How TV helped push Playboy's brand without the boobs

Playboy announced Tuesday that it would stop publishing nude photos of women in its pages. And all your Facebook friends proceeded to make the same joke about how now they have to read it for the articles.

The reason had to do with branding. Playboy execs figured out they could still make money off the bunny ears even if the bunny happened to be scantily clad instead of totally nude - perhaps even more money, given that they saw traffic to their website increase after nudity was eliminated last year.

Playboy has been selling its brand this way for almost its entire existence - the allure of living Hugh Hefner's lifestyle was a precious marketing tool. But a big part of that brand expansion - promoting Playboy without the peep-show benefits - happened on televison. From Hefner's early hosting gigs to putting his trio of girlfriends in the center of a trashtastically wonderful reality show, Playboy has used the medium to sell its edginess in a way that's still OK with standards and practices departments.

Hef, now 89, was selling hip, cool, and edgy on TV from the get-go. His first TV gambit was 1959's Playboy's Penthouse, a syndicated show that ran for two seasons and was supposed to mirror a party at his pad. African American guests, including singers Sarah Vaughn and Nat "King" Cole, hobnobbed with white guests, something that didn't happen all that much on TV in that era. Comedian Lenny Bruce got a big national break on the show. In the first episode, he complimented Hefner on the authenticity of the party. Because it was on television, he had expected something stiffer, less real. "Well, [we have] the girls and we serve real liquor . . .. It does the trick," Hefner replied.

A similar format was used a decade later for Playboy After Dark (1969-1970) where Moms Mabley, the Grateful Dead, and Linda Ronstadt all stopped by to party with Hef, giving the magazine a sophisticated sheen otherwise clouded by its choice of center spreads.

But both those shows were in syndication, limiting their scope, and they had relatively short runs.

Playboy's biggest mainstream TV play was in the form of an E! reality show. Two years before the Kardashians proved that an unconventional family not doing much more than being unconventional could start an empire on the same network, E! introduced The Girls Next Door.

The series, which started in 2005 and birthed spin-offs, movie tie-ins (the Anna Faris-starring House Bunny has its moments of greatness) and DVDs (with nudity intact), followed the lives of Hefner's three then-girlfriends.

There was Kendra Wilkinson, the snotty young one, who was a mere 18 years old when Hefner moved her into the Playboy manse.

Bridget Marquardt was the bubbly one, sweet and lovable, as much group cheerleader and organizer as Playmate.

The queen bee, and Hefner's main squeeze, was Holly Madison, the picture of Playmate perfection. Though the others were conscripted into Hef's service as girlfriends, it was Holly who seemed to be in a legitimate relationship with Hefner. In her final episode as a regular cast member, she lamented his lack of commitment. She wanted marriage and children; he did not. (For one thing, he was already married.)

That's what was so different about The Girls Next Door: It was very much directly targeted at women, and that's exactly who watched it and interacted with it. Seventy percent of the audience was women, and, according to Building Brand Value the Playboy Way by Susan Gunelius, the majority of the Playboy-branded merchandise sold in the aughts was in the women's fashion or accessories category.

This was not a show where leering men could catch exclusive glimpses of these women; the show was simply about the lives they lived. Sometimes it was glamorous. The girls head to Vegas to celebrate a birthday! The girls go to Paris! But a lot of the time it was about the everyday: Holly hosts a cookout! Bridget sends her dog to obedience school! (Actually, if I recall, a lot of them were pet-themed.)

The nudity wasn't played so much for titillation as it was part of these women's jobs - of course they had to be naked (blurred out for broadcast, naturally) or wear skimpy clothes. That's the gig, isn't it?

The show worked because of the differing personalities. Like Sex and the City, and countless female ensemble shows after it, there was a type that female viewers could pick out to relate to.

But it also preceded the Kardashians in building on the idea that we want to watch pretty people with lots of money living their very regular lives because those lives are better than ours.

That's what The Girls Next Door sold: the lifestyle. Even if Kendra, Bridget, and Holly were doing things that you or I could do - don't we all want to send our dogs to pet psychics, as Kendra did in one episode? - they still did them as Hef's Girlfriends. They went to parties at the mansion, opened up the Playboy Club in Vegas, and showed just how much fun it was to be a Playboy model. It all worked to bolster the idea that the women in the pages of the magazine, those coeds perched atop hay bales, and the men who got to hang out with them, live better lives than we do. And they do it while wearing Playboy T-shirts.

The women of The Girl Next Door did not fade away when they left the show in 2009 (a sixth season was produced with Hef's new main squeezes, but viewers abandoned ship without the original three). Wilkinson wrapped up the fourth season of her WeTV show about her life with husband (and former Philadelphia Eagle) Hank Basket III on Friday. Madison's memoir, Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny, debuted at No. 2 on the New York Times' hardcover nonfiction bestseller list in July. Marquardt made the tabloid circuit after getting engaged to longtime boyfriend Nick Carpenter.

The irony is that although TV helped market Playboy without the smut, it will also be the engine that allows Playboy to keep making money off naked women. The pay channels still exist. An Internet pornography company called MindGeek has a 15-year deal to manage the likes of Playboy TV, ending in 2026, according to a piece on Vox.com. It's the best of both worlds: Playboy gets the dignity of doing away with nudity on one platform while slyly allowing another to make money for the company off coeds atop hay bales - this time in HD - for years to come.

meichel@phillynews.com

215-854-5909@mollyeichel