Name: Hugh Hefner on Letterman, May 15, 1985
Uploaded: 2017-09-28T06:17:48.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Hugh Hefner on Letterman, May 15, 1985' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2017-09-28. Transcript available. Hugh Hefner's only Letterman appearance, taped in Los Angeles.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Hugh Hefner on Letterman, May 15, 1985' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2017-09-28. Transcript available. Hugh Hefner's only Letterman appearance, taped in Los Angeles.

Thank you.
In 1953, with a few dollars, this man borrowed from his parents.
He started a magazine called Playboy.
His lifestyle, his philosophy, and his business are often the targets of
controversy, but fascinating nonetheless.
He is also the man that has kept the pajama industry in business.
Please welcome Hugh Hefner.
He's good to see you. Thank you for being here, sir.
How are you doing?
Very well.
Thank you for your time.
Now, explain to me about the pajamas.
Do you actually still wear pajamas out in public?
Do you wear them at all?
Well, I wear them most of the time, but not when I'm going to tell him to show.
Now, why do you wear them most of the time?
They're very comfortable.
I think I got in the habit of working at home and wearing pajamas.
And it really wasn't a contemplated, you know, promotional thing.
It was just very comfortable.
And you actually still enjoy them?
Yes.
But after a while, doesn't it have kind of a debilitating psychological effect
on you, like you've had the flu all your life or something?
Ooh, I just...
That's not really the connotation that I get from them at all.
It's a very pleasant experience for you.
Yes, yes.
Now, you mentioned your home, and certainly one of the things in Southern
California that people are always talking about,
you see it on television all the time, you see it, you hear about it and read
about it in newspapers and so forth,
you see it in the magazine, is your home.
Tell me about the mansion.
Now, who lives there?
Is it a lot of folks?
Is it you?
Do you actually live there?
Yes, I live there, yes.
How big is it?
How many rooms are we talking about?
Well, it's about...
It's not an unusually large home.
It has about five and a half acres.
It's in Homeby Hills, which is adjacent to Beverly Hills.
And it is about a block from Sunset Boulevard, but it seems very much like an
English estate.
And it's...
Now, who's there with you?
Well, it depends on the occasion.
All right, now, so...
When you left there this afternoon, who was there?
Well, a number of friends were...
A number of friends were sunbathing around the pool.
Male and female friends?
Male and female.
And they, as a matter of fact, came out into the area in front of the house
with a flower lathe to lay on me.
Because they knew I was coming out to do the show.
They wish you good luck.
They presented you with the flowers.
Everybody's rather excited about your being here, you know?
Well, you know, we're very excited about it.
I would like to get it on the record that I don't do these kind of shows very
often, and I'm here because I'm a fan.
Well, that's very nice of you.
Whatever that says.
Now, let's go back to the mansion for a second.
Right now?
No, no, not right now.
But you have a lot of parties there, don't you?
Yes.
Now, who gets invited to the parties?
Friends.
Now, do you ever have any trouble with somebody getting rowdy?
Well, occasionally, but not often.
And what do you do with them?
Well, we calm them down, and if they get too rowdy, well, we escort them out.
And are they ever invited back?
It depends on how rowdy they are.
And how rowdy is the rowdiest behavior you've witnessed?
I don't know.
That would be a little difficult to answer.
Sometimes we catch them coming over the fence.
Oh, they're sneaking into that situation.
And then, of course, they're taken out back and beaten up.
Yes, we help them.
We help them back over the fence.
Can you give us a name of somebody who tends to be more trouble than somebody
else?
No.
No.
I don't tend to keep that list.
Now, you always hear James Caan spends a lot of time there.
Jim Caan is a most strong gentleman.
Now, he's got to be trouble, right?
No, no.
Wilt Chamberlain is there a lot, isn't he?
Wilt is there a lot.
And is he an easygoing guy?
He is very easygoing.
Yeah.
Jim Brown is there a lot, and he's very easygoing.
Who is?
Jim Brown.
Jim Brown.
Well, he has, you know, he has some trouble on and off.
Well, you see, that's one of the things that happens, one of the very nice
things that happens
at the mansion is that everybody kind of mellows out.
It really is.
It has developed a reputation as being kind of a Shangri-La, a sort of escape
from the jungle
that's out there.
Yeah.
And people are, by and large, in their best behavior when they're at the
mansion.
Now, is it just unbelievable wild sex all night long?
But, you know, that's what people think it is.
That's what I think it is.
We take time off from the wild sex to watch your show.
Oh, stop it, stop it, stop it.
But is it, in my wildest imagination, would the reality be more or less than
what I think
it is?
That depends on your imagination.
Well, you know, my image of the place is you go in the door and you have to
watch where
you step because there's people everywhere.
You know what I'm saying?
No, it's not like that.
It's not like that.
It's very selective.
Yeah, okay.
Are there women there all the time?
Well, I have a full-time girlfriend and a relationship that I've been in, a
very happy
one for about the last...
How old is your girlfriend?
21.
And how old are you?
I am 59.
Have you ever gone out with a 59-year-old woman?
No.
My mother...
Now, see, a lot of people think that you, a man nearly 60, and you look
terrific for a
guy 60, but, you know, would you ever consider...
There may be a causal connection.
But would you ever go...
Well, perhaps.
Perhaps.
Look into that, and I guess you have.
Yeah.
But what about somebody 50?
Would you go out with a woman 50?
Well, probably not romantically, but...
Really?
You don't think so?
Well, I mean, it is conceivable.
All right.
Anything is conceivable.
How many women have you dated in your adult life, do you suppose?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I have been in...
I am a very romantic fellow, so I tend to get involved in rather serious
relationships.
I tend to last...
They last two, three years or something like that?
Yeah, well, sometimes, you know, five, six, eight.
Now, what's the oldest woman you've gone out with?
In terms of age?
Yeah.
Romantically?
Well, I...
I don't know.
I don't know what romantic age means.
What do you...
Well, I mean, you're talking about somebody that I've gone out with...
Yeah, how...
Romantically.
You know, in a...
Yeah.
Yeah.
You don't know.
You don't know.
I don't...
I don't...
Among other things, I don't tend to go out a whole lot.
No, of course, you're right there in...
That's right.
Right there in the middle of it.
You're knee-deep in it over there.
Now, I'm just being silly, but, you know, I think a lot of women might be
offended that
a guy, a wealthy man who has shaped the morals and the mores of this society
would not find
himself going out with a woman closer to his own age.
I would like to suggest that there are lots of limitations that our society
places on romantic
relationships that don't make a lot of sense, and age is one of them, whether
it's an older
man with a younger woman or vice versa.
I don't think that age makes a lot of difference.
But it's really hard to imagine you going out with an older woman.
Well, I guess that's why I date younger women.
I don't know.
I think I've made way too much of this.
What are we doing?
We have to do a commercial, and we'll come back and be less silly if that's
possible.
Well, let's talk about the magazine.
Yeah, Bart, how much from your folks to start the magazine?
I borrowed $600 of my own money and about $6,000 from various friends and
relatives, including
my mother.
And some of your folks, yeah.
Now, did they know the kind of magazine you were going to publish?
Vaguely.
Yeah.
Quite literally.
In other words, my folks are strong Protestants, and they had mixed emotions
when I began.
Yeah.
And how mixed were the emotions, was it?
Well, they were supportive of their son, who believed in what he was doing, and
as they
began to understand what it was I was trying to do, and as the magazine became
more successful,
then they became very supportive.
Yeah.
Tell me about the first woman to appear nude in here.
Well, the very first playmate, but in the very beginning, for the first year,
the playmates
were calendar pictures.
The very first one was Marilyn Monroe.
And there was all, but wasn't there also one of your employees working?
In the second year, our subscription fulfillment, our lady in charge of
subscription fulfillment
was named Janet Pilgrim, and she agreed in return for a piece of subscription
fulfillment equipment
to pose in the magazine, and that was quite literally...
Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
That was the beginning of the girl next door.
You approached this woman, where was this, back in Chicago?
Yes.
And probably a very nice woman from a nice Midwestern upbringing.
Yes.
You said, you take off your clothes, we'll give you a mimeograph machine or
something like
that?
In effect.
A postage meter or something like that?
Yes.
Well, she was, she believed in the magazine.
She was supportive of what we were trying to do.
Do you stay in touch, is this woman still with the company now?
The woman is no longer with the magazine, but remains a very close friend.
You stay in touch.
She's been married for some years and has a couple of grown children.
It must be exciting for her to know that she was part of the beginning of this,
huh?
Yes, she is.
And you still select the play?
Yes.
Yeah.
Now, how do you do that?
What's the process there?
Well, the first stage is to go through the photo department.
They do test photographs.
I'll do a little of that right now, Hugh, while you're...
We have people like you out there all over the country looking for beautiful
women.
Do you take unsolicited photographs?
Oh, yes.
Sure.
So anybody who's shooting pictures can send them to your company?
Yes, yes.
And then you look through them?
Well, the photo department looks through them initially, then test photos are
shot.
Then in a photo meeting, I go through the best of what the photo department is
like.
Do you meet the women?
In some instances, not all instances.
Have you met this one?
Who is this?
This is somebody, La Vasquez.
Yes, because she was shot out here on the West Coast.
What's her first name?
I don't want to make...
I can't read her handwriting.
Denon, Renee, Vesquare, whatever.
Do you know what her likes and dislikes are in her turn-ons and turn-offs?
I don't remember her likes and dislikes.
All right, Hugh, let's update you on her.
All right.
She's...
Oh, she's...
How old is she?
She's not 34.
No, that's something else.
I can't find...
I can't make heads or tails out of this.
I know it's a poor choice of words, but...
Stop it.
I'll clear the hall.
Wait a minute.
Her turn-ons...
Shopping, candles, honesty.
Bubble baths, strawberries, and champagne.
Her turn-offs...
Smoking, cooed people.
I don't know what the cooed people are.
Oh, rude, rude, rude people.
Rude people.
Paying bills, cheapies.
Getting up early, judgmental people, and hussy-a-goos.
What the hell is that?
Hussy-a-goos?
No, that's a busy airport, so...
Oh, okay.
Handwriting is terrible.
We've got to do another commercial.
We'll be back with Hugh Hefner.
Thank you.
Hugh, I want to get her name right there.
She's a lovely woman.
Her name is Devin DeVasquez, and she's from New Orleans.
Here she is on the streets of New Orleans.
There she is in a restaurant.
Here she is standing up nude in a rowboat.
Hugh, nice meeting you.
Thank you very much.
I'm sorry we ran out of time for Carol Pratt.
He said he was going to show us sound effects.
We'll have him back at the earliest opportunity.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
Thank you very much.
Thanks, Hugh.
Very nice.
It was nice to be here.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
Dave, Dave, Dave, Dave, wake up.
You dozed off there for a minute.
Boy, oh boy, it seemed so real.
Although, I guess it was only a dream.
Or was it?

Hugh Hefner on Letterman, May 15, 1985

Thank you.
In 1953, with a few dollars, this man borrowed from his parents.
He started a magazine called Playboy.
His lifestyle, his philosophy, and his business are often the targets of
controversy, but fascinating nonetheless.
He is also the man that has kept the pajama industry in business.
Please welcome Hugh Hefner.
He's good to see you. Thank you for being here, sir.
How are you doing?
Very well.
Thank you for your time.
Now, explain to me about the pajamas.
Do you actually still wear pajamas out in public?
Do you wear them at all?
Well, I wear them most of the time, but not when I'm going to tell him to show.
Now, why do you wear them most of the time?
They're very comfortable.
I think I got in the habit of working at home and wearing pajamas.
And it really wasn't a contemplated, you know, promotional thing.
It was just very comfortable.
And you actually still enjoy them?
Yes.
But after a while, doesn't it have kind of a debilitating psychological effect
on you, like you've had the flu all your life or something?
Ooh, I just...
That's not really the connotation that I get from them at all.
It's a very pleasant experience for you.
Yes, yes.
Now, you mentioned your home, and certainly one of the things in Southern
California that people are always talking about,
you see it on television all the time, you see it, you hear about it and read
about it in newspapers and so forth,
you see it in the magazine, is your home.
Tell me about the mansion.
Now, who lives there?
Is it a lot of folks?
Is it you?
Do you actually live there?
Yes, I live there, yes.
How big is it?
How many rooms are we talking about?
Well, it's about...
It's not an unusually large home.
It has about five and a half acres.
It's in Homeby Hills, which is adjacent to Beverly Hills.
And it is about a block from Sunset Boulevard, but it seems very much like an
English estate.
And it's...
Now, who's there with you?
Well, it depends on the occasion.
All right, now, so...
When you left there this afternoon, who was there?
Well, a number of friends were...
A number of friends were sunbathing around the pool.
Male and female friends?
Male and female.
And they, as a matter of fact, came out into the area in front of the house
with a flower lathe to lay on me.
Because they knew I was coming out to do the show.
They wish you good luck.
They presented you with the flowers.
Everybody's rather excited about your being here, you know?
Well, you know, we're very excited about it.
I would like to get it on the record that I don't do these kind of shows very
often, and I'm here because I'm a fan.
Well, that's very nice of you.
Whatever that says.
Now, let's go back to the mansion for a second.
Right now?
No, no, not right now.
But you have a lot of parties there, don't you?
Yes.
Now, who gets invited to the parties?
Friends.
Now, do you ever have any trouble with somebody getting rowdy?
Well, occasionally, but not often.
And what do you do with them?
Well, we calm them down, and if they get too rowdy, well, we escort them out.
And are they ever invited back?
It depends on how rowdy they are.
And how rowdy is the rowdiest behavior you've witnessed?
I don't know.
That would be a little difficult to answer.
Sometimes we catch them coming over the fence.
Oh, they're sneaking into that situation.
And then, of course, they're taken out back and beaten up.
Yes, we help them.
We help them back over the fence.
Can you give us a name of somebody who tends to be more trouble than somebody
else?
No.
No.
I don't tend to keep that list.
Now, you always hear James Caan spends a lot of time there.
Jim Caan is a most strong gentleman.
Now, he's got to be trouble, right?
No, no.
Wilt Chamberlain is there a lot, isn't he?
Wilt is there a lot.
And is he an easygoing guy?
He is very easygoing.
Yeah.
Jim Brown is there a lot, and he's very easygoing.
Who is?
Jim Brown.
Jim Brown.
Well, he has, you know, he has some trouble on and off.
Well, you see, that's one of the things that happens, one of the very nice
things that happens
at the mansion is that everybody kind of mellows out.
It really is.
It has developed a reputation as being kind of a Shangri-La, a sort of escape
from the jungle
that's out there.
Yeah.
And people are, by and large, in their best behavior when they're at the
mansion.
Now, is it just unbelievable wild sex all night long?
But, you know, that's what people think it is.
That's what I think it is.
We take time off from the wild sex to watch your show.
Oh, stop it, stop it, stop it.
But is it, in my wildest imagination, would the reality be more or less than
what I think
it is?
That depends on your imagination.
Well, you know, my image of the place is you go in the door and you have to
watch where
you step because there's people everywhere.
You know what I'm saying?
No, it's not like that.
It's not like that.
It's very selective.
Yeah, okay.
Are there women there all the time?
Well, I have a full-time girlfriend and a relationship that I've been in, a
very happy
one for about the last...
How old is your girlfriend?
21.
And how old are you?
I am 59.
Have you ever gone out with a 59-year-old woman?
No.
My mother...
Now, see, a lot of people think that you, a man nearly 60, and you look
terrific for a
guy 60, but, you know, would you ever consider...
There may be a causal connection.
But would you ever go...
Well, perhaps.
Perhaps.
Look into that, and I guess you have.
Yeah.
But what about somebody 50?
Would you go out with a woman 50?
Well, probably not romantically, but...
Really?
You don't think so?
Well, I mean, it is conceivable.
All right.
Anything is conceivable.
How many women have you dated in your adult life, do you suppose?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I have been in...
I am a very romantic fellow, so I tend to get involved in rather serious
relationships.
I tend to last...
They last two, three years or something like that?
Yeah, well, sometimes, you know, five, six, eight.
Now, what's the oldest woman you've gone out with?
In terms of age?
Yeah.
Romantically?
Well, I...
I don't know.
I don't know what romantic age means.
What do you...
Well, I mean, you're talking about somebody that I've gone out with...
Yeah, how...
Romantically.
You know, in a...
Yeah.
Yeah.
You don't know.
You don't know.
I don't...
I don't...
Among other things, I don't tend to go out a whole lot.
No, of course, you're right there in...
That's right.
Right there in the middle of it.
You're knee-deep in it over there.
Now, I'm just being silly, but, you know, I think a lot of women might be
offended that
a guy, a wealthy man who has shaped the morals and the mores of this society
would not find
himself going out with a woman closer to his own age.
I would like to suggest that there are lots of limitations that our society
places on romantic
relationships that don't make a lot of sense, and age is one of them, whether
it's an older
man with a younger woman or vice versa.
I don't think that age makes a lot of difference.
But it's really hard to imagine you going out with an older woman.
Well, I guess that's why I date younger women.
I don't know.
I think I've made way too much of this.
What are we doing?
We have to do a commercial, and we'll come back and be less silly if that's
possible.
Well, let's talk about the magazine.
Yeah, Bart, how much from your folks to start the magazine?
I borrowed $600 of my own money and about $6,000 from various friends and
relatives, including
my mother.
And some of your folks, yeah.
Now, did they know the kind of magazine you were going to publish?
Vaguely.
Yeah.
Quite literally.
In other words, my folks are strong Protestants, and they had mixed emotions
when I began.
Yeah.
And how mixed were the emotions, was it?
Well, they were supportive of their son, who believed in what he was doing, and
as they
began to understand what it was I was trying to do, and as the magazine became
more successful,
then they became very supportive.
Yeah.
Tell me about the first woman to appear nude in here.
Well, the very first playmate, but in the very beginning, for the first year,
the playmates
were calendar pictures.
The very first one was Marilyn Monroe.
And there was all, but wasn't there also one of your employees working?
In the second year, our subscription fulfillment, our lady in charge of
subscription fulfillment
was named Janet Pilgrim, and she agreed in return for a piece of subscription
fulfillment equipment
to pose in the magazine, and that was quite literally...
Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
That was the beginning of the girl next door.
You approached this woman, where was this, back in Chicago?
Yes.
And probably a very nice woman from a nice Midwestern upbringing.
Yes.
You said, you take off your clothes, we'll give you a mimeograph machine or
something like
that?
In effect.
A postage meter or something like that?
Yes.
Well, she was, she believed in the magazine.
She was supportive of what we were trying to do.
Do you stay in touch, is this woman still with the company now?
The woman is no longer with the magazine, but remains a very close friend.
You stay in touch.
She's been married for some years and has a couple of grown children.
It must be exciting for her to know that she was part of the beginning of this,
huh?
Yes, she is.
And you still select the play?
Yes.
Yeah.
Now, how do you do that?
What's the process there?
Well, the first stage is to go through the photo department.
They do test photographs.
I'll do a little of that right now, Hugh, while you're...
We have people like you out there all over the country looking for beautiful
women.
Do you take unsolicited photographs?
Oh, yes.
Sure.
So anybody who's shooting pictures can send them to your company?
Yes, yes.
And then you look through them?
Well, the photo department looks through them initially, then test photos are
shot.
Then in a photo meeting, I go through the best of what the photo department is
like.
Do you meet the women?
In some instances, not all instances.
Have you met this one?
Who is this?
This is somebody, La Vasquez.
Yes, because she was shot out here on the West Coast.
What's her first name?
I don't want to make...
I can't read her handwriting.
Denon, Renee, Vesquare, whatever.
Do you know what her likes and dislikes are in her turn-ons and turn-offs?
I don't remember her likes and dislikes.
All right, Hugh, let's update you on her.
All right.
She's...
Oh, she's...
How old is she?
She's not 34.
No, that's something else.
I can't find...
I can't make heads or tails out of this.
I know it's a poor choice of words, but...
Stop it.
I'll clear the hall.
Wait a minute.
Her turn-ons...
Shopping, candles, honesty.
Bubble baths, strawberries, and champagne.
Her turn-offs...
Smoking, cooed people.
I don't know what the cooed people are.
Oh, rude, rude, rude people.
Rude people.
Paying bills, cheapies.
Getting up early, judgmental people, and hussy-a-goos.
What the hell is that?
Hussy-a-goos?
No, that's a busy airport, so...
Oh, okay.
Handwriting is terrible.
We've got to do another commercial.
We'll be back with Hugh Hefner.
Thank you.
Hugh, I want to get her name right there.
She's a lovely woman.
Her name is Devin DeVasquez, and she's from New Orleans.
Here she is on the streets of New Orleans.
There she is in a restaurant.
Here she is standing up nude in a rowboat.
Hugh, nice meeting you.
Thank you very much.
I'm sorry we ran out of time for Carol Pratt.
He said he was going to show us sound effects.
We'll have him back at the earliest opportunity.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
Thank you very much.
Thanks, Hugh.
Very nice.
It was nice to be here.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you tomorrow, next week.
We'll see you t