"Playpen Magazine"?

Combination of Playboy and Penthouse= PlayPen

B

I don't know if it's the same prop, but I remember the Playpen title in a few movies. It's probably just one of those things that the producers don't want to get sued from Playboy or Penthouse for using their name, so someone created a hybrid name.

I've seen others like the word "cola" written accross a pepsi can.

Didn't they actually use the name "Big 'uns" in Married With Children?

Big'uns was the title they used and stuck with later in the seasons. Very early and a few late seasons they used playpen.

In addition to all the crap they actually own, the studios also rent a fair number of their props, costumes and furniture items for movies and TV - both from rental houses around Hollywood and from one another. That's why you'll often see the same SF props and electronic set elelments in shows and movies from different studios. If somebody has a good mock-up of a phony skin mag that you need as a piece of set dressing, why re-invent the wheel and make one yourself from scratch? Just rent the one you've already seen.

Regards,

Joe

This is similar to Morley cigarettes. I’m pretty sure they got there start in X-Files and I’ve seen them in a few other random places.

Ever notice the generic gum ad on the back cover of prop magazines too?

I think I've seen Playpen as far back as the 60's and 70's (I think I spotted it in a Three's Company episode (maybe even a Partridge Family episode).

Big-uns was used the entire run of Married with children, the running joke with it was that they used the exact same magazine in every episode that it was mentioned, I think it was a playboy they pasted a fake cover over, the front picture was always the same

Re: "Playpen Magazine"?

Actually playpen magazine ts not fake. I was hunting images to see if they were all the same, and turns out it is a real mag. Playpen Magazine BackIssues Archived Back Issues for Collectors

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I love catching stuff like this in television shows. The soda cans in the big bang theory have funny names as well. Seinfeld use to do the same with random items at the coffee shop.

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That actual Playpen magazine has nothing to do with the "Plabyboy" knock-off props, which have been used in TV shows and movies since well before 1986. (The real mag seems to have gone out of business, BTW. That one ad for that single used issue is the only reference I've been able to find to the magazine. Clearly it was not the inspiration for the TV/movie props. More likely those gave the publisher the idea for the name.)

Notice the font used on the old mag is not the same as the "Playboy" font invariably used on "Playpen" issues seen in TV and movies.) Just the other night I saw a episode of some cop show - maybe NCIS? - where someone finds a box of stuff hidden under a kid's bed. Right on top are a couple of issues of "Playpen". (One with a brunette, if memory serves.) Right underneath the magazines is a gun, so the story then goes off in a different direction, sad to say.

Regards,

Joe

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That was NCIS!

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Here we go- found this in "Child's Play 3":

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After reading this thread I noticed it in the first episode of East Bound and Down on HBO.

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I was just about to say the same thing..

Re: "Playpen Magazine"?

Hi there,

No Playpen is not some kind of insider thing that film industry people are making references to other shows. I work in the film industry and Playpen magazine is a "cleared" magazine from a place where film/tv decorators and propsmen go to buy products for use in a TV or film production.

The term "cleared" means that it is a fictional product that doesn't exist and therefore can be used for these purposes (real products have to be released to a production by whomever the owner of the trademark is. If we don't have time to get that release or the real company won't give us permission to use their product or the production company (Paramount, Lionsgate etc) won't allow the production to use real products, we will use a fake).

The name of the company is Earl Hays and whenever a production can't use a real product they can buy a fake at Earl Hays and that is why you see Playpen over and over again!! Everyone uses Earl Hays stuff....even in commercials! See link below.

In terms of the names of fake products that you see in TV shows and films they are not used to make the audience laugh or make reference to other shows. They are used for legal reasons. Productions cannot just use whatever product they want without permission from the trademark or copyright holder therefore we make up fake names and sometimes the person who makes them up can have a little fun!

Hope that helps solve the mystery!!

MAGAZINES

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Can anyone buy from this store? I would like to buy a few of the "Beer" bottles and put them in my movie room.

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To heck with Playpen, where can I get me a copy of Big'Uns???

Re: "Playpen Magazine"?

Cool! I've just ordered subscriptions to: "Latina Wedding", "Stroller World", "CompUMouse", "Backside", "Sports Limited", & "Celebrity Doggies".

from Van Wilder: Freshman Year

The Earl Hays Press created Playpen as a series of movie props, along with dozens of other fake magazines, books, beers and other products.

 

Scroll about halfway down on this site: http://www.theearlhayspress.com/id1.html

 

 

I've never understood why they need anyone's permission to use a physical object that is freely available for sale, especially if they aren't disparaging the product. I thought they used fake products to avoid giving free advertising to paid products.

 

What exactly would the charge be if they did it without permission and the company objected?

 

Wouldn't the magazine want the free publicity?

 

This makes me wonder about the whole product placement issue.

Now that we're in the 21st Century they should update the name to PlayPal.

 

I must say I agree.  It gets even more bizarre when dealing with non-scripted shows, e.g interviews on the street or with celebs, or "reality TV"; even paintings in the background of, say a hotel room where an interview is taking place, gets pixellated out, or the logo or slogan on the T-shirt of a passer-by being interviewed.

 

In some respects I can understand not wanting to give free publicity, but sometimes it gets ridiculous, e.g. the Audi 4-ring logo is blocked out, when it's blindingly obvious that the car being driven is an R8 and it can't be anything else.  But if not giving free publicity is the reason, it strikes me as being a bit petty.  And is it really cost-effective to have some tech go over all your footage pixellating the logo? 

 

 

Because things are covered by copyright and trademark and may only be licensed for certain uses.  Even things like cover photographs my be license by the photographer to a magazine solely for that use, with the photographer retaining all other rights.  And if Ford is helping to sponsor a show, or is paying to have its cars featured in a show, it won't want Audi's logo showing up.  Sometimes shows do it to avoid running into problems when they air in other markets where there a given station may have a promotional agreement with a competing product. 

 

Regards,

 

Joe

I was watching a cooking show on Food Network the other day, Sandra's Money-Saving Meals, and they had blurred out the graphics on the host's T-shirt for the entire show. It must have cost them a pretty penny to essentially CGI the entire show (though apparently it was less than shooting the whole thing again from scratch). Hard to believe no one on the production team caught it before the episode taped if it was going to be a that big a problem.

 

Thing is, wouldn't a random appearance on a TV show be covered by fair-use laws?  It's not as if the TV show is literally copying the magazine, or the cover photograph, for the purpose of selling the program.  Or for that matter, say a case of a reporter interviewing someone who happens to be wearing a Nike shirt, why the need to block the Swoosh logo?  I'm pretty certain Nike would have no problem with it, free publicity after all.

 

As for a Ford-sponsored show blocking Audi's logo, fair enough, that makes perfect commercial sense.  But one then wonders why they don't take more effort to avoid having competing logos show up in the first place; on the other hand, is the tech now so advanced and so good now that it's relatively cheap to pixellate something even for an entire show?
 

Yes, the pixelating tech is cheap and easy.  Mark a section of an object and the software can follow it with relative ease.  It is hardly "CGI".  And there can be reasons other than advertising for blocking a logo.  In the Food Network case, maybe it was a slogan that seemed innocuous to the production crew, but which the lawyers decided might offend somebody, so they blocked it out.  There's currently a commercial for a new disposable diaper from Huggies that looks like denim shorts.  The tag line is "the best you'll look pooping your pants".  Some stations are running an alternate version of the ad with a different tagline because they think some of their viewers would object.  Different strokes for different folks, I guess. 

 

Or maybe Sara was wearing a t-shirt from a brand that was a sponsor when they shot they episode, but which had since dropped out. 

 

Finally, you're assuming they were pixelating a logo of some sort.  Maybe it was just cold in the studio that day and the S&P folks got  nervous. 

 

 

 

 

Not necessarily.  

 

 

 

News reporting, yeah, other uses, no.

 

Also don't forget that things like the Nike "swoosh" aren't copyrighted, they're trademarked - and trademark law is a whole different animal. 

 

Finally it isn't always the trademark/copyright holder who has the issue.  Sometimes the station or network just decides it doesn't feel like providing free publicity for brand "x" when it is in the business of charging for advertising.  If brand "x" wants to get its logo in front of WXYZ's viewers, it can pay like everybody else. 

 

Regards,

 

Joe