My Adventures as the Playboy Advisor

My Adventures as
The Playboy Advisor

by Michael Dare

    KROQ was an FM station out of Pasadena with an actual broadcast license, which meant they had to deliver a certain amount of public service, something they demand of all licensed stations, which is actually the only reason most stations give you ANY news. Far be it from the demented minds at KROQ to present just ANY public service. They had a history of letting gangs of comedians do the news, including The Firesign Theater, The Credibility Gap, and The Three Guys from Hollywood.
   The Three Guys from Hollywood consisted of whatever three of a motley gang of comedians and songwriters happened to show up first. Could be any combination of Robert Roll, Richard Goldman, Richard Rollins, Bill Martin, myself, or a half-dozen others. If you showed up and there were already Three guys, you became the Fourth guy, which was pretty much the same as being one the Three guys.
    How KROQ managed to use our mad material to justify their license I'll never know, but nevertheless we would spend each and every Sunday playing with all the toys available to us at the station, creating dozens of short comedy bits based upon the news that the station would play throughout the week.

    Bill Martin, who wrote the movie Harry and the Hendersons, was a madman of many voices who did a great Walter Cronkite. I learned to do a great imitation of his imitation, so we became pals, doing dueling Cronkites.
    Once Bill and I were out to dinner when he saw something he thought was disgusting being served to a table next to ours. He got up, walked to their table, stared at the plate, and in his best Richard Dreyfuss said "This was no boating accident!" Then he came back and sat down, oblivious to whether the people at the table recognized an obscure line from Jaws and how it applied to their meal.
   Bill called one day and told me there was an acting job he got that started out union then switched to non-union. Since he was union, he couldn't do it. They asked him if he could recommend anyone non-union to take his place. Since he auditioned with his Cronkite voice, he thought of me. Would it be okay if he gave them my name? Sure it was. Who was it? The Playboy Channel.
    They called the next day, I did my voice, and I got the gig.
    I showed up at a soundstage, they put me in a silk dressing gown and ascot, gave me a glass of wine, put me in bed with a beautiful naked woman, and had me read letters from teenagers and give them bad advice. I wasn't REALLY the Playboy advisor, just an actor reading a script from Bill Martin in which I gave deliberately bad advise. This was way back when The Playboy Channel was trying to emulate the magazine by including things like cartoons and, well, the Playboy Adviser, and it had been decided that the "Playboy Advisor" segment of the Playboy Channel would be a goof instead of offering real advise.
    It didn't last long. I only shot two and it was gone. Apparently it wasted too much time that could be filled by naked women without smartasses in bed with them.
    The great thing about this experience was that it gave me one of the greatest pick-up lines of all time.
    Weeks later, I was shopping at Mayfair and there was this stunningly beautiful woman shopping in my aisle. I recognized her from somewhere but I just couldn't place her. Living in West Hollywood, you constantly see faces you recognize from TV and film, and it's often hard to tell if you've actually met someone or just seen their work. Still, she was something to see, so I kept looking until it finally occurred to me. She was one of the Playmates who had shot with me.
    I couldn't help myself. I walked right up to her and said "Didn't I go to bed with you?"