What does a Playboy Bunny and Dan Rather have in common?

They’re both wearing clothes!!

Playboy is losing its nudity! It was in yesterday’s news, but I found out in a rather indirect way. First I looked at a movie review of the  movie Truth on Deadline Hollywood (deadlinehollywood.com). DH’s homepage had some breaking news headlines like these:

Trump tweets during Democratic Debate!

Playboy goes PG!

‘Truth’ Review: Not A False Note In Film That Puts ‘60 Minutes’ Under The Knife!

Don’t worry, I’ll get to the Playboy story down below, but first, let me do my job.

 

Aren’t they adorable?

Deadlinehollywood.com began as an online version of a column under the same name in the LA Times. BMI bought it. BMI is a media outlet that also owns Variety, Footwear News and others. (I kid you not.)

Let’s take a look at the review of Truth, with Robert Redford and Cate Blanchett:

TRUTH

Review by Pete Hammond

Plot:  This movie is based on Truth And Duty: The Press, The President And The Privilege Of Power, a book by Mary Mapes about a scandal at CBS, where Mapes was producer for anchor Dan Rather in 2004. She produced a breaking, exclusive story for Rather on 60 Minutes II that challenged Bush’s military record.  Unfortunately, the story was dead wrong. Down the hill rolled Rather and Mapes’ heads. (CBS fired them.)

Spoilers skimmable? Yes! He tells the whole story, don’t get me wrong. I think that you can skim though.

Bottom Line: 3 out of 4 stars. It provides a fascinating study of the production of a news show at the time. The points at which Mapes makes wrong decisions are positively cringe-worthy, as they should be. Tour de force performances by Blanchette (as always) and Redford. They don’t try to make Redford look like Dan Rather (Good thing.) Rather (pun), Redford adopts Dan Rather’s voice inflections and mannerisms.

OK, let’s get to the good part.

I had to head on over to Playboy to see what the headline on Deadline was about, under the guise of looking for movie reviews. I found movie news, but no reviews, although I didn’t look that hard, because I saw this:

Playboy is doing what?

This is the heading on its homepage, along with a whole bunch of other headlines. Click on the heading and it gets you to a letter from the Playboy staff dated yesterday (10/13).

It’s a perfectly logical explanation: Over 62 years ago, Hef published Playboy, which  became a ground-breaking “celebration of nudity.” Now he’s once again at the cutting edge, and is making Playboy a ground-breaking celebration of women’s bodies in garb. (There will still be huge cleavages, no less. They’re not total masochists!)

So let’s all go over to Hef’s house and drink diet coke, don long bathing suits from the early 20th Century, and go swimming!

Hef with his arm around a clothed bunny

I hope he has some yummy kale chips!

Here are some of the other headlines I found on Playboy’s homepage:

To Make Ends Meet These Massachusetts Monks Brew Beer (It’s actually a well-written short article on what sounds like delicious beer the Monks brew.)

President Obama Scored Pairs of Kanye West’s Sneakers (It’s actually a well-written short article on the sneakers that Kanye W. gifted to Obama. Did you know that Barack O. has an extensive sneaker collection? That’s what it says!)

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Male Multiple Orgasms (No nudity in sight. Only a long, science-based article that is well written and interesting.)

Ad for Speaker of the House on Craig’s list. They give you the link. It’s pretty funny!

I had forgotten that the articles in Playboy are well written. The newly modest Playboys hits the stands in February with the March 2016 issue.

So really, Hef, why?