September 20, 2011

A Boring Tale


When first I heard they were making a show set in the flagship Chicago Playboy Club in the early '60s, I was kind of excited because I am a pretty big fan of the 1985 made-for-TV movie A Bunny's Tale.  Never heard of it? It's the dramatization of Gloria Steinem's undercover expose of New York's Playboy Club staring Kirstie Alley, Delta Burke, Joanna Kerns, and a host of others '80s TV staples.  It's all bruised rib cages (those outfits are too tight!), demerits from the bunny mother (don't lose your tail!), and women in abusive relationships (Joanna Kerns gets the shit kicked out of her, y'all!).  Kirstie Alley keeps her note pad and pencil rolled up and stuck in her cleavage.  It's amazing.


The Playboy Club is not amazing.  It's not fun or interesting or entertaining.  It's not empowering to women.  It's not not A Bunny's Tale.  

The show focuses most of it's attention on Amber Heard as the new cigarette bunny.  She is nearly raped in the store room by some mob-boss key holder and when she accidentally kills him with a stiletto to the throat, Eddie Cibrian, former mob lawyer and current states attorney, is there to help clean up the mess.  Why is he there?  He was impatient for his cigarettes.  How is Eddie Cibrian a lawyer?  Some questions never get answered. 


From the commercials, I was under the impression that Cibrian was playing some kind of cleaner or hit-man because it was all body dumps and Cibrian faces but I guess the show thought that if someone wore a nice enough suit we'd all just believe he passed the Bar.  The show was wrong. 

But Cibrian and Heard aren't the only people on the show of course.  There's also Brenda the "chocolate bunny," Alice the fake married/secret lesbian bunny, Janie the bunny dating the bartender who turns out to be married and running from her husband for some reason, and Carol-Lynne the bitchy bunny who becomes the bitchy bunny mother when the club manager fires her for stealing employee files.  Oh, plus the club manager who's married to a former bunny whom he denegrates to others as often as possible.


I'm dropping this show from my schedule because it just makes me sad that A Bunny's Tale is not available on DVD.

2 comments:

natalie said...

You and I? Two peas in a pod. I totally agree with your taste in television.

Melissa said...

Natalie, I'm so glad to hear that you too have amazing tatse in television! You're obviously good people. And I assume I'll see you back here the rest of the season where we can talk about how much we love Revenge because so far, that seems like it's going to be my favorite new show.