In Vegas...Hopefully I will have time to get online in the mornings...I figure by the evenings the monitor might be a tad blurry!
This show ruled!
Playboy after Dark only ran two seasons 1969-1970 in syndication and was broadcast late at night.
Hef hosted and it's format was based on a party at Hef's apartment...Musical guests were the best of the best...
The following is a snippet of the information I found on the show at
TVParty:
Hefner's first nationally televised series, Playboy's Penthouse, premiered on October 24, 1959. Produced in the studios of WBKB-TV in Chicago, the program was syndicated to a loose network of stations across the country that specifically signed up for the show.The format was modeled on a hip, swinging bachelor party, the kind of bash where cool people lounged in their cocktail clothes exchanging bright ideas.Beat poets, writers, comics, and musical immortals like Ella Fitzgerald, Cy Coleman (composer of the Playboy theme song), Nat "King" Cole, Sarah Vaughn, The Limelighters, and Harry Belafonte mingled in an impromptu fashion with Hef and his assembled party-goers.There had never been anything like Playboy's Penthouse on television. From a historical perspective, this was the first national program where whites and blacks sat down together and partied as equals.Hef's first "Penthouse Party" (as the show was also known early on) featured raucous comedian Lenny Bruce, a controversial choice.It was rare for any TV production to book the up and coming nightclub comic because of his rambling delivery and outspoken views on race, religion and politics. Hugh Hefner was making a point on his very first outing, tackling subjects never touched upon in 1950s television culture.Skip ahead to January of 1969. With magazine sales topping 5.5 million a month, Hefner (then forty-two) again entered the television arena with Playboy After Dark, a 26-week color version of his earlier series.Once again the party format was carried forward, with an elaborate $35,000 bachelor pad set built on a CBS Hollywood sound stage, complete with a den, sunken living room, and curvaceous bar. Twenty girls and nineteen guys (guess who got two girls) provided the atmosphere and mingled with the exceptional guest stars. This is from July 10, 1969...the boys looked like they were having fun - whether it was the Bunnies or the chemicals I do not know...I love when Hef says
"Well the guys are near their instruments and the kids have settled down"...bwahahahahahahaha
