October 17, 2011 • 26 mins
The first Playboy Club opened in 1960. Waitresses called "bunnies" earned up to $1,000 per week, and the club aimed for a certain cachet. Yet when Gloria Steinem went undercover as a bunny she called it deplorable. So what happened? Tune in to find out.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told you?
From house stup works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline, and today we
(00:20):
are talking about the Playboy Club as opposed to Playboy
the magazine, which uh, I'm sure at some point and
stuff I've never told you, history of the future we'll
talk about um. And we were initially inspired to talk
about the Playboy Club because of this show that got
a lot of buzz on NBC UM called called the
(00:43):
Playboy Lust's called the Playboy Club and as uh, as
fate would have it. As we were in this podcast
studio recording this episode, you're about to hear on the
Playboy Club, NBC was busy announce saying that they were
canceling the show, right, So just bear that in mind
as we make a couple of references to this show.
(01:05):
It's it's very it's not so much about the show though,
as about the actual history of the Playboy Club, right, Yeah,
We're just going to talk about the history of the
club and how it came about, where where it is
now and how maybe it really is not nearly as
glamorous as they portray it on television, right um, Because
Gloria's Steinum in fact called for a boycott of this
(01:28):
NBC show before it premiered, Um saying that it is
glamorizing this life, that is the life of the bunny
who worked at the Playboy Club, because there is a
difference right between bunnies and playmates, right yeah. If you
if you landed the cover, you were a playmate if
you were in the magazine. So basically, if you were
someone's bunny waitress, you would introduce yourself as I'm Bunny whatever,
(01:53):
I'm Bunny Caroline, You're Bunny Kristen. But if one of
us got the cover, we would say hello, I'm your
playmate airline. So that was kind of an elevation, was
a step up. Well, Glory stein Um went undercover for
a couple of weeks just as a bunny in training
and so um, when she heard about this NBC show,
she was up in arms and said, this is this
(02:16):
is terrible. Why are we glorifying the Playboy Club? Right yeah?
She said that it was actually really tacky, Um, you know,
with creepy men grabbing your bunnytail and whatnot, and that
waitresses were actually or bunnies. I'm sorry, let's let's not
forget to dehumanize these people. Um, that bunnies were actually
underpaid and had to deal with really terrible working conditions.
(02:38):
But not all bunnies, former bunnies would agree with Steinum.
As we will learn, right, but first let's start with
half did do didn't Did you do? Back in time? Yeah?
Have have kind of started Esquire actually, um, And then
he ended up to raise money to start Playboy. He
ended up hawking his furniture and he got initial investment
(03:01):
of about tin grand and started Playboy, which launched in
nineteen fifty three. And this is all going on in Chicago.
And by nineteen fifty eight, Playboy circulation had reached almost
a million, and he was already making four point two
million in revenue office magazine in just five years. Yeah, yeah,
that's crazy. Well, I guess people were picking up what
(03:22):
he was putting down. Those those were the days when
people could could actually start magazines. Yeah, exactly, and he
did it. He says that he perceived the need for
a healthier attitude about sex, so he put um naked
Women in magazine. Yeah, I thought this was an interesting
quote from Paul Gerbert, who was the executive director of
the Kinzie Institute UM. He said that Heffner's genius is
(03:45):
that he is linked sex with up upward mobility, right,
which will definitely see with the evolution of the Playboy Club,
which started um all because of an article of a
ran in Playboy and eighteen fifty nine about this place
called the Gaslight Club, right, yeah, bucks. Some waitresses were
(04:05):
of corsets, they walked around pretty much half naked, and
thousands of people wrote in regarding this article and Playboy
wanting to know how they could join, how they could
be members, how do I get in? And actually it
spawned a great idea, you know, idea from Playboys promotions
(04:26):
manager Victor Lowndes and his girlfriend Elsa Torrance, who prodded
he to start a club like it. He wasn't super
keen on the idea, but you know, they talked him
into it, and Ilsa came in wearing a satin one
piece and some bunny ears, and that that helped convince them. Yeah,
the bunny costume was not heff Nur's idea. It was
all thanks to the girlfriend and then um, there's this
(04:49):
anecdote about her the first time she comes in wearing
this kind of homemade sat and get up and he
Heffner hikes up the um the leg line, basically making
it extremely high cut. Too emphasize and exaggerate the length
of the women's legs, right, let's make them a little
(05:10):
more naked. And of course, um that they all had
very large bust lines, regardless of whether or not the
bunnies actually could fill them out, right, because they could
use you know, all sorts of things to uh to
fill out those those bunny costumes. Right. Gloria's Dynham and
her essay about her infiltration experience actually has a list
of things that bunnies with stuff there tops with She
(05:32):
herself got her top stuffed and I say got her
top stuff because someone else did it for her. Um
with a dry cleaner bag that other people used, cotton
and clean X and whatever else. And he would have
to do a bunny dip when you were serving a client.
Otherwise it was a specialized way to to um and
(05:55):
bunny dip and it's not really working basically like gracefully
squatting down so that your your breast stuffage doesn't end
up on the table right, a graceful squat. It sounds terrible. Um.
But the first club, which it opened in Chicago, and
it was a membership club, and so it sort of
(06:15):
made it more exclusive. You got a key to indicate
that you remember, and it was a fifty dollar fee
for residents and twenty five dollars for out of towners. Yeah.
And the first club open in nineteen sixty and by
nineteen sixty one, Time magazine calls the Playboy membership key
the closest thing to five Beta Kappa from Yale, and
(06:37):
they sold more than fifty thousand in the first year.
I don't know if I would say that, but I
mean maybe is it really that I don't know, Well,
this is nineteen sixty. You know this is a big deal.
I mean the gap think about the reaction to the
gas Like club, and the Playboy Club has even more cash.
A U would you like me to describe the decor um?
Hugh Heffner apparently loves the color orange, and so there
(07:00):
was a ton of orange. It was very masculine. There's
lots of teak chrome avocado. Um described as a sort
of Danish modern look, that was very big at the time,
which makes me think of it as just a really
sleazy ikea. Um and and speaking of you know, actually
maybe it kind of is like a sleazy ikea because
(07:21):
everything on the menu, all the food, the steaks and drinks,
everything totaled up to a dollar fifty. Right, you know
you can go an Ikea, get yourself with some cheap
meatballs strength to walk through that place. And I can't
you know what, I don't care what you say. It
was kind of sleazy because think about how many people
have touched that stuff. I mean, that's just Jeremy. That's
(07:42):
not sweezy. It's one and the same in my head.
So back to come back to the Playboy Club. Back
to the Playboy Club. Yeah, so half um he was
going for a bachelor pat aesthetic. He said that the
clubs were a combination um club apartment sort of to
give in a home away from home, you know, if
(08:02):
your home had half naked women walking around in it.
But that's not to say that the men did not
bring their wives along on the weekends. There was one
former bunny talking about how it was very important, um,
if you had one one client that you would serve
all the time. Like men who were higher paying members
(08:23):
like to have their own bunny who would serve them
whenever they came into the club. But then on the
weekend they would bring their wives in and um, so
as to allay any of their fears, the wives fears
that there might be something um untoward going on to
the Playboy club. That bunny would always make nice with
the wives and bring them swizzlesticks to take home to
(08:44):
the kids, just a little presents to keep swizzlesticks in
the costume in the dry cleaner bag. Exactly, it's actually
dry cleaner bag full of swizzle sticks right. Well, now,
they wanted to make sure that the wives weren't threatened
because they want to the husbands to be able to
keep coming and be like, look, I'm not your competition.
I'm just you know, a glorified waitress, so don't worry
(09:05):
about it. Um. And in nineteen sixty three, that's when
Gloria Steinham auditions to become a bunny. Because you really
you didn't need much much experience to be a bunny.
You just had to be between the ages of eighteen
and twenty three, and you just needed to be beautiful,
charming and refined. So Caroline, you and I be Shoein's
(09:27):
who were if weren't so dag um old. If there's
anything anyone says about me, it is that I am refined.
So Steinham made the cut and she wrote about her
experience in an essay called a Bunny's Tale, which was
published in Show magazine. And for anyone who hasn't read
(09:47):
Steinham's essay, you can think of it as if you
were to take Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and set it
in the Playboy Club. There you have it. It was
a horror story. Interesting, yeah, she's saying, because they claimed
that you could make a thousand dollars a week. Stein
Um says no, because there is this week long training
(10:08):
period all the bunnies had to go to get paid
for it. You pretty much had to work every day,
all day to make two hundred or three hundred bucks
a week. Those costumes were not comfortable. Steinhum says that
she lost something like ten pounds in two weeks just
from sweating. Sweating and well that and not being able
to eat on your shift. There are all these rules
and the bunny manual that you had to follow. The
(10:30):
dictated how you smoked drink eight, interacted with customers, et cetera.
And you know how you delivered drinks, which was the
bunny did we already talking, you know, bending over backwards
and doing the graceful squad to deliver deliver a cocktail?
You couldn't if you were dancing on the floor with clients,
you could not. There could be no fiscal contact, which
is why non touched dances such as the twist and
(10:52):
the watusi or big big Bunny favorites. Um. But the
biggest revelation that Gloria Steinem had ad from working at
the Playboy Club was the whole objectification angle. She came
away from it saying, um, you know that we as
in women are all bunnies, all being judged based on
(11:13):
their um are physical appearance being objectified by men. Um. Yeah,
underpaid having to look all sexy all the time like
we do. But at the same time, though some other
bunnies at the time I didn't agree with stein um um.
For instance Trish Murphy, who was a former bunny. She
was talking recently to Vanity Fair and she says, the
(11:34):
feminists used to stay to us, you're selling out, You're
being exploited, but we never felt that. We felt that
we were the first women we knew who bought their
own apartment of single women, and to me, it was
emancipation and it was empowering, right, And they actually uh
touched on that in the show. In the first episode
of the Playboy Club, there is I think there's one
or two bunnies who actually say something along those lines,
(11:55):
if I'm making more than my husband or I'm making
more than my father, and I mean, you know, that's
great if if this gives UM women an ability to
be independent that they wouldn't otherwise have. However, it's I
think it's unfortunate that they had to go this route,
but you know it's it's wonderful that they found independence somehow. Yeah,
I mean, and you have to think about it, like
(12:16):
putting it into the context of it being the early sixties. UM.
The sad fact was there really weren't that many, um
that that many employment outlets available to women. UM And
for for instance, I thought this was kind of funny.
This was This is an excerpt from the nineteen eight
Bunny Manual, which was the rule book that all of
(12:37):
the new Bunnies would would get and it says our
bunnies represent varied backgrounds. Among them are ex school teachers, secretaries, actresses, dancers,
models and co ed wow, all male fantasies, all and all.
I mean like, that's that's it, that's your that's your
employment umbrella. At the time, well, Katherine Lee Scott, a
(12:58):
former Bunny and author of The Bunny Year, um, she
wanted to quiet the haters and she basically said that
there was a joy and there was an innocence to it.
That these were college girls and girls trying to launch
their careers and work their way through school. It could
be your daughter, it could be your sister. And she
says that's what she thought that people found threatening about
it was that here were these girls not necessarily like
(13:19):
drop dead model, actress, gorgeous, but these were girls who
were really trying to get ahead and make some money,
and that they it wasn't necessarily sleazy and you know gross,
They weren't hookers. They were enjoying what they did, right. Um,
But I mean we do have to acknowledge, you know,
a point that Steinham brought up, especially when she was
calling for the boycott of you know, the way that
(13:40):
the men would treat the bunny is just being constantly
objectified and sexualized. And it's interesting that the Bunny Manual
explicitly prohibits any kind of mingling, fraternizing, socializing, or physical
contact with clientele. But the untold story behind all that is,
while you know, when they're on the clock, the women
(14:02):
were certainly not allowed to even give their last names
to patrons at the club, But after hours they were
kind of expected to go to these parties and hobnob
with these these men like helf and Victor Lownes and
other cronies of theirs, and probably were expected to, um,
you know, to engage in other extracurricular activities. Yes. Well,
(14:25):
actually Victor Lown's wife is a former bunny and she
called the experience liberating. So I guess everybody has a
different opinion. Glorious Steinham would definitely disagree, and I'm sure
there are others, but um, I mean, one bunny said
that she could make a thousand dollars a week and
that she didn't even She and some other bunnies didn't
even cash all their paychecks all the time because they
were rolling in dough. And that's probably why almost every
(14:48):
time at least hearing the heyday of the Playboy clubs
really in the in the sixties and maybe in the
early seventies when the new clubs are opening up, there
would be hundreds of women who would audition for and
you actually had to audition, um for these these bunny jobs.
Although and uh Steinham's description it sounded like she kind
(15:08):
of just walked in. I read her essay and it
sounded like she just came in and filled out the
application and got got a look of approval from someone
and they were like, just show up here via bunny,
be a bunny. Um. But maybe we should mention a
few notable x bunnies, including Steinham, because there is a
theme of obviously using the Playboy Club as a means
(15:30):
to an end. No one really was like, I mean,
I can't wait to develop a life, lifelong career at
a bunny. Well, and also you couldn't develop a lifelong
career because you would age out. I mean, if they
were looking for girls between the ages of eighteen and
twenty three. Um, it was kind of understood, sort of
like it was for flight attendants at the time that
(15:51):
if you're you know, I mean, we'd probably be crusty
old crabs at the Bunny Club. Yeah. Probably. Well, I
just wouldn't put up with that. I can't walker, I
can't walk around on high heels that long. I'm sorry. Um,
but yeah, you mentioned a means to an end, and
that's what Carol Cleveland called it. She Oh my god,
(16:11):
I love her. She for all you Monty Python fans
out there, was in almost thirty episodes of The Flying Circus.
And if you're still not clearing which one she is,
she's you know, the woman on Monty Python, Blonde adorable. Um,
she played Zuoit in The Holy Grail. She's fabulous and
she she did she called Bunny is m U a
means to an end and it did. It got her
(16:33):
acting career going. Um. And then we also have Debbie
Harry Blonde who worked at the Playboy Club for a
while before she started rocking out. Um. And then there's
Lauren Hutton who worked there for three months that it
was a good experience. Um. We have Patricia Quinn as well,
who is Magenta from the Rocky Horror pictures. Yeah, the
(16:54):
famous disembodied lips on the Rocky Horror in the in
the beginning credits. Yeah, Um, but the Playboy Club really
lost its luster in the eighties. I mean it started
it started to get pretty cheesy. And really by that point, um,
the idea of women walking around these bunny costumes was
I mean just kind of kitchy to begin with, but
(17:16):
not very scandalous. No, yeah, how cheesy was it. It
was so cheesy that they actually started bringing in male
rabbits who did not who did not wear tails or ears.
They had different kind of uniform And this is when
they tried to Um, Playboy tried to rebrand its clubs
because the clubs lost something like three million dollars. They
(17:40):
were failing so hard and they were trying to attract
a broader female clientele. So they bring in these, uh,
these male servers to accompany the female servers, and they
wore an array of costumes, including sleeveless tuxedo shirts, um,
some kind of wrestling unitard hot and then my favorite,
which was described as sort of yachting cap that at
(18:02):
the time was most closely associated with Darryl Dragon of
Captain and Neil is there. So wait, were these all
these all word at the same time? Because I'm hoping not,
because when I think of a sleeveless touch tuxedo shirt.
I think of Chris Farley and Patrick Swayzy and SNL.
So maybe just some you know, it could be over.
(18:24):
They could be the Unitard over the sleeveless shirt with
a jaunty captain into Neil angele Um. Needless to say,
the Empire Club in New York City did not do
so well, right, Yeah, Heathan Lounds actually agreed that they'd
become too successful. They sort of watered it down. They
lowered the prices so you know, Joe Schmoke could walk
(18:45):
on end and be sitting next to some fancy pants guy.
And yeah, they just tried to be all things to
all people. They changed up the menu. There was something
about frozen stickers bars that makes me think of George Costanza. Um.
But yeah, the the last American club closed in nine eight,
and that was in Lansing, Michigan, which actually surprised me. Lansing.
(19:05):
That says a lot about sort of how how much
the Playboy Club spiraled into this just kind of cheesy,
you know, sexy Applebee's rip off because they started to
you know, like you said, they oversaturated their own market,
so they're left with places like Lansing. Hey, no offense,
no offense to all right, don't mess with the mitten.
(19:28):
And then the last international club close in n not
than in two thousand six they reopen and yeah in
Las Vegas, and everything comes back around. You know, I'm
hoping that the avocado green doesn't come back around. I
hope it stays. Keep it cheesy, keep it, keep it cheesy, yeah,
(19:49):
or or you know. Philis Stiller talked about how helf
was the only person she knew who would actually hang
rugs on the wall and were orange fury shag rugs.
I mean, I think if there is one, if there
is one positive thing that we can say about the
history of the Playboy clubs, especially in in the sixties. UM,
aside from some of the bunnies who reported making a
(20:12):
ton of money, making more than their father's making more
than men at the time, that's that's great for them,
and we gotta, you know, we gotta give it to
hef Um. He was very pro civil rights, and he
incorporated black writers into his magazine, black performers on his
TV shows and doing stand up and music at the clubs.
And also, um, there were black bunnies as well, although
(20:35):
they were chocolate bunnies, which is very derogatory, and they
actually referenced that I noticed you in that first episode. Yeah,
it almost seems I was watching the first episode, and
I doubt I will watch anymore of the Playboy Club.
And it seems like they actually lifted a lot from
Gloria Steinham's essay because she mentions this red head with
(20:56):
a baby voice in her essay, and there was a
red head with a baby boys in the show. But
obviously the redhead has a very intricate storyline. But you know,
I'll never know what happens. And lots of secrets, so
many secrets. Where do they keep them in those tiny costumes? Um?
You know? Actually yeah. Speaking of the show, one NBC
exact calls it a fun soap opera, and the show's
(21:19):
executive producer says it's about empowering these women to be
whatever they want to be. And you know, I've I've
heard you have nurse say similar things about about bunnies
and about playmates. Um, I'm not you know, I'm not
entirely on board with that, assessed note. I mean, do
I think that I think that it's a little overblown
(21:39):
to be honest, to call for boycotting the Playboy Club
simply because you know, if if we're going to put
our effort behind um, you know, boycotting things on television
that portray women poorly. I think that there is just
a menu of reality television shows that should get the
acts first. But I also see where Steinum is coming
(22:01):
from in terms of not wanting to sort of glorify
and fetishize this very misogynistic chapter. Right, yeah, and history, Yeah,
you're you're they're glamorizing these clubs that made women walk
around and bathing seeds basically, but they're also sort of
glamorizing a time in history that why why are we
(22:22):
going back and and being like, oh my god, this
was so amazing. At least Madmen, I feel like it's
a little more it shows sort of the underbelly maybe,
whereas maybe the Playboy Club is like, oh yeah, everything
was great in the sixties. It was so it was
just covered in and satin and glitter and everything costs
a dollar fifty. Yeah. Well, there was when I when
(22:43):
I mentioned on Facebook that we were going to talk
about the Playboy Club history, there was a lot of response.
People seemed pretty excited about this so please send in
your thoughts mom stuff at al stuffwork dot com is
our email address, or you can head over to Facebook
or write something on our wall. And we got a
couple of listener emails here to read in the meantime already.
(23:11):
This is from a gentleman who would like to remain anonymous.
He says, I'm a diagnosed narcissist and a dark triad personality.
I've been involved in the seduction community, officially teaching pick
up for about a year, and as a student and
one who researched many of the methods for much longer.
I never had a problem picking up women before I
(23:31):
encounter the community, but have used it to hone my tactics.
What I wanted to share with you is that this
seems to be the goal of many of the pu
A pu A pick up artist programs to turn your
average person into a narcissist. This is the hardest part
about teaching this material, and I often wonder if my
students are really more confident after learning this stuff or
(23:51):
either nursing a new crutch validation through women or turning
into actors on a stage. Thanks very much for the
love that one here from Pete also about our episode
on pickup artists, and he writes that one of the
flaws in most all of the systems they're trying to
sell is that the basic assumption these guys make is
that women are all the same. After all, if I
(24:13):
started address like some seventies temper rejec and putting money
and putting women down, I'd probably attract some women in
much the same way that flashing a bunch of money
will get some women. However, neither of these methods seem
to likely attract the kind of women who I would
like to spend time with. I decided to ditch to
pick up artists and focus on the information I learned
from real researchers. The conclusion I came to was that
(24:35):
men simply aren't taught how to actually attract a woman,
especially in the last several decades, where the rules of
the game have been significantly in flux for various social
and economic reasons. Unfortunately, it is made finding love a
far more difficult task, which is why I pick up artists,
guys and dating sites have been able to make a
truckload of money. Have I been more successful in finding love? Well? No,
(24:59):
and fortunately I'm still looking for love in all the
wrong places. However, I can assure you that if I do,
it won't be because of the pickup artists and their
bad advice. You go, well, you go, dude, I hope.
Let's find this boy love. See pee email email back
c See Caroline, you got you got a matchmaker on
(25:21):
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Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told you?
From house stup works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline, and today we
(00:20):
are talking about the Playboy Club as opposed to Playboy
the magazine, which uh, I'm sure at some point and
stuff I've never told you, history of the future we'll
talk about um. And we were initially inspired to talk
about the Playboy Club because of this show that got
a lot of buzz on NBC UM called called the
(00:43):
Playboy Lust's called the Playboy Club and as uh, as
fate would have it. As we were in this podcast
studio recording this episode, you're about to hear on the
Playboy Club, NBC was busy announce saying that they were
canceling the show, right, So just bear that in mind
as we make a couple of references to this show.
(01:05):
It's it's very it's not so much about the show though,
as about the actual history of the Playboy Club, right, Yeah,
We're just going to talk about the history of the
club and how it came about, where where it is
now and how maybe it really is not nearly as
glamorous as they portray it on television, right um, Because
Gloria's Steinum in fact called for a boycott of this
(01:28):
NBC show before it premiered, Um saying that it is
glamorizing this life, that is the life of the bunny
who worked at the Playboy Club, because there is a
difference right between bunnies and playmates, right yeah. If you
if you landed the cover, you were a playmate if
you were in the magazine. So basically, if you were
someone's bunny waitress, you would introduce yourself as I'm Bunny whatever,
(01:53):
I'm Bunny Caroline, You're Bunny Kristen. But if one of
us got the cover, we would say hello, I'm your
playmate airline. So that was kind of an elevation, was
a step up. Well, Glory stein Um went undercover for
a couple of weeks just as a bunny in training
and so um, when she heard about this NBC show,
she was up in arms and said, this is this
(02:16):
is terrible. Why are we glorifying the Playboy Club? Right yeah?
She said that it was actually really tacky, Um, you know,
with creepy men grabbing your bunnytail and whatnot, and that
waitresses were actually or bunnies. I'm sorry, let's let's not
forget to dehumanize these people. Um, that bunnies were actually
underpaid and had to deal with really terrible working conditions.
(02:38):
But not all bunnies, former bunnies would agree with Steinum.
As we will learn, right, but first let's start with
half did do didn't Did you do? Back in time? Yeah?
Have have kind of started Esquire actually, um, And then
he ended up to raise money to start Playboy. He
ended up hawking his furniture and he got initial investment
(03:01):
of about tin grand and started Playboy, which launched in
nineteen fifty three. And this is all going on in Chicago.
And by nineteen fifty eight, Playboy circulation had reached almost
a million, and he was already making four point two
million in revenue office magazine in just five years. Yeah, yeah,
that's crazy. Well, I guess people were picking up what
(03:22):
he was putting down. Those those were the days when
people could could actually start magazines. Yeah, exactly, and he
did it. He says that he perceived the need for
a healthier attitude about sex, so he put um naked
Women in magazine. Yeah, I thought this was an interesting
quote from Paul Gerbert, who was the executive director of
the Kinzie Institute UM. He said that Heffner's genius is
(03:45):
that he is linked sex with up upward mobility, right,
which will definitely see with the evolution of the Playboy Club,
which started um all because of an article of a
ran in Playboy and eighteen fifty nine about this place
called the Gaslight Club, right, yeah, bucks. Some waitresses were
(04:05):
of corsets, they walked around pretty much half naked, and
thousands of people wrote in regarding this article and Playboy
wanting to know how they could join, how they could
be members, how do I get in? And actually it
spawned a great idea, you know, idea from Playboys promotions
(04:26):
manager Victor Lowndes and his girlfriend Elsa Torrance, who prodded
he to start a club like it. He wasn't super
keen on the idea, but you know, they talked him
into it, and Ilsa came in wearing a satin one
piece and some bunny ears, and that that helped convince them. Yeah,
the bunny costume was not heff Nur's idea. It was
all thanks to the girlfriend and then um, there's this
(04:49):
anecdote about her the first time she comes in wearing
this kind of homemade sat and get up and he
Heffner hikes up the um the leg line, basically making
it extremely high cut. Too emphasize and exaggerate the length
of the women's legs, right, let's make them a little
(05:10):
more naked. And of course, um that they all had
very large bust lines, regardless of whether or not the
bunnies actually could fill them out, right, because they could
use you know, all sorts of things to uh to
fill out those those bunny costumes. Right. Gloria's Dynham and
her essay about her infiltration experience actually has a list
of things that bunnies with stuff there tops with She
(05:32):
herself got her top stuffed and I say got her
top stuff because someone else did it for her. Um
with a dry cleaner bag that other people used, cotton
and clean X and whatever else. And he would have
to do a bunny dip when you were serving a client.
Otherwise it was a specialized way to to um and
(05:55):
bunny dip and it's not really working basically like gracefully
squatting down so that your your breast stuffage doesn't end
up on the table right, a graceful squat. It sounds terrible. Um.
But the first club, which it opened in Chicago, and
it was a membership club, and so it sort of
(06:15):
made it more exclusive. You got a key to indicate
that you remember, and it was a fifty dollar fee
for residents and twenty five dollars for out of towners. Yeah.
And the first club open in nineteen sixty and by
nineteen sixty one, Time magazine calls the Playboy membership key
the closest thing to five Beta Kappa from Yale, and
(06:37):
they sold more than fifty thousand in the first year.
I don't know if I would say that, but I
mean maybe is it really that I don't know, Well,
this is nineteen sixty. You know this is a big deal.
I mean the gap think about the reaction to the
gas Like club, and the Playboy Club has even more cash.
A U would you like me to describe the decor um?
Hugh Heffner apparently loves the color orange, and so there
(07:00):
was a ton of orange. It was very masculine. There's
lots of teak chrome avocado. Um described as a sort
of Danish modern look, that was very big at the time,
which makes me think of it as just a really
sleazy ikea. Um and and speaking of you know, actually
maybe it kind of is like a sleazy ikea because
(07:21):
everything on the menu, all the food, the steaks and drinks,
everything totaled up to a dollar fifty. Right, you know
you can go an Ikea, get yourself with some cheap
meatballs strength to walk through that place. And I can't
you know what, I don't care what you say. It
was kind of sleazy because think about how many people
have touched that stuff. I mean, that's just Jeremy. That's
(07:42):
not sweezy. It's one and the same in my head.
So back to come back to the Playboy Club. Back
to the Playboy Club. Yeah, so half um he was
going for a bachelor pat aesthetic. He said that the
clubs were a combination um club apartment sort of to
give in a home away from home, you know, if
(08:02):
your home had half naked women walking around in it.
But that's not to say that the men did not
bring their wives along on the weekends. There was one
former bunny talking about how it was very important, um,
if you had one one client that you would serve
all the time. Like men who were higher paying members
(08:23):
like to have their own bunny who would serve them
whenever they came into the club. But then on the
weekend they would bring their wives in and um, so
as to allay any of their fears, the wives fears
that there might be something um untoward going on to
the Playboy club. That bunny would always make nice with
the wives and bring them swizzlesticks to take home to
(08:44):
the kids, just a little presents to keep swizzlesticks in
the costume in the dry cleaner bag. Exactly, it's actually
dry cleaner bag full of swizzle sticks right. Well, now,
they wanted to make sure that the wives weren't threatened
because they want to the husbands to be able to
keep coming and be like, look, I'm not your competition.
I'm just you know, a glorified waitress, so don't worry
(09:05):
about it. Um. And in nineteen sixty three, that's when
Gloria Steinham auditions to become a bunny. Because you really
you didn't need much much experience to be a bunny.
You just had to be between the ages of eighteen
and twenty three, and you just needed to be beautiful,
charming and refined. So Caroline, you and I be Shoein's
(09:27):
who were if weren't so dag um old. If there's
anything anyone says about me, it is that I am refined.
So Steinham made the cut and she wrote about her
experience in an essay called a Bunny's Tale, which was
published in Show magazine. And for anyone who hasn't read
(09:47):
Steinham's essay, you can think of it as if you
were to take Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and set it
in the Playboy Club. There you have it. It was
a horror story. Interesting, yeah, she's saying, because they claimed
that you could make a thousand dollars a week. Stein
Um says no, because there is this week long training
(10:08):
period all the bunnies had to go to get paid
for it. You pretty much had to work every day,
all day to make two hundred or three hundred bucks
a week. Those costumes were not comfortable. Steinhum says that
she lost something like ten pounds in two weeks just
from sweating. Sweating and well that and not being able
to eat on your shift. There are all these rules
and the bunny manual that you had to follow. The
(10:30):
dictated how you smoked drink eight, interacted with customers, et cetera.
And you know how you delivered drinks, which was the
bunny did we already talking, you know, bending over backwards
and doing the graceful squad to deliver deliver a cocktail?
You couldn't if you were dancing on the floor with clients,
you could not. There could be no fiscal contact, which
is why non touched dances such as the twist and
(10:52):
the watusi or big big Bunny favorites. Um. But the
biggest revelation that Gloria Steinem had ad from working at
the Playboy Club was the whole objectification angle. She came
away from it saying, um, you know that we as
in women are all bunnies, all being judged based on
(11:13):
their um are physical appearance being objectified by men. Um. Yeah,
underpaid having to look all sexy all the time like
we do. But at the same time, though some other
bunnies at the time I didn't agree with stein um um.
For instance Trish Murphy, who was a former bunny. She
was talking recently to Vanity Fair and she says, the
(11:34):
feminists used to stay to us, you're selling out, You're
being exploited, but we never felt that. We felt that
we were the first women we knew who bought their
own apartment of single women, and to me, it was
emancipation and it was empowering, right, And they actually uh
touched on that in the show. In the first episode
of the Playboy Club, there is I think there's one
or two bunnies who actually say something along those lines,
(11:55):
if I'm making more than my husband or I'm making
more than my father, and I mean, you know, that's
great if if this gives UM women an ability to
be independent that they wouldn't otherwise have. However, it's I
think it's unfortunate that they had to go this route,
but you know it's it's wonderful that they found independence somehow. Yeah,
I mean, and you have to think about it, like
(12:16):
putting it into the context of it being the early sixties. UM.
The sad fact was there really weren't that many, um
that that many employment outlets available to women. UM And
for for instance, I thought this was kind of funny.
This was This is an excerpt from the nineteen eight
Bunny Manual, which was the rule book that all of
(12:37):
the new Bunnies would would get and it says our
bunnies represent varied backgrounds. Among them are ex school teachers, secretaries, actresses, dancers,
models and co ed wow, all male fantasies, all and all.
I mean like, that's that's it, that's your that's your
employment umbrella. At the time, well, Katherine Lee Scott, a
(12:58):
former Bunny and author of The Bunny Year, um, she
wanted to quiet the haters and she basically said that
there was a joy and there was an innocence to it.
That these were college girls and girls trying to launch
their careers and work their way through school. It could
be your daughter, it could be your sister. And she
says that's what she thought that people found threatening about
it was that here were these girls not necessarily like
(13:19):
drop dead model, actress, gorgeous, but these were girls who
were really trying to get ahead and make some money,
and that they it wasn't necessarily sleazy and you know gross,
They weren't hookers. They were enjoying what they did, right. Um,
But I mean we do have to acknowledge, you know,
a point that Steinham brought up, especially when she was
calling for the boycott of you know, the way that
(13:40):
the men would treat the bunny is just being constantly
objectified and sexualized. And it's interesting that the Bunny Manual
explicitly prohibits any kind of mingling, fraternizing, socializing, or physical
contact with clientele. But the untold story behind all that is,
while you know, when they're on the clock, the women
(14:02):
were certainly not allowed to even give their last names
to patrons at the club, But after hours they were
kind of expected to go to these parties and hobnob
with these these men like helf and Victor Lownes and
other cronies of theirs, and probably were expected to, um,
you know, to engage in other extracurricular activities. Yes. Well,
(14:25):
actually Victor Lown's wife is a former bunny and she
called the experience liberating. So I guess everybody has a
different opinion. Glorious Steinham would definitely disagree, and I'm sure
there are others, but um, I mean, one bunny said
that she could make a thousand dollars a week and
that she didn't even She and some other bunnies didn't
even cash all their paychecks all the time because they
were rolling in dough. And that's probably why almost every
(14:48):
time at least hearing the heyday of the Playboy clubs
really in the in the sixties and maybe in the
early seventies when the new clubs are opening up, there
would be hundreds of women who would audition for and
you actually had to audition, um for these these bunny jobs.
Although and uh Steinham's description it sounded like she kind
(15:08):
of just walked in. I read her essay and it
sounded like she just came in and filled out the
application and got got a look of approval from someone
and they were like, just show up here via bunny,
be a bunny. Um. But maybe we should mention a
few notable x bunnies, including Steinham, because there is a
theme of obviously using the Playboy Club as a means
(15:30):
to an end. No one really was like, I mean,
I can't wait to develop a life, lifelong career at
a bunny. Well, and also you couldn't develop a lifelong
career because you would age out. I mean, if they
were looking for girls between the ages of eighteen and
twenty three. Um, it was kind of understood, sort of
like it was for flight attendants at the time that
(15:51):
if you're you know, I mean, we'd probably be crusty
old crabs at the Bunny Club. Yeah. Probably. Well, I
just wouldn't put up with that. I can't walker, I
can't walk around on high heels that long. I'm sorry. Um,
but yeah, you mentioned a means to an end, and
that's what Carol Cleveland called it. She Oh my god,
(16:11):
I love her. She for all you Monty Python fans
out there, was in almost thirty episodes of The Flying Circus.
And if you're still not clearing which one she is,
she's you know, the woman on Monty Python, Blonde adorable. Um,
she played Zuoit in The Holy Grail. She's fabulous and
she she did she called Bunny is m U a
means to an end and it did. It got her
(16:33):
acting career going. Um. And then we also have Debbie
Harry Blonde who worked at the Playboy Club for a
while before she started rocking out. Um. And then there's
Lauren Hutton who worked there for three months that it
was a good experience. Um. We have Patricia Quinn as well,
who is Magenta from the Rocky Horror pictures. Yeah, the
(16:54):
famous disembodied lips on the Rocky Horror in the in
the beginning credits. Yeah, Um, but the Playboy Club really
lost its luster in the eighties. I mean it started
it started to get pretty cheesy. And really by that point, um,
the idea of women walking around these bunny costumes was
I mean just kind of kitchy to begin with, but
(17:16):
not very scandalous. No, yeah, how cheesy was it. It
was so cheesy that they actually started bringing in male
rabbits who did not who did not wear tails or ears.
They had different kind of uniform And this is when
they tried to Um, Playboy tried to rebrand its clubs
because the clubs lost something like three million dollars. They
(17:40):
were failing so hard and they were trying to attract
a broader female clientele. So they bring in these, uh,
these male servers to accompany the female servers, and they
wore an array of costumes, including sleeveless tuxedo shirts, um,
some kind of wrestling unitard hot and then my favorite,
which was described as sort of yachting cap that at
(18:02):
the time was most closely associated with Darryl Dragon of
Captain and Neil is there. So wait, were these all
these all word at the same time? Because I'm hoping not,
because when I think of a sleeveless touch tuxedo shirt.
I think of Chris Farley and Patrick Swayzy and SNL.
So maybe just some you know, it could be over.
(18:24):
They could be the Unitard over the sleeveless shirt with
a jaunty captain into Neil angele Um. Needless to say,
the Empire Club in New York City did not do
so well, right, Yeah, Heathan Lounds actually agreed that they'd
become too successful. They sort of watered it down. They
lowered the prices so you know, Joe Schmoke could walk
(18:45):
on end and be sitting next to some fancy pants guy.
And yeah, they just tried to be all things to
all people. They changed up the menu. There was something
about frozen stickers bars that makes me think of George Costanza. Um.
But yeah, the the last American club closed in nine eight,
and that was in Lansing, Michigan, which actually surprised me. Lansing.
(19:05):
That says a lot about sort of how how much
the Playboy Club spiraled into this just kind of cheesy,
you know, sexy Applebee's rip off because they started to
you know, like you said, they oversaturated their own market,
so they're left with places like Lansing. Hey, no offense,
no offense to all right, don't mess with the mitten.
(19:28):
And then the last international club close in n not
than in two thousand six they reopen and yeah in
Las Vegas, and everything comes back around. You know, I'm
hoping that the avocado green doesn't come back around. I
hope it stays. Keep it cheesy, keep it, keep it cheesy, yeah,
(19:49):
or or you know. Philis Stiller talked about how helf
was the only person she knew who would actually hang
rugs on the wall and were orange fury shag rugs.
I mean, I think if there is one, if there
is one positive thing that we can say about the
history of the Playboy clubs, especially in in the sixties. UM,
aside from some of the bunnies who reported making a
(20:12):
ton of money, making more than their father's making more
than men at the time, that's that's great for them,
and we gotta, you know, we gotta give it to
hef Um. He was very pro civil rights, and he
incorporated black writers into his magazine, black performers on his
TV shows and doing stand up and music at the clubs.
And also, um, there were black bunnies as well, although
(20:35):
they were chocolate bunnies, which is very derogatory, and they
actually referenced that I noticed you in that first episode. Yeah,
it almost seems I was watching the first episode, and
I doubt I will watch anymore of the Playboy Club.
And it seems like they actually lifted a lot from
Gloria Steinham's essay because she mentions this red head with
(20:56):
a baby voice in her essay, and there was a
red head with a baby boys in the show. But
obviously the redhead has a very intricate storyline. But you know,
I'll never know what happens. And lots of secrets, so
many secrets. Where do they keep them in those tiny costumes? Um?
You know? Actually yeah. Speaking of the show, one NBC
exact calls it a fun soap opera, and the show's
(21:19):
executive producer says it's about empowering these women to be
whatever they want to be. And you know, I've I've
heard you have nurse say similar things about about bunnies
and about playmates. Um, I'm not you know, I'm not
entirely on board with that, assessed note. I mean, do
I think that I think that it's a little overblown
(21:39):
to be honest, to call for boycotting the Playboy Club
simply because you know, if if we're going to put
our effort behind um, you know, boycotting things on television
that portray women poorly. I think that there is just
a menu of reality television shows that should get the
acts first. But I also see where Steinum is coming
(22:01):
from in terms of not wanting to sort of glorify
and fetishize this very misogynistic chapter. Right, yeah, and history, Yeah,
you're you're they're glamorizing these clubs that made women walk
around and bathing seeds basically, but they're also sort of
glamorizing a time in history that why why are we
(22:22):
going back and and being like, oh my god, this
was so amazing. At least Madmen, I feel like it's
a little more it shows sort of the underbelly maybe,
whereas maybe the Playboy Club is like, oh yeah, everything
was great in the sixties. It was so it was
just covered in and satin and glitter and everything costs
a dollar fifty. Yeah. Well, there was when I when
(22:43):
I mentioned on Facebook that we were going to talk
about the Playboy Club history, there was a lot of response.
People seemed pretty excited about this so please send in
your thoughts mom stuff at al stuffwork dot com is
our email address, or you can head over to Facebook
or write something on our wall. And we got a
couple of listener emails here to read in the meantime already.
(23:11):
This is from a gentleman who would like to remain anonymous.
He says, I'm a diagnosed narcissist and a dark triad personality.
I've been involved in the seduction community, officially teaching pick
up for about a year, and as a student and
one who researched many of the methods for much longer.
I never had a problem picking up women before I
(23:31):
encounter the community, but have used it to hone my tactics.
What I wanted to share with you is that this
seems to be the goal of many of the pu
A pu A pick up artist programs to turn your
average person into a narcissist. This is the hardest part
about teaching this material, and I often wonder if my
students are really more confident after learning this stuff or
(23:51):
either nursing a new crutch validation through women or turning
into actors on a stage. Thanks very much for the
love that one here from Pete also about our episode
on pickup artists, and he writes that one of the
flaws in most all of the systems they're trying to
sell is that the basic assumption these guys make is
that women are all the same. After all, if I
(24:13):
started address like some seventies temper rejec and putting money
and putting women down, I'd probably attract some women in
much the same way that flashing a bunch of money
will get some women. However, neither of these methods seem
to likely attract the kind of women who I would
like to spend time with. I decided to ditch to
pick up artists and focus on the information I learned
from real researchers. The conclusion I came to was that
(24:35):
men simply aren't taught how to actually attract a woman,
especially in the last several decades, where the rules of
the game have been significantly in flux for various social
and economic reasons. Unfortunately, it is made finding love a
far more difficult task, which is why I pick up artists,
guys and dating sites have been able to make a
truckload of money. Have I been more successful in finding love? Well? No,
(24:59):
and fortunately I'm still looking for love in all the
wrong places. However, I can assure you that if I do,
it won't be because of the pickup artists and their
bad advice. You go, well, you go, dude, I hope.
Let's find this boy love. See pee email email back
c See Caroline, you got you got a matchmaker on
(25:21):
your side. Here mom seff it. Our stuff works dot
com is the email address again. You can find us
over at Facebook and follow us on Twitter at mom
Stuff Podcasts, and you can read our blog during the
week It's stuff Mom Never told you at how Stuff
Works dot com. Be sure to check out our new
(25:41):
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