Welcome To Hef's Party

On Playboy After Dark, the host with the most invited viewers into his (faux) home for intimate performances by the era’s top entertainers

- Steve Palopoli 

THE DOOR OF A BLACK LIMO opens, and the chauffeur beckons you inside. Suddenly you’re rolling down Sunset Boulevard, city lights flashing outside as champagne flows in the backseat. A jazzy tune plays as your destination looms in the sleek, shiny cityscape — the penthouse of Playboy’s Los Angeles headquarters. Elevator doors open to reveal a star-studded party in full swing, guests mingling, dancing and drinking.

An American playboy’s fantasy come true? That’s exactly what the opening sequence of Hugh Hefner’s Playboy After Dark variety show sought to embody.

Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, having run in syndication for two seasons, from 1969 to 1970, Playboy After Dark was a heady unraveling of the traditional talk show and variety formats. Each episode was structured as a party hosted by Hefner, at which musical guests, comedians, writers and celebrities of all stripes mingled with models and other stylish young people. Every party ended with a fadeout to a winking Rabbit, as if to say, “See you next time.”

The idea for the show came about in 1966, when Playboy opened its London club. Hefner had been burying himself in writing the Playboy Philosophy series for the magazine, but a firsthand glimpse of the British scene changed everything.

“The miniskirt had just arrived; swinging London was really swinging,” said Hefner in a 2006 interview with Bill Zehme. “I saw the future. I’d been writing about it in The Playboy Philosophy and making a case for the sexual revolution, and I felt it was time to come out from behind the desk once again and start living the life. So when I went back to Chicago, I stopped doing the editorial series right then and started making plans for the television show.”