Playboy After Dark

- Season 2

(1970)

Typical mixed bag with a horribly dated, obnoxious routine by Larry Storch. Dick Shawn gives dance lessons to Hugh. All the while, Barbi Benton, now elevated to eye candy number one hanging on Hef's arm with a deer in the headlights look in her innocent eyes. The highlight of the show is Canned Heat's stunning set with Bob the Bear Hite and Al Blind Owl Wilson each taking a lead vocal. Sonny and Cher open the show doing covers of For Once In My Life and Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You. Vic Damone adds a song but sounds wildly out of place in this company, the last gasp ...

Perhaps the best show of the series but let's start with the worst first. Comic Louie Nye, most famous for his Beverly Hillbillies turn, does a rather lame routine and movie critic Rex Reed blathers on endlessly about his role in the movie Myra Breckinridge. Patty Duke sits on the couch beside Hef. She, Reed and Louie engage in a parlor game that resembles charades. Fit for home movies only. The power of the show is Ike and Tine Turner's performances of I Wanna Take You Higher, John Lennon's Come Together and Proud Mary. Doug Kershaw performs his two most famous songs...

The show starts with Hugh playing a 78 record of one his favorite old time singers. Next up is Tony Bennett. Real gone man. By then half the program was over. Comic George Kirby performs. Tony is joined by singer Joe Williams. A great show if you love Tony Bennett, but it feels like something more out of the 1950s than swingin' 1969.

Arte Johnson does comedy and makes you wonder what made him funny. We do learn that Hef and Arte were college classmates. Lindsay Wagner is a prominent extra in this show as she is in several other season two shows, though it isn't listed in her film credits. The original Fleetwood Mac with Peter Green does Rattlesnake Shake. Don Adams is his usual pompous self. Maxwell Smart was not acting, it was Don Adams. Lesley Gore, well past her It's My Party fame, tries out a lounge act. Fleetwood Mac plays out over the closing credits.

A really dismal show. Tony Randall and Art Metrano contribute obnoxious comedy routines and Grand Funk lip syncs their way through two song. At one point the hipsters line dance their way down the stair while Grand Funk plays. All I can is, get the funk out. Cannonball Adderley's group performs some instrumentals. Lew Rawls is the best of the lot. In fine voice as ever.

Yet another loser of an episode. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band performs, sort of. Master musicians, they seem to be lip syncing in their early numbers. Drums are playing and no one's at the drum set. The bass player is dressed in a Canadian Mountie outfit as if he just stepped out a Monty Python sketch. Steve Allen performs for Hugh and company. Ole Steve-O-Reno is his usually lordly self. That he condescended to mingle with mere mortals is amazing. The worst show of a dismal season. Hef obviously had no concept of what he wanted this show to be mingling ludicrously ...

The talent is thinning out fast as the second season progresses. Comedian buddies Don Adams and Bill Dana show up again and engage in a slot car racing contest. Wow - The Checkmates and Carla Thomas turn in solid performances, but let's face it, the main attraction of these shows are the Rock groups of the era and none are in attendance in this show. Humorous songwriter Biff Rose tinkers at the piano and the Amazing Kreskin performs parlor tricks. I wonder what they were doing at Jack Benny's house that night? Couldn't have been anymore boring than this bunch.

Charlie Brill and Mitzi McCall do comedy. Remember them? I thought not. John Kay and Steppenwolf performs with a red robed three woman choir. Soul singer Delores Hall. actor Gig Young talking about They Shoot Horses Don't They. The highlight is Folk artist John Hartford doing some fine banjo work on one of his idiosyncratic self-penned tunes. Hugh exhorts Hartford to close out the show by calling out a square dance. Strange days indeed.

Jack Jones sings. Norm Crosby emotes. The Chambers Brothers add some life to the party. James Brown and Vicki Anderson sing a tune or two and then Hugh takes everyone into the den to some slides of Australian wildlife. I'm not kidding. Jack Jones sings a few more tunes, all the while looking like he's about to fall in love with himself before it mercifully comes to an end.

The opening act is Hugh O'Brian, TV's Bat Masterson, performing magic tricks. Surreal. Bill Cosby does a bit, some forgettable singers sing some songs, that's about it. Bill Medley does a couple of covers. Jefferson Airplane sound-a-like band Sweetwater does a couple of songs. The closer is actor Scoey Mitchell, Nansi Nevins of Sweetwater, Bill Medley and Angeline Butler doing a chorus of The Beatles I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends. A real blah show.

Mort Sahl and Sid Caesar ramble through forgettable comic pieces but the music shines. Joe Cocker staggers drunkenly through a few, oddly forgettable numbers, but Jazz singer Billy Eckstine lends his golden voice to the show and Linda Ronstadt does a set. On lead guitar in Linda's band is future Eagle Bernie Leadon. This is pre-superstar Linda, still the barefoot, shy hippie girl from Tucson. The centerpiece of the show is Linda and Billy dueting on Billie Holidyay's God Bless The Child.

The opening scene shows Lindsay Wagner coming into the party wearing a black mini-dress. Barbi Benton sits by the fireplace with a ludicrous wig propped on her head like a little girl playing dress up. Jo Anne Worley does her Laugh-In act. Oh what fun. Dancer Barrie Chase, who had previously performed on the Hollywood Palace with Fred Astaire does a routine that reminds you of Elaine on Seinfeld. Not good. Jo Anne sings, yes she really could. Uncle Miltie Berle does some card tricks. Considering it was Playboy, let's thank god he didn't decide to show us what he was ...

Welcome to Hugh and Barbi's Hawaiian Luau complete with a fire dance. Kind of like a Merv Griffin theme show. At least it's an excuse for the girls to dress in skimpy outfits. Smokey Robinson and the Miracles do a pair of songs including The Tracks of my Tears. Though in fine voice, the performance is not dynamic. Noel Harrison, Vic Damone and Evie Sands sing, actor Lloyd Haynes drops by and Marty Engels gives an alleged standup routine. A very forgettable show.

Another odd night at Hef's place. George Carlin does an astoundingly sexist birth control routine, but it's still a hoot to see a young Carlin. Psychic Kenny Kingston does his routine which includes giving Tommy Smothers career advice channeled from his dead grandmother. The Modern Jazz Quartet lends a couple of nice tunes and seminal Country-Rocker-Folkie John Stewart does a set. Stewart's shaky falsetto tells you it's all live-live-live. Johnny Mathis tries to get hip by singing Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head and Aquarius. Great voice, but still not hip.

Shari Lewis is back for another round of adult oriented humor with Lamb Chop. This time she's aided by a Hugh Hefner doll to spar with. Lambie does a routine about the word sex and sex ed for kindergartners. Was Shari thinking she was going to flip to an adult audience? Very strange. They close out with a song, Shari actually had a good voice. No rock bands in this show. Robert Goulet sings and introduces some of his favorite songwriters. Lindsay Wagner is prominent in the background as Goulet closes out the show. Hugh and Barbi waltz around with the Hugh doll as the ...

Bill Cosby does his usual, super cool, detached routine, all of which seems rather creepy odd in light of what we know about him now. Robert Clary of Hogan's Heroes sings Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head as well as a French number. Writer Tony Hendra lurks in the background of several scenes. Edie Adams sings Everybody's Talkin' At Me giving it the full Vegas lounge lizard arrangement. Don Adams drop by for a moment. It's obvious that he and Cosby did not like each other. The Grass Roots sing a forgettable pair of numbers, Walking Through The Country and Dancing In ...

Singer R.B. Greaves performs, though not his signature hit song. Trini Lopez, replete with thick sideburns and long hair, looking very hip, does Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head. So let's see, he's at least the third singer to butcher this song in the last year on Hef's experiment in mediocrity. Jazz singer Sarah Vaughn closes out the show. Hughes sits on the couch with a model of his newly purchased Playboy jet and like a kid with a new toy, expounds endlessly about how wonderful it is. About as exciting as your Uncle Fred's home movies.

A rather nondescript show except for the major musical guest, The Dillards. Rodney Dillard, Mitch Jayne, Dean Webb and Herb Pederson headline the band. Rodney sings lead on Nobody Knows and Herb sings Hey Boys. A beautiful, classic, actual live performance on a show that offered far too much lip syncing nonsense. Hugh asks the group some inane questions about their music sounding more like a hopeless square rather than the hipster he pretended to. Wonderful segment. The band plays out over the credit with an instrumental piece to which the female dancers gyrate ...

Former Smothers Brothers star and perennial presidential candidate Pat Paulsen plays bartender and mixes drinks for the crew. A young Lola Falana demonstrates an excellent voice with a pop arrangement of Stand By Your Man and talks about her budding film career. Comic actor Sandy Baron does a routine. Singer Sonny Charles does an energetic set. Lola joins him in a dance. They duet on Walk A Mile In My Shoes. Legendary lounge lizard Don Ho tops off the show with a set fit for a second rate Vegas venue.

Instead of slides from his summer vacation, Hef shows clips from Woodstock. David Steinberg entertains, sort of. Linda Ronstadt does a revved up version of Hank Williams' Lovesick Blues. What a voice. Bernie Leadon, future Eagle, backs her on a nice acoustic version of Long Long Time. The ultimate hippie band, Country Joe McDonald and the Fish do their signature song Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die rag, proving once again that they were a garage band in the right place at the right time. Though the song was a satire, it feels a bit obscene to see everyone having such a ...

Barbara McNair sings. Comic Offbeat comic-musician Pete Barbutti does a piece. B.B. King blows the lid off with a set that includes The Thrill Is Gone. Charlie Brill and Mitzi McCall do a routine. Funny then, not so much now. Mel Torme, the golden throat closes out the show with Midnight Swinger and Spinning Wheel. Amazing voice. He played it as subtly as B.B. did Lucille. Among the many alleged hipster, jazz singers Hef presented during the two year run of this show, the one who ages best is undoubtedly Torme. Mel and Barbara close out the show with a duet of Put A ...

Billy Preston opens the show with Sammi Davis Jr. on the drum set. Sammi sings BST's Very Happy. The long forgotten rock band Muscatell and a singer named Blinky perform. The legendary Moms Mabley sings Abraham, Martin and John. Bill Medley sings Hold On I'm Comin'. Bill and Sammi duet on the Righteous Brothers' You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling. Sammi does an extended set including For Once In My Life. The various musicians get together for a jam on It's Your Thing to close out the show.

Long forgotten musical duo Bossa Rio perform. Actor Sandy Baron, who starred in Gary Marshall's first sitcom, Hey Landlord in the mid-sixties is back doing his standup routine. Lou Rawls covers You've Made Me So Very Happy. Jazz singer Spanky Wilson, good voice, poor material. A young George Carlin, bearded in a double breasted suit trades quips with Baron. One of the weakest programs of a weak season. It was time to put this puppy to bed.

Comic songwriters Belland and Somerville do an interesting routine. Vic Damone does Vic Damone and the audience appears to be falling asleep. Rich Little does a routine that more resembles a multiple personality breakdown. The Buddy Miles Band does a set in which Buddy actually gets out from behind the drum set and sings. Never saw him do that before. Great pair of numbers. Fran Jeffries sings. She would later pose in Playboy at the age of 45. While Buddy sings, Fran dances with dance supervisor Byron Gilliam who was in every show from season one through two. Byron ...