DVD Reviews
DVD Review: The Girls Next Door – The Complete First Season
By Jeff Swindoll Aug 2, 2006, 12:13 GMT
Welcome to the world\'s most famous and most glamorous bastion of hedonism, the Playboy Mansion! For the first time ever, The Girls Next Door takes you beyond the Mansion\'s gates and behind closed doors where you\'ll meet Holly, Kendra, and Bridget, just your average girls next door with one small difference...They\'re smoking hot! Join these lovely ladies for an uncensored view of their daily lives as they laugh, love, play, ...more
You’ll either come away from the Girls Next Door thinking that Hugh Hefner is the luckiest guy in the world, a dirty old man, or a little bit of both.
Hugh Hefner is the founder of Playboy magazine and has been know as the world’s most famous swinger (yeah baby!). Mr. Hefner spends his days in his silk PJs at the Playboy mansion where the servants tend to his every whim. Hef is not one to let excess stop him so he has three live-in girlfriends - Holly (who is his number one lady) and two backups Bridget and Kendra.
The Girls Next Door is the “reality” show that shows just what goes on behind the scenes at the Playboy mansion. What surprised me was that none of his live-in girlfriends had appeared in Playboy. That is until this show came around.
Episode 1: Meet the Girls: We get a peek inside the Playboy mansion and Hugh Hefner’s three live in girlfriends, Holly, Bridget, and Kendra.
Episode 2: New Girls in Town: Two aspiring playmates arrive and the girls show them mansion life with a night of partying.
Episode 3: Happy Birthday, Kendra: Kendra’s birthday includes a trip to the Playboy Jazz Festival and a visit from her family.
Episode 4: What Happens in Vegas: Holly, Bridget, and Kendra are off to Vegas to celebrate Playmate Carmella DeCesare’s birthday.
Episode 5: Fight Night: Hef has a boxing bout at the mansion, but Hef’s former girlfriend of eight years Barbi Benton arrives and another fight is about to begin….Round One!
Episode 6: Operation Playmate: The Fourth of July celebration at the mansion also includes the Playmates making care packages for the troops.
Episode 7: Just Shoot Me: The Girls pose for a pictorial in Playboy including a steamy shower scene, but one of the girls has to leave early and feelings are hurt.
Episode 8: Midsummer Night’s Dream: The rule of dress (or undress) at the Playboy Mansion Midsummer Night’s party is less is more.
Episode 9: Under the Covers: Holly is renovating the guest house and throwing a barbeque for the new playmates, where she plans on doing all the cooking.
Episode 10: Ghostbusted: It’s Halloween at the mansion (Bridget’s favorite holiday) and paranormal investigators and a psychic arrive to investigate a ghost that supposedly haunted the mansion’s halls.
Episode 11: Grape Expectations: Bridget takes the other two girls back to her hometown of Lodi, California where they engage in a grape stomping contest.
Episode 12: I’ll Take Manhattan: The Girls go to New York to promote their upcoming photo spread in the November issue of Playboy.
Episode 13: My Kind of Town: The Girls go back to Hef’s hometown, Chicago, and tour his old haunted, including Playboy headquarters.
Episode 14: Clue-less: Bridget’s birthday party is a mysterious affair when the girls throw a murder-mystery party complete with 1920s fashion.
Episode 15: It’s Vegas Baby: The Girls and Hef return to Vegas to celebrate the opening of the Playboy Club at the Palms Hotel.
The people that I really feel sorry for are the Playboy mansion servants. They’re on call 24/7 to attend to Hef’s every need and occasionally Kendra picks on them. When you’re a hot chick you can get away with that sort of thing I guess. Yes gents, these episodes are uncensored and uncut so you get to see The Girls as you never saw them or heard them when the episodes aired on the E! network.
Now you don’t have to buy the November issue of Playboy to see the Girls in the buff. I really have to say that I’m not sure that there’s much reality in reality television. The Girls occasionally say some pretty stupid things (Kendra tries to tell Roberto Cavalli that Olive Garden is much better than Italian food actually made by Italians – um, yeah) but I wonder how much is accentuated (occasionally with sound effects) by the show’s producers.
I suppose that your opinion of Hefner’s lifestyle will flavor your opinion of the show. Poor bastard, surrounded by hot chicks all the time, it must be such a horrible life. However, this does put a more human face on those centerfolds. Holly seems somewhat motherly, Bridget is going to school, but Kendra really got on my nerves.
The Girls Next Door is presented in fullscreen as it was shown on television. Special features included commentaries by the Girls on all episodes. They also have a deleted scenes section on all three discs (totaling about a hour of extra footage). They also present the first version of the pilot episode called “Hef’s World.”
They use most of the footage of Hef’s World in the opening episode but the second half is Bridget’s birthday and she gets some “interesting” presents. They also include “personality tests” for Holly, Bridget, and Kendra. This is really about 11 minutes of interviews where they talk about themselves.
Finally we have a photo gallery with about 200 pictures, but sorry gents no naked ones. I guess you will have to buy that November issue after all. I never said that Hugh “Puffin Man” Hefner was stupid.
The Girls Next Door is probably an acquired taste. I really tire of “reality” shows, but it is interesting to see the inner workings of the Playboy mansion. I guess that if you want to see some hot chicks naked then make sure the wife is out of town when you visit the DVD mart.
The Girls Next Door – The Complete First Season is now available at Amazon. As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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Older Talkback
page: 1
Thanks for the fair review! Just for the record, we don't 'fake' the reality on this show. We simply choose situations that we think are worth shooting, shoot them well (I hope) and have really great story people and editors sift through the footage (usually 40 hours for each 22 minute episode) and make a funny, humane show out of it. In any event, we pretty much think of it as 'Green Acres' -- with Hef as Eddie Albert (but with three Eva Gabors)! The staff enjoy their jobs, by the way. The 'newcomers' have been there for seven years or so. Most have been with Hef for decades. The show is great to work on. The most fun I've had producing television. (Although working with George Lucas, Wolfgang Petersen and Bryan Singer have been pretty great, too.) Cheers!
Mr. Burns,
Thank you for your kind words. Ironic that both Green Acres and Girls Next Door take place in Hooterville ;).
Cheers.
I think you are full of s***.The show is awsome and your saying that they are sluts!
'Aryn DeatherageMar
I think you are full of s***.The show is awsome and your saying that they are sluts!'
Umm, Aryn you're the one who said that not me.
OMG!!!!!!!!!!!
i never new that there was a site!!! i totally ♥ 'The Girls Next Door'.
Im not supposed to be doing this @ skool but u guys r woth it!!!
I ♥♥♥ all of the girls: Kendra Holly & Bridete.
I was flipping through the channels, and this show was on. As soon as I went to this channel I saw three girls posing naked and barely blurred out at all. Worst of all, my 10 year old son was in the room with me. This show may be entertaining to some horny people but I really don't think our kids should be exposed to shows like this. Since when did it become acceptable to show softcore pornography on daytime tv?????? Women who watch this show will be inspired to become pornstars. Men who watch this show will view women as objects of sex and not people.
Can the producers of that show please please please get rid of that unpolished, uncouth, loud-mouth, obnoxious brat they call Kendra??? Good Lord, she's a train wreck to watch!
a little late, but what the hey.
softcore porn? you do kno softcore means everything but shots showing the actual deed, right? Pretty sure there's never been a naked guy on the show, so I think softcore porn is impossible. Second, if you don't like ur kids watching this, then BE A PARENT. Jeez louise, either take the three minutes it takes to figure out and execute blocking the show/program and get on with ur life of sheltering ur kids in other areas instead of trying to censor america so you don't have to lift a finger (or slide a finger across a couple buttons, rather).
page: 1
Jeff SwindollAug 2nd, 2006 - 18:20:37
Another oddity I forgot to mention is that one of the celebrity guests at one of the Playboy parties is Red Buttons who died while this and Alice in Wonderland were on my desk to review. Celebrities beware, my reviews are the kiss of death (I know several of you have that opinion anyway). :P
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