“The Playboy Club” debuted with a marginal audience, 5 million viewers, and the second episode fared worse, with 3.8 million viewers.
From the onset, the show was forced to battle protests from the Parents Television Council and from women’s groups concerned about the portrayal of women as sexualized Playboy Bunnies in the drama about Chicago’s Playboy Club.
The Parents Television Council appealed to the show’s advertisers, and demanded that NBC remove the “degrading and sexualizing program immediately.” Seven advertisers left the program immediately thereafter.
Oddly, the critics charged that the show did not depict enough sex to hold the coveted 18 to 49-year-old audience, especially the males.
“Despite its title — and the obvious retro memories of Hugh Hefner and Playboy’s role in launching the post-1950s sexual revolution — the show itself really is more a female-oriented nighttime soap opera,” notes Bill Zwecker of the Chicago Sun-Times.
The African American star of the show, Naturi Naughton, portrayed Bunny Brenda.
Bunny Brenda, much like the male patrons of “The Playboy Club” successfully created an adult fantasy playground for herself, never mind the turbulence right outside of the Playboy Club’s gilded doors.
“My character Bunny Brenda is one of the first Black Bunnies in 1961 in Chicago,” Naughton told rolling out recently. “She’s a woman who does not allow her environment to effect what she’s going to do.
“She’s not too heavy, she’s not overly serious…she definitely knows what the world is like, but she still wants to live and enjoy it,” Naughton states.
During that interview, Naughton also stated that she has a goal of releasing a solo album, we’ll keep you posted on the talented performer’s next moves.
Beginning October 31, Brian Williams’ “Rock Center,” a news format show, will air in the “Playboy Club’s” time slot.
