it’s probably a group decision when there are upset feelings, maybe because other arrangements have been made for exposure for the personality or the celebrity that’s disruptive, or maybe it’s seen as a loss of control by the people who would like to be making these decisions for her. So, that’s about as far as I’ll go with that. I think this was more of a reaction by….This was not the way that people in Hollywood like to see things get done, and I think that the ultimate reaction to that was Jessica stepping out and saying that she did not want to be on the cover at the time that we put her on there.

ANDELMAN: Was that a political lesson for the editors of Playboy for going forward?

NAPOLITANO: I don’t think it’s anything that we didn’t necessarily anticipate. You’ve got the celebrity tabloids that are gonna run any pictures and any stories about the stars that they think will drive newsstand sales and entice their readers. Then you’ve got the glossies with Vanity Fair and others who have full cooperation from celebrities undoing things that are photo-driven essays with kind of bland stories attached to them. Playboy is somewhere in the middle between those two things. The interview is something where the only negotiation is, “Are you gonna do it or not?” And we’re gonna ask the questions and you can trust us to publish what you say and nothing but. That course has been really helpful to us because they are never surprised by what the story is about because they know what came out of their mouth. So the flip side of that is that when they choose Vanity Fair’s venue they know what they’re getting. They have no control over or some of the time when Us or In Style or In Touch or any of those books go forward with or let alone Star or any of those kind of things do it. And we see ourselves kind of in the middle. We’ll do what we want because, as mainstream as we are and as widely sold as we are, we have a little bit of an edge. There’s a little renegade quality to what we do.

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© 2007 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.

Chris Napolitano, "Playboy Magazine" editor: Mr. Media Interview, Pt. 2

(RETURN TO PART 1!!!)

ANDELMAN: One of the main things that’s different about Playboy today than it was in 1988 when you joined is the competition. For a long time, it was basically Playboy and Penthouse. It was Hefner and Guccione. Today, Penthouse is basically on the scrap heap of adult magazine history, and your biggest competitor, I think, in print at least, would seem to be Maxim. There was an effort the last couple years to sort of “Maxim-ize” I hate to use the term, but Maxim-ize Playboy a bit. My sense is that you guys did that, but gradually you’ve kind of even pulled away from that and gone back to more of the older Playboy style.

NAPOLITANO: Yeah, that was a very conscious decision based on what feedback we were getting from our audience and from young men. It’s very true that when it comes to female personalities and stuff like that, Maxim, in their cover choices, is a very close competitor to ours. They are a starter magazine for a lot of young men.

ANDELMAN: Oh boy. They’re gonna love that term. I like that.

NAPOLITANO: Oh sure. Well, they have been reinventing themselves three times a year in an effort to get away from that, but the reality is that you can attract a guy’s attention, but to hold it over the long term, which is what most magazines on the newsstand are about these days, they are in a place where they can’t claim newness anymore. You have to provide something substantial, and those are the kind of reactions that we were getting, that there might be short attention span stuff going on everywhere on the net or on TV or on video games or whatever, but the best service a magazine can provide is high-quality entertainment in print form.

So we look at the core of our magazine, the well, the interview, and everything in that as not easily mimicked or something that works best on paper right now. That’s the big draw, and that’s what we’ve dedicated ourselves to providing to readers, and I don’t think that anybody really matches up against us in that way. We’re a general interest magazine for men. We have a lot of content overlap with Esquire. We have a dedication to fiction which puts us in a similar place with The New Yorker. We go in depth with personalities who have given our interview which kind of aligns us and puts us in competition with Vanity Fair. But the package is unique to us, and we don’t want to mess with that because in that mix, which also includes jokes and cartoons, is the secret to why people stay with us so long. And I think that’s a lesson that will be learned by other people who truly want to compete with us.




ANDELMAN: I could see that there was a point a few years ago where Maxim was certainly the hottie on the block, and people were talking about it, and there’s rarely anything that goes over a page it seems like. But, Playboy , you open it up, and you expect to be engrossed in the stories, you expect to be reading it and turning the pages and following it and jumping to the back of the book to finish the story and to learn something. Maxim it seems like, by the time you get interested in it, the story is over, and then you’re on to the next thing. They used to talk about the MTV Generation years ago, with all the jump-cutting, the short attention spans, but maybe if you buy into what you said about it being a starter magazine, yeah, it gets you into it, if you’re a young man and you haven’t been reading magazines, certainly there’s eye candy and you start reading it, but it leaves you kind of empty.

NAPOLITANO: Yeah, I would agree. I think definitely we’re editors talking to each other, and we’re in a field where we’re curious, and we like to read and consume that kind of material. I’m not opposed to a guy going to a newsstand and picking up a magazine that is different from mine, because I think that it basically will spark something in them that they’ll draw a connection; if they ever get a look at Playboy, they’ll be favorably impressed. But they’ll be in the habit of looking at the stuff. And judging from what Maxim is doing, they seem to have gone heavily in the direction of service journalism, so they’re still kind of pitching woo to their marketers and their advertisers and providing them with a lot of face-offs that are similar in terms of content. But the flip side is that they really are kind of packing every page with a lot of consumable things. They’re keeping their guys up to date with a lot of products and gadgets. And we’ll have to see whether that’s gonna be successful for them. But they don’t seem to be showing any interest in personalities or articles or fiction, so it’s a different model.

ANDELMAN: Now, I mention that it used to be Hefner and Guccione were the guys that everyone equated with men’s magazines. Guccione, of course, is not involved with Penthouse anymore. Hefner, from what we read, what we see, he’s still there but not maybe as active in the magazine. My question really is, do you think there’ll be another generation of editors, perhaps like yourself, that will rise in the coming years and become associated with these magazines? At Esquire, David Granger is clearly connected to that. People kind of in the industry know that’s a David Granger product. It’s got his fingerprint all over it. Will people be talking about Chris Napolitano the same way or whoever takes charge at Maxim, or will these things still be, Hefner and Guccione, and then there’s not so much a visible personality beyond that?

NAPOLITANO: Yeah, well, it’s funny to say. Less so than Guccione and more so Jann Wenner. I think Jann and Hefner and their magazines and their products are kind of very similar, and they both invented these things. And I don’t know whether magazines and the corporate climate necessarily whether you’re gonna see magazine products that are identified with a personality like that. I would say that this is a Hugh Hefner product. I’m in there, and I’m making a lot of decisions about where we’re going and generating material, but for our company, there’s nothing wrong with the identification of Hef and the magazine and the Playboy brand. That just is. I don’t think that we could possibly get somebody else to do the things that Hef does for this company.

ANDELMAN: I’m glad you mention that because I want to ask you, what does, relative to the magazine, what does Hef have to do with the magazine these days?

NAPOLITANO: Oh, he does a lot. He is a very easy guy to reach. For as famous a guy and as much as he has going on day to day, I don’t know where he finds the time, but he dedicates two or three hours a day to the magazine. And that goes from everything of talking to our photo editors on the West Coast who are very close to him and nearby generating Playmate photography or working with our photo director, Gary Cole, on the major and minor photography or engaging in dialogues with our cartoonists and approving the work that they do, get a lot of different ideas coming across his desk, and he’s picking stuff for them to finalize.

ANDELMAN: Who’s the last hand on the magazine when it goes out the door, is it you or is it him at this point?

NAPOLITANO: I would give it to him, but I don’t quite know what that really means. There are three or four points when the material that we’re pursuing is passed before Hef for review. We pace out the magazine at the very beginning of the process before any work is even turned in. We basically know where things are going in each magazine. He might think that something is inappropriate or wish for us to improve it, but we’re probably on the same page with that. And then the work starts coming in, and it’s a lot of work, a lot of moving parts to this thing. And when stories enter the system, he’s going to get a read on it. When layouts are being built, they come out of Chicago and New York and go for his approval. Eventually, he has seen everything that goes into the magazine and given it the thumbs up, and then we have to make it all work. That’s really the last hand in terms of the detail work. If there are changes that come along or things that get adjusted, it’s just time to pick up the phone and fill him in.



ANDELMAN: And Chris, you’ve been sitting in the big seat now for I think about three years, I think we’re just about at three years, have you had a moment where he’s wanted to do something or something has come up, and you’ve had to say no to Hugh Hefner or you’ve had to take a stand and kind of say look?

NAPOLITANO: Yeah. In the three years that I’ve been doing this, I’ve been here for a very long time, he’s very clear about what he wants. He knows that he’s creating an atmosphere and a feeling. He doesn’t pretend to be inside the mind of a 30-year-old guy, but he pretty much wants to know what that 30-year-old guy should think of us. So using that, we generate a whole lot of ideas. In that time frame that I’ve been here, he’s spiked, I’d say, about three stories for admittedly good reasons, and this is where he and I both are approving it all on the process where, okay, you see it on the schedule or maybe it’s an iffy idea, but you really go through the whole thing, and then you’ve got two weeks before you go to the printer, and he says, “No,” usually in the humor or the more Maximy vein of things. I’ve had no problem pulling those pieces because he’s usually very persuasive in making his case. I’ve never told him or had to say no to any ideas that he has because editors, we have batting averages, and he’s got a very high batting average for what is successful for the magazine, and so we see it three months later down the line in showing up on the newsstand.

ANDELMAN: I would think that there are real pros and cons to being the guy who’s been there for 20 years and that you’ve come up from an editorial assistant to rise, like I said, to the big seat, that the pro is that you have this incredible institutional knowledge, you probably know where every paper clip is kept in the office. On the other hand, having been there all that time and started under this incredible publishing legend, and I’m not just saying it to suck up to him, he is an incredible publishing legend, and he’s a man who’s influenced an awful lot of things. But then suddenly, you’re in the position 20 years later of the other people in the organization turn to you when there’s a dispute, or if there’s an issue, they turn to you and say, “Chris, this is what we believe, and Hef may think this, what are we going to do?” It’s got to be a little challenging at times.

NAPOLITANO: It is, but the best thing is to keep the dialogue going. Hef is, first and foremost an editor, which is a very interesting kind of thing. He’s many things, and he’s had many roles here, and he’s been famous for 54 years. But, his love is the magazine, and his greatest knowledge is as an editor. I feel very comfortable with him, and I’m not going to stroke myself here, but I believe that we’ve been putting out a fantastic product in the last three years, and I’ve heard as much from him. He doesn’t like getting in a place where he is dictating material. He wants you to understand what he’s looking for, and he wants to get it, but when he starts shortening that leash, or when he starts feeling that you can’t give him what he’s looking for, that’s when people panic or start making the wrong moves. So you have to be as aggressive as you would be under anybody.

Every editor has a boss, and sometimes that boss is waving newsstand results or advertising results in front of your face. Hef is waving quality and instinctively knowing what he thinks Playboy should look and feel like.

So let’s go back to one of the stories that -- I’m long-winded I know -- but the one thing that he’s been very gracious about is one time I was saying yes to something that he was saying no to, and that was a very nice piece from a book called The Weathermakers. It was all about global warming, and we were ahead of the curve on that one, and he had some problems with the layout, and he really didn’t want to go forward with the piece, but I persuaded him to think twice about it. It was going to be a big topic, and he was very happy when our issue hit the stands and two weeks later, “60 Minutes” used the same kind of iconic image that we did, which was a polar bear on a tropical island, and then two weeks after that, Vanity Fair came out with their first green issue. So you do have to stand your ground and persuade him, this is why we’re doing this. And he’s very quick on the uptake, and so things move forward. So those are the kind of conversations you have with him.



ANDELMAN: Well, Chris, before we finish, I want to try something with it. Do you remember the movie Sophie’s Choice?

NAPOLITANO: Uh, I never saw it.

ANDELMAN: Well, the basic idea was that I think it is the Nazis, they are going to take, she has two kids, they’re going to take one of the two kids, and she has to choose which one’s gonna die. So this is your Sophie’s Choice. I’m gonna kill one of Playboy ’s most treasured features, and you have to choose which one to save. Is it the Playboy interview or the Playboy jokes?

NAPOLITANO: Oh, boy. Oh, I would…..Wow, wow. I’d kill the jokes.

ANDELMAN: You’d kill the jokes, okay. I’m not done. Now, the Playboy interview or the Forum?

NAPOLITANO: Uh, I’d kill the Forum.

ANDELMAN: Okay, the Playboy interview or the Playboy advisor?

NAPOLITANO: Wow, that’s another tough one. I could get what I get from the advisor in other places. I’d kill the advisor.

ANDELMAN: Oh, tell Chip Rowe I’m very sorry.

NAPOLITANO: Yeah, we’ll give him something else to do.

ANDELMAN: Alright, last one. Well, he is multi-talented. Playboy interview or the centerfold?

NAPOLITANO: The interview.

ANDELMAN: Ah, there we go folks. We’ve narrowed down what’s important in the magazine. Alright, last question. Chris, you’re married, and I understand you’ve got two children.

NAPOLITANO: Yes.

ANDELMAN: How does the editor of Playboy position his workday when he gets home at night?

NAPOLITANO: Oh, I got to let it go. I have to let it go. I don’t take notes as to what happens during the day. This is a very interesting job to have, but you can care about something too deeply, and I’m so happy and pleased with the editorial product that we put out. I don’t want to brag, but there’s nothing that I don’t like about what we put on paper for the magazine. There are a host of other things that I’m responsible for or in the middle of. If there are 10 things, I have to be happy. Success is defined by six out of those ten things being right, and I want ten out of ten, and that can be nerve-wracking. But that’s my problem, and I got to let that go.

ANDELMAN: Maybe I should have asked the question slightly differently. I think you’re 43?

NAPOLITANO: Yeah.

ANDELMAN: Okay. You’ve got two kids, probably not too old, a wife, how do they explain what daddy does?

NAPOLITANO: Well, it’s kind of interesting. I have a daughter, and she’s older. I don’t think she’s at the age yet where her classmates might have picked up the magazine or found it. But they’ve been in the office, and they’ve seen, gotten glimpses of what we’re all about here. And it’s just a simple thing of like this is for adults. This is for adult men. Just like you’ll see me have a glass of wine during dinner, and you’re drinking juice. That’s just the way it is.

© 2007 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.