With expectations for success raised higher than a Playboy Bunny’s boobs in a push-up rabbit outfit, you’d think NBC’s new series, “The Playboy Club,” would have concentrated on more than just the costumes.
But “The Playboy Club” — like the fading empire it tries to emulate — is a creaky, old-fashioned attempt at cool and hip that comes across, ironically, as painfully clueless and stiff.
Think bad “Godfather” meets “Mad Men” extra lite.
The series revolves around the “hot” doings at the Playboy Club in Chicago in the swingin’ 60s.
It focuses on (when it gets focused) Nick Dalton (Eddie Cibrian), a brilliant lawyer and shoo-in for state attorney general. This is especially curious since Nick is the foster child of the city’s Mafia boss,
How clever! A lawyer who grew up as the adopted son of a Mafia boss!
How much lawyering he does, is open to question since Nick seems to spend all day and night inside the club making cool faces.
In the first five minutes of the show, Nick gets involved with Bunny Maureen (Amber Heard) who is fresh off the farm and way too innocent for the rough world of the Bunny Hatch. Or something.
On her first day on the job, she kills said foster father/mob boss with a high heel to the neck. Don’t you hate when that happens?
Nick must help that Bunny escape, so the two of them dump the body off a dock. Hello? Isn’t somebody going to see this stiff bumping up against the pilings?
Into the mix is Nick’s girlfriend Bunny Carol-Lynne (Laura Benanti) who opens the show in her bunny costume singing not the best rendition of “Chicago” ever recorded.
She becomes the Bunny mother, even though she wants to SING!
There’s also a really sophomoric gay subplot (the show’s answer to the gay ad exec on “Mad Men”) among the bunnies who all sound like they’ve been sucking helium.
But the funniest and most ridiculous thing about the whole show is Playboy corpse Hugh Hefner. Both th real and fake versions.
Like“Seinfeld
’s” old George Steinbrenner bit in which they showed Steinbrenner only from the back, here the actor playing Hef is also shown only from the rear, with only his pipe sticking out!
Meantime, the real Hef’s voice dispenses wisdom that’s so cheesy you could top your burger with it
“Bunnies were some of the only women in the world,” he says, “who could be anyone they wanted to be.” What? They wore tails and were dressed like small woodland animals!
The acting isn’t great, some of the hundreds of subplots aren’t bad, but this ain’t “Mad Men” and Cibrian and Heard are no Jon Hamm and January Jones despite their desperate attempt to be.
Is it worth tuning in? In the words of Hef himself, “If you don’t swing, don’t bring.” I laughed so hard I almost choked on my cheeseburger.