** STEPHANIE SWIFT STORY CONTINUES:
Fast-forward a little over a year and Stephanie wants to appear on yet another Playboy TV show called Strip Search. This was a show that shot in various cities across the country (well, and one in Canada), and we basically brought in four “features” from L.A. to “entertain” with the house dancers. Everybody got to see a few of their television (and movie, but Playboy never really talks about that) favorites along with a whole bunch of new naked women. And that basically makes for dandy fun all the way around, right?
Well, somewhere along the line, Steph had irritated one of the (new) honchos of Strip Search, and he didn’t want her to be on the show. But the next installment was set for San Diego, and Stephanie happens to be from San Diego, and she really wanted to do the show. Understanding our proper place, we jumped immediately to the Company Line and explained to Ms. Swift that these were important decisions made by important people, and as good little troopers ours was but to cheerfully comply and believe deeply in the benevolence and wisdom of all Playboy TV Producers.
OK. That’s a lie. … We called the President of the network on Stephanie’s behalf.
(Now in case you don’t remember, Night Calls was on twice a month (not counting “specials” of various sorts), and it had continued its amazing popularity, and so the company had finally tired of bothering us about guest stars. Yeah, well …)
"I’ll trade you,” the benevolent President offered.
"OK,” came our naive response.
"Devinn Lane,” he then said simply.
Dang. Have you ever noticed how even the simplest sentences can whack you upside the head? Well, in the interests of at least the illusion of brevity here, we’ll let you know what happened at the end. Stephanie went to San Diego to shoot Strip Search; Devinn came on Night Calls. Stephanie was a big hit, and they played the episode over and over again. And they cancelled 7Lives before the next season. It was all probably a coincidence. Or else we’ve always been very good judges of talent. (It depends on whom you ask. Imagine.)
Oh, and the President was eventually “released from his contract” because he insisted that Playboy TV fans actually DO watch hard core material too, and he thought the network(s) needed to adapt to that reality. He took his settlient and opened a couple of fancy gift shops up outside of Pasadena … and now he’s one of the biggest web clients that we have. … Odd how life turns out.
