As host of the A&E special, Jenny McCarthy finds new ways to embarrass herself.
If you’ve ever spent a moment of your life fantasizing what it would be like to attend a party at Hugh Hefner’s Playboy mansion, Sunday’s A&E “Playboy’s 50th Anniversary Celebration” special should cure you for life.
It’s one of the most stupefying TV shows I’ve ever seen. It not only does the image of Playboy irreparable harm – but by its crassness and vacuousness, drags the reputation of A&E down with it.
A&E, a generally high-quality cable network, has no business showing stuff like this. Sunday night from 8 to 10 EST, A&E ought to rechristen itself T&A&E.
This “Celebration” is a film about Hefner’s party, at his Los Angeles mansion, celebrating the golden anniversary of his truly influential magazine.
Influential, that is, to a point, and this televised celebration makes it clear that if the party’s not over, the fat lady (the only one in attendance) is singing in the wings.
Most of the partygoers seem to be telegraphing, by their body language, that it wasn’t that much fun to be there. Most of the exhibitionist party decorations – i.e., the Playboy Bunnies and their similarly proportioned civilian counterparts – reserve their attentions for each other or the TV cameras, leaving everyone else to stare, stifle yawns or huddle by the bar.
“Playboy’s 50th Anniversary Celebration” is such a horrible TV special, it wouldn’t even qualify as a watchable home movie.
How bad is it?
• It’s so bad, it makes “Playboy After Dark” look like the Algonquin Round Table.
• It’s so bad that it couldn’t be marketed as a home-video Playboy mansion tour or pay-per-view ripoff.
• It’s so bad, Hefner’s groping of Pamela Anderson’s leg during an interview, and her polite yet obvious efforts to keep his hand from creeping upward, is the two-hour show’s highlight.
• It’s so bad, the hard-of-hearing Hefner seems unaware of a lot of what the standup comedy performers are saying. With Bunnies on either side of him, Hefner doesn’t seem to be able to hear much without help from his rabbit ears.
• It’s so bad, Jenny McCarthy, as the host, sets a new low for embarrassing herself. After mentioning, several times, her former Playboy Playmate status, she takes viewers on a tour of Hefner’s bedroom, marveling at all the junk and saying, “I smell a pack rat. C’mon, Hef. I smell a garage sale.”
I smell a lot more than that.
Many of the male guests (and a few of the band members from musical performers Chicago) look positively cadaverous. And unless your idea of a fun time is to watch Pauly Shore spill his drink, or Bob Saget stand there, or McCarthy interview waiters, this is one to avoid at all costs.
A&E says the occasional nudity and semi-nudity on the preview tape will be blurred on the final broadcast. Blurring doesn’t begin to address the problem. This special should be erased.
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PLAYBOY’S 50TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
8 p.m. EST Sunday
A&E
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(c) 2003, New York Daily News.
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AP-NY-12-03-03 1041EST
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