Opinion: Inside the Playboy Mansion from A&E as an unofficial GND pilot
Decided last night to rewatch Inside the Playboy Mansion, an A&E special that Kevin Burns filmed back in 2001 with the original party posse and had some major thoughts on what kind of content and parallels that also wound up repeating themselves on the first 5 seasons of Girls Next Door.
After watching it, I found a lot of things really interesting about the documentary, some of the things that Kevin Burns went out of his way to film, and some of the people interviewed.. versus what people chose to share about their experiences later on the Secrets of series.
First of all, I really feel like this serves as the unofficial pilot for Girls Next Door as well as the kind of upstairs-downstairs concept of highlighting the staff at the mansion, the mansion guests, and the mixed salad we got for all of those concepts mixed together.
Things that stuck out to me were 1.) the presence of so many clips of talking heads interviews from Hefner’s ex girlfriends. Barbi Benton, Shannon Tweed, Brande Roderick, brief clips of Kimberly Conrad. It really foreshadowed the heavy level of involvement Kevin was trying to get out of Barbi Benton and I found that really interesting. Because I am guessing Barbi was plenty snarky and honest based on really listening to her interview clips, she had some attitude and wasn’t always warm and complimentary. I could tell it had been edited to get the snippets of what Hefner was proud of (not being monogamous) even when she sounded hurt and angry by being asked about it.
2.) I was surprised to see it showed a scene of Mary briefing Hefner, and getting something scheduled confirmed then we get a brief Mary interview. The amount she’s in GND and where we see her posted up in her office interacting with the girls, briefing plans, and interacting with Hefner struck me as well that there was something about this relationship that Kevin Burns found important to really keep documenting because she was such an integral part to the way they operated. Across all the GND seasons, I’m so used to seeing Mary and Hefner interacting, and Mary and the girls interacting; so I really had to rewind it back and detail that it planted a seed of content that Kevin really relied on using to build context, set up scenes and plot points.
3.) The scenes of Hefner and his friends at manly night. Bryant the butler’s interview refers back to Kevin Burns beginning to be invited to the Monday manly nights after he’d been documenting them to film for this. And that he saw the just relationship and atmosphere between the staff and each other, the staff and the guests, Hefner and the guests and that there was something he saw and declared that there was something there worth pursuing continuing to document and film. I also kind of wondered if for selfish reasons, Kevin wanted another filming project to be involving the mansion because he himself wanted continued access, wanted to be cemented into that in-group and wanted to feel part of one of the toughest to join, but arguably a coveted group of Hollywood guys to be a part of. Basically he wanted to stay being one of the cool kids and wanted access any time, wanted to be included in the weekly nights and wanted to feel like the staff would treat him as one of the guys too so another series being filmed continuously at the mansion would be that ticket to ensure that.
4.) I noticed that Mark Saginor is repeatedly interviewed and “lowered third” credited as just Hefners physician, but was reputedly considered one of his absolute closest friends, he kept a bedroom at the mansion, and I’d already heard he and Kimberly didn’t get along. During two of his talking heads interviews, he speaks with a bit of derision and distaste about the “dead ball era” of Hefners marriage, where guests being at the house around the clock and big parties had halted. And there’s no question why, he occupied bedroom 2 at the mansion and that ultimately wound up as Kimberly’s own suite where she had the bathroom gutted and redone for herself. Which means Mark was likely told to scram and specifically by Kimberly with Hefner backing it.
Interestingly enough, around the time that Girls Next Door began filming, Saginor was arrested, was in and out of rehab, got accused of drugging and raping women, and eventually his medical license was revoked.. so while he’s prominently featured in the A&E documentary, he’s never once seen on camera on any Girls Next Door episodes, and I sincerely looked. I remember hearing and reading that Saginor wasn’t fully welcome for a brief period at the mansion, and I kind of wondered if these guys at manly night saw an open chair position in the “bff” role, and people like Dickie Bann and Ray Anthony kind of vied for it, with Kevin Burns seeing that overall a seat had been vacated at the table and having “his” show filming continuously ensured that seat stayed his.