10 TV Shows Boycotted For Ridiculous Reasons
9. The Playboy Club Had Scantily Clad Women
NBC’s The Playboy Club was meant to capitalize on the Mad Men hype of the time and the Playboy brand. A brand that literally is about sex and attractive women wearing little-to-no clothing. So the only surprising thing about The Playboy Club being boycotted is that people were surprised by what The Playboy Club was. Did they think it was going to be a show about sunshine and bunny rabbits? Well, real bunny rabbits?
The boycott of The Playboy Club was for the exact reasons you’d think. It depicted scantily clad women and showed the 1960s as they were, with female objectification and not a whole lot of political correctness.
Ultimately, when the ratings for the show’s first episode came out and weren’t that great, groups who called for the boycott - including former Playboy bunnies who worked at the Playboy Club - cited their success and the fact that no wholesome American wanted to watch such smut. What they didn’t admit is that maybe the show tanked because it simply wasn’t very good.
Regardless, by the time the second episode aired, the boycott - which had spread to well-known figures such as Gloria Steinem publicly calling for the show's cancellation in the press - resulted in seven large companies pulling their ads from the show. By then NBC really had no choice but to cave to pressure and cancel the series for good, which they ended up doing the next week.