[fr_freak]

Nobody was buying it for the articles?

I, ahem, sampled some Playboy magazines back in the old days, circa 1980s or early 1990s, and the articles actually were generally worth reading. The fiction, too. The last time I looked at a Playboy magazine was around 2007 or so, and the articles were pure crap. Bad writing, dumbed-down topics, and plenty of political correctness scattered throughout. The photo layouts were also so air-brushed that it was like looking at naughty cartoons.

[DeFault User]

and the articles actually were generally worth reading.

Yes, some were great. That's where I first read Gene Shepherd's short stories (A Christmas Story--yes that one). Also some fine stuff by Shel Silverstein.

Some may recall "Ribald Classics", which were off color (dirty) stories or poems from medieval literature. A Playboy subscription was delivered every month to the graduate school office where I worked. We discovered the reason was one of the senior professors in the department was writing/translating some of the "classics" for Playboy under a pseudonym.