'Simpsons' character contest winner is the Bomba

[November 19, 2009]  LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Ladies' man Ricardo Bomba is bringing his charms to "The Simpsons," and it's all the doing of a hospital operations manager with a vivid imagination.

Peggy Black, 52, of Orange, Conn., won a contest to create a character for Fox's long-running animated series, with her entry triumphing among the more than 25,000 received, the network said Thursday.

"Rrrri-carrr-do Bomba," Black said, extravagantly rolling the "R's" in Spanish-language fashion. "He's someone that all the women love and all the men want to be."

Bomba will be introduced in the Jan. 31 episode featuring guest star Chris Martin of Coldplay. The episode had been mostly completed, with a spot reserved for the contest character.

In "Million Dollar Maybe," Homer Simpson is rushing to meet Marge for a date when he encounters Bomba in the episode that centers on a winning lottery ticket.

It's possible Bomba could appear again, said executive producer Al Jean, who helped judge the contest. He described the contest, part of the show's celebration of its 20th year, as a thank you to loyal fans.

Black, who counts herself among them, was encouraged to enter by Dwight Vann, 42, a colleague at the Hospital of Saint Raphael in New Haven, Conn., where she is operations manager for the cancer center and a radiation therapist.

Her favorite character is Bart Simpson, she said, "because he's such a bad boy. He's so misunderstood."

In pondering her contest entry, Black decided there was a void on "The Simpsons" and that Springfield needed "something like a Casanova," she said.

Bomba, a handsome, smooth-talking South American nicknamed "La Bomba," works at the town's nuclear power plant by day and "by night, works Springfield's singles scene," as Fox describes him.

So is Bomba the man of her dreams?

"I'm married to the man of my dreams," Black replied.

She'd bounced ideas for her creation off co-worker Vann, and then rewarded him when she won the grand prize of a trip to Los Angeles to work with the show's producers: She invited Vann to join her.

A highlight of the visit was watching Bomba brought to life by animators.

"I described the character and they drew him so I could see if that was my vision of him," she said. "It's amazing to see how they captured what I imagined. He's over the top."

Black, who's still marveling at her sudden brush with Hollywood success, brushes away a question about the lack of a cash prize.

"I'm going to be immortalized forever by making a 'Simpsons' character," she said.

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On the Net:

http://www.thesimpsons.com/

[Associated Press; By LYNN ELBER]

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