Magazines spoof
flesh and fashion

What sort of ham reads PLAYBOAR?

Plenty, apparently. Twelve years ago, author Thomas Hagey's piggy parody of PLAYBOY magazine became one of the best-selling spoofs of a commercial magazine when it sold more than 800,000 copies. It featured a centerfold named Taffy Lovely (a former "Miss Sow America"), a "Swine's Guide to Etiquette," false advertisements ("Trouble getting sows to open up?") and Letters ("Dreamy eyes and lips like swine / Taffy Lovely please be mine").

"The Best of Playboar" was culled from Hagey's pig fanciers' magazine "Playboar," and has been republished by Firefly Books (ISBN 1-55209-060-4 $9.95), along with another spoof that takes on the fashion industry, "Cowsmopolitan" (ISBN 1-55209-058-2, $9.95).

We talking Cowsmo's Bachelor of the month, Mr. Avail A. Bull ("Something in the way he mooooves me"). Ads for Kowlua Calfe Ole, Cowvin Klein, and Oil of Old Hay Beauty Lotion. Lots of articles - "Lose 600 lbs. in Just 3 Weeks," "How to Milk Your Ex for Everything," "Cowsmetic Surgery - How to Correct That Gummy Smile," "Stomp Into My Parlor - Ellen Guernsey Brown Interviews a Chicken."

Not to mention nose-ring jewelry. "Diamonds Are for Heifers," which notes, "If he can't spend two months' salary on something which will, most likely, last a lifetime, just what kind of cheapskate are you marrying?"

Or, as Mr. Avail A. Bull notes: "Oh, to be where the cows come across/To say, 'Yo, Bossy,' 'Whoa, Bossy,' 'Hello Bossy'/Pardon my persistence/Thought you'd love my insistence/That I accompany you to the trough."

For cowboys and cowgirls only.