- Having a "Play" prefix added to it.
- Sometimes having a Playboy Bunny or something else like it.
- Publishing and allowing submissions of content like nude photos and sexual content.
- A character hiding it in a Porn Stash.
- A character insisting that they read it for the articles.
- The creator being a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of Hugh Hefner.
Interestingly, the most common Parody Name for this is Playpen magazine, likely due to media which were unable to acquire the rights splicing together the names of Playboy and fellow competitor Penthouse together. Possibly becoming a Forgotten Trope, due to a general move towards the internet for sexual content. Indeed, the magazine closed down in 2020 after years of declining sales (the brand continues to operate through their website).
A Sub-Trope of Bland-Name Product.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Comic Books
- Batgirl (Rebirth): Issue 25 features Menagerie, which Mad Hatter associate March Harriet worked for as a thinly-disguised Playboy bunny. She eventually discovered that her boss (a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of Hugh Hefner) was marketing stolen Hatter tech. When explaining why he would even have a tech launch, she notes that "Some people do read Menagerie for the articles".
- Bigfoot & Gray on the Run: In his introduction, Gray reads a magazine titled "Grayboy Magazine", which features alien-oriented fanservice.
Comic Strips
- The Far Side: One comic had "Playsnake", which a couple of snakes were shown to read. Evidently, it had a centerfold that has to be unfolded five or six times to show the snake-of-the-month's full portrait.
Fan Works
- A throwaway gag in Harry Potter fanfic Make A Wish
has Moody "find" a code in one of Mr Black's messages that Dumbledore goes on to identify as the measurements of that month's "Playwizard" centerfold. He claims that he reads it for the articles but is stumped when questioned on those articles.
Films — Animation
- Animalympics: Professional figure skater Dorrie Turnell (a flamingo) is shown on the cover of multiple magazines including "Playbird" while dressed as a Playboy Bunny.
- Cars: When the press is covering Lightning McQueen's arrival at the Los Angeles International Speedway, one of the questions asked is "Is it true he's going to pose for Cargirl?"
Films — Live-Action
- Howard the Duck: In Howard's world of anthropomorphic ducks, a magazine called Playduck is shown to exist.
- Live a Little, Love a Little: Elvis Presley's character gets a job as a photographer in a magazine which prides itself on its naughty pictures of women in various states of undress. The secretaries dress up in Playboy Bunny-like outfits, except they're cat-themed, and the boss is a laid-back Hugh Hefner-esque type.
Literature
- In the world of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy there is the magazine Playbeing. It's described as being equal parts galactic politics, rock music, and gynecology.
Live-Action TV
- 3rd Rock from the Sun has "Playpen" magazine, which Officer Don has a Porn Stash of. His girlfriend Sally considers posing to it, leading to him replacing his lifetime subscription in favor of a year-by-year one in response.
- The Brittas Empire: In "Biggles Tells a Lie", Gavin comes across a dirty magazine named "Plaything". Hilarity Ensues when the magazine turns out to contain a naughty photo of Helen Brittas, which she tries to hide from her husband.
- Columbo: One episode featured "Bachelor's World", which was a riff on Playboy. It's depicted as a men's magazine featuring monthly pictorials of naked ladies, its owner lives in a huge mansion along with many of those naked ladies, and the magazine isn't that profitable due to the owner's lavish lifestyle (something which was true of Hefner back in the day).
- The Dick Van Dyke Show: In "The Man From Emperor", Emperor magazine is clearly meant to evoke Playboy. It's a famous "girlie" publication that also runs other things (if Rob being hired as a joke writer is any indication). The magnate behind it, Drew Patton, surrounds himself with beautiful women and claims men get secondhand kicks out of his lifestyle.
- Kyle XY: Josh has a stash of "Playpen" magazine, which he keeps a stash of in a Ouija board box. He ends up lending one to Kyle so that he can avoid a Raging Stiffie.
- Married... with Children has the Playboy Captain Ersatz "Big Uns".
- Monk has an episode involving the founder of "Sapphire" magazine. The episode title? "Mr. Monk Meets the Playboy".
- On NCIS, Tony DiNozzo has a subscription to "Get Some Magazine", or GSM, which is occasionally compared to Playboy.
- In The Partridge Family, occasionally there'd be an issue of "Playpen" magazine. Danny would try to sneak a peek, and the younger kids accidentally looked at it at least once.
- In one episode of Pee-wee's Playhouse, Conky asked for a copy of Playrobot magazine.
- Strike: In the original novel Troubled Blood, Margot and her friend Oonagh Kennedy were Playboy Bunnies together back in the '70s. In the season of the show that adapts that novel, Margot and Oonagh work at some generic cat-themed restaurant. They were what's basically the Playboy Bunny corset but with cat ears and a cat tail instead of the Playboy Bunny cottontail.
- In one You Can't Do That on Television sketch, Valerie found Chris' stash of Playtoy magazines.
Magazine
- One issue of Playboy has a parody of their magazine, tailored for the Soviet Union, published during the Cold War. The name is meant to be "PLAYBOY" but spelled with Cyrillic characters, which results in the parody being called "R_DUVOU." The centerfold is a picture of a tractor, and an interview with dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has 98% of the text redacted.
Tabletop Games
- Munchkin: The card art for "Sneaky Bastard Sword" shows an adventurer creeping up behind a monster who is reading a magazine entitled "Playtroll", while wielding the titular weapon.
Video Games
- GAG: The Impotent Mystery has flies as an Arc Symbol: the main character lives in an apartment on Fly Street, he has a jar of Spanish flies on his table, and reads an erotic magazine called Flyboy.
- Wizards Castle is a Roguelike dungeon crawler game that has books scattered across eight dungeon levels, three books per level. Some books can increase the player's strength or dexterity, some can cause blindness, and some are stated to be "an old copy of Playelf / Playdwarf / Playhobbit," depending on the player's chosen race during play.
Webcomics
- The Order of the Stick: After the Order slay a black dragon and claim ownership of his Dragon Hoard, they find copies of "Playdrake" magazine at the bottom of the hoard and conclude he must have been a young adult male.
Western Animation
- Eek! The Cat: In "It's A Very Merry Eek's Mas" Elmo the Elk can be seen reading "Play Doe".
- Family Guy: In "Running Mates", Peter gives Chris some pornographic magazines to look at instead of girls, with the pornographic magazines being called "Playpen" magazine.
- Rocko's Modern Life: In "Carnival Knowledge", Slippy the Slug can be seen reading a "Playslug" magazine as he operates the carousel.
- The Simpsons: One of the fictional brands in the series is "Playdude" magazine, which serves as the stand-in for Playboy magazine. "All's Fair in Oven War" had Marge find Homer's collection of vintage "Playdude" magazines, with Homer claiming that he's keeping for the articles. He throws them out however after Marge tests this theory by cutting out all of the pictures of naked women. Meanwhile, in an earlier episode, Bart was told by Sherry Bobbins that if she caught him reading "Playdude", she would make him read ALL of the articles.
- Tiny Toon Adventures: One episode has Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig, as faculty of Acme Looniversity, sitting as judges for the students animated films, a duty each of them hates. At one point, Bugs notices Daffy reading a "Playduck" magazine instead of paying attention and snatches it away. Then he starts reading it himself.
