Young Hollywood legend Brett Ratner is certainly a man who wears many hats. Director, author, host, boyfriend and friend to all of show business. So surely when you hire the great Ratner to direct your TV commercial, you understand that you don't get all of Brett Ratner.

The folks at Slashfilm have dug up a couple critical pieces of Ratnerology. First they discovered the newly released Playboy-themed Guitar Hero commercial:

A masterpiece of the Guitar Hero/Risky Business re-staging genre to be sure.

Thinking no doubt of future generations whose historians who will win doctorates studying this landmark piece of advertising, the Guitar Hero team has also placed online a series of outtakes from the ad, providing some glimpses into the artistry of Brett Ratner.

Most striking of all, as Slashfilm notes, is the moment which occurs 57 seconds into the video, where, as the camera rolls and the Playmate Guitar Army marches past him, Ratner appears to be sitting in his director's chair talking on a cell phone. As Playmates cluster around, he lowers the phone, gives them an annoyed look and issues some sort of very important directorial command, no doubt asking the to take their little TV commercial somewhere else while he's on a very important call. The faces of the Playmates, surely awed by his power telephoning, are not visible.

Later in the clips, Ratner turns his attention to the shoot for a moment and see more clearly what makes the director of Rush Hour 3 a giant of our age when like De Mille descended he issues the order "Rock out girls!" calls "Action!" and after Hef croaks out the line, "I love variety," throws aloft his hands in victory, grinning broadly and declaring with all the accumulated wisdom of his years, "That was great."

And it was.

Yes, someone would: Hugh Hefner's main Girl Next Door, Holly Madison, who has finally tired of her post as Playboy's "Playmate Editor," an arduous gig that involved lip gloss selection and the expert Photoshopping of pubic hair mounds. Sadly, the thrill of such tasks is gone, says Madison on her Celebrity Myspace:

So it's out on the gossip sites that I quit my job at Playboy, which is true. I quit for several reasons: 1. I moved to Vegas and that job doesn't pay enough to make a commute worthwhile ( I never cared about the salary when I got the job-I made my money doing Girls Next Door and I just did the job because I loved it.) 2. After two years of it, I no longer found it challenging. It got to be routine, which was sad for me, since I was initially so passionate about the job and the creative aspects involved. 3. It was awkward. Not that anyone tried to make it awkward or didn't treat me fairly . . . it just was.

It annoys me when people call the job fake as if it was just a set up for the show. If I had wanted a fake career for Girls Next Door I would have stuck with the jewelry line because that required very little of my time. I spent way more than full time directing shoots, editing, making mock layouts and approving retouching.

So as you can imagine, when one is trying to move on with their life, it isn't beneficial to spend so much time on something that doesn't pay much and sadly enough is no longer rewarding to you.

Will Hef fill the hole (uh...we're letting that one go) with new paramours Kristina and Karissa Shannon, who will bring their unique talents of face-kicking and semi-incest to the ceremonial position? We hope so—there's no Playboy pictorial that couldn't be livened up with broken beer bottles, a concussion, and a bloody smock from Wing House.

• Annoying!!!! [Myspace]

Like a rebellious wild child turned much less fun football wife, Wilkinson is renouncing her former lifestyle ("Now I'm totally against [Hefner's] way of life") in a tell-all to Us Weekly. And what better way to do it then let the air out of the sexy, polygamous balloon by admitting that when she wanted to get laid, it wasn't with any of the magazine founders, fellow Girls, teenage sons, or strangely aggressive peacocks on the grounds of Hef's Holmby Hills estate?

"I had to have sex every now and then, so I had to kind of sneak it," Hugh Hefner's 23-year-old ex tells Us Weekly.

The buxom blonde says "of course" she and the Playboy founder were intimate, but notes she often only saw him once a day - in passing.

"Besides the nights we went out, I only saw Hef, like, once a day walking through the halls to his office. There were never solo dates," she said.

"The most we kind of say to each other is, 'I love you,' 'Love you too,' 'I hope you have a good day,' 'Did you have a good day?'" [...]

"Bridget told me that she's been faithful all these years, and I was like, 'How the hell can you do that?' I had to have [sex] so I could feel my age, like a healthy human being."

We're sad to learn of Wilkinson's unconscionable betrayal; after all, what could be sexier than retiring to Hef's four-poster bed at night (after a flinty Holly narrows her eyes in the bedroom hallway and growls, "Your turn") to find the 82-year-old Playboy founder splayed out in an uncomfortably hiked up kimono, tongue lolling? "Kendra, I want to put my hand on your breast," he would say, limply. "Will you lift my hand and do that?"

[Photo Credit: AP]

• Hugh Hefner's Playboy lifestyle isn't what it seems, says Kendra Wilkinson [NYDN]

In fact, it's only the pedigree elsewhere on the credit roll — Brian Grazer is producing, Robert Donwey Jr. is a front-runner to star — that seems to reassure Hefner in the face of a B-Rat incursion on his life story:

"It's going to be a very curious change of pace for him . . . but I believe in Brian," Hefner said. "The one thing I would want the film to be is something other than a light comedy, to have something to say and express something about the change in social sexual values. You know, Brian made a comment that I was the only man who had made love to over a thousand women and they all still liked him. And I do take some pride, in fact, that I remain friends with the majority of former wives and girlfriends. I am a romantic."

This can't be reassuring to Ratner, who would hate to have wasted his last year and a half of attempts to convince Hefner that he, too, is a romantic with male-slut sensitivity befitting his legendary subject. The law of averages suggests that the whole girl-ashamed-to-be-seen-with-the-Rat thing is bound to happen on occasion, just as eventually Ratner would have it in him to make a watchable, rewarding non-sequel. You're in good hands, Hef. Just keep an eye on them around the mansion.

• Playboy founder Hugh Hefner's first true love was movies [LAT]

We won't tell you exactly how we'd planned to bring it off (only that it involved Seth in a bathrobe, STV in booty shorts, and—in an eerie coincidence—proprietary "HUFF POST" watermarks), but we can guarantee it would have had higher production values than the Playboy founder's seemingly tossed-off card, the cover of which the Huffington Post has a copy of. Though twins Kristina and Karissa Shannon are present and randomly body-painted, there is a disappointing lack of either face-kicking or holiday blasphemy. With just a little more effort, we're certain a nativity scene could have been recreated where the Shannons nurse Hef in a manger, while the Three Wise Girls Next Door approach bearing gifts of silicone, cannabis, and little purple pills.

• Hef's Christmas Card: Bodypainted Twins (PHOTO) [HuffPo]

While giving Extra's Mario Lopez a tour of the Playboy Mansion, Hefner talked about his near-fatal sex toy swallowing in the late seventies (!), then moved on to more star-studded subjects:

As for other celebrities Hefner would like to pose for Playboy, he says, "Either Angelina Jolie or Scarlett Johansson," he says. Lopez brought along Jennifer Aniston's nearly nude GQ magazine cover to show Hefner who comments, "This looks like the cover of Playboy. I'm much impressed by Jennifer. Is it just me or is Jennifer Aniston getting hotter?...Never seen her in this light before."

A canny Aniston made sure to set John Mayer's DVR to record the quasi-endorsement, happy that her attempt to transform a press tour for a PG-rated dogcom into an elongated, NSFW public burlesque had gone exactly as hoped. Still, can the star keep her cache of black spray paint undiscovered until "The UNCOOL Case of Benjamin Button" gets its widest rollout?

• Hugh Hefner: "I Almost Swallowed A Sex Toy" [HuffPo]

Meet Marston (on the left) and Cooper (sitting) who have had their pleasure sensors dulled by growing up on the grounds of Hef's Holmby Hills estate, where their birthday cakes always had naked ladies inside and they were taught eighth grade algebra by a roaming peacock. The brothers tell their father's magazine how it's shaped their worldview:

"I'm not going to have multiple girlfriends — not at the same time," 18-year-old Marston Hefner says in the January issue of Playboy. "I can't imagine that."

His brother, 17-year-old Cooper Hefner, begs to differ.

"I can imagine doing that. I don't think it's an odd thing to do," he says. "You date around to try to find a connection with some girl." [...]

Cooper also says growing up in the Playboy mansion is overrated.

"They don’t get it when you say, 'There's nothing to do there,'" he says. "But when you live here and come here every single day, you see the same things.

"Anybody else would be like, 'Let's go see monkeys!' But I don't want to see monkeys," he goes on. "I'd rather go bowling than play with monkeys."

Hugh Hefner, Defamer is calling you out: you are a terrible, irresponsible parent. How dare you let your sons grow up in an environment that has robbed them of the fun and natural discovery every teenage boy eventually goes through. We are speaking, of course, of watching monkeys, imitating their monkey sounds, and encouraging monkeys to throw their feces at other monkeys. Marston and Cooper, you grew up too fast, and for that, we are truly sorry.

• Hugh Hefner's Sons Split on Having "Multiple Girlfriends" [Us]

In it, Hefner engages in a vigorous oral exploration of one of his guests (one of his bar-brawling twins?) while nearly smothering another couch-dweller to death (her sister?) in the process. According to the Oh No They Didn't contributor, whose friend is a Playboy model and took the photos, Hefner "'just grabs girls faces and kisses them, he's such a bitch' and 'he really is an old pervert' and that he smokes pot all the time and that 'all his girlfriends really do fuck him.'" Go, Hef!

Below is a group photo, in which one model's attempt at using her cleavage as a human billboard doesn't go quite as planned. Still, we encourage all forms of out-of-the-bustier commerce during these trying times.

• GROSS OLD MAN POST [Oh No They Didn't]

Holly Madison isn't the only Girl Next Door to find a new press-pleasing public relaysh. Our snoopy Seattle sources say GNDoor Kendra Wilkinson's BF, Philly Eagle hunk Hank Baskett, proposed to her atop the Space Needle this past weekend. Dreary Northwest weather, so romantic.

But it gets better:

Both fams were present for the proposal, and Ken-babe seemed completely shell-shocked at the revealed ring. H.B. even got down on one knee to pop the big q to the former Playmate.

Nearly readable, Ted — thanks! According to Us, Hef is fine with the development. "I have given her my blessing and will be giving her away at a very special wedding ceremony at the Playboy Mansion this coming June," he said. In lieu of wedding gifts, both bride and groom are asking that donations be made to the Young Playmate Panties Divestment Fund.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

• 
  Kendra Engaged to Hunky Eagle Hank [E!]

In a video interview conducted at the mansion's Halloween party (and out of sight from her publicist), a visibly tense Wilkinson interrupted one of the reporter's questions to state, "There will only be the original Girls Next Door. We built this show, and we worked our butts off to be here."

Then, gritting her teeth, she added, "These girls are coming here afterwards, which I have no problem with, [but] we've made this for them. I would appreciate it if they would be a little more thankful." When pressed further, though, a suddenly circumspect Wilkinson froze and said, "I don't know if I can open my mouth anymore... Shh. It's a secret!" What girl-on-girl rivalries might be existing behind the scenes at the Playboy Mansion? And, most pressingly, do they involve pillow fights? Developing!

• Hef Girls (New and Old) Party at Playboy Mansion [E!]

"We tried for me to get pregnant by in vitro fertilization, because it wasn't going to happen the old-fashioned way."

...While Holly says she "devoted 100 percent" of herself to the professional hedonist, she never quite got into the swing of his famed lifestyle.

"I'm not really into polygamy," she says. "That was never my thing. I think that's why I was looking to either have a kid or leave."

But the age difference between Holly and 82-year-old Hef proved to be the ultimate obstacle for the pair.

"When the IVF didn't work out after months of giving myself injections every day and feeling horrible, the clinic informed me it wasn't possible because he was too old," she says.

It's a shame those crazy kids couldn't make it work, as we would have loved to see Hef and Holly raise a bathrobe-clad brood given to questions like, "How did you and Mommy fall in love?" ("Well, Mommy was spread-eagle in a shower with Mommy 2 and Mommy 3..."). At the very least, Show and Tell would never have been the same.

• Holly Madison: 'Hef was too old for IVF' [Woman's Day]

Adams points out that Playboy magazine, with its "pictures of scantily clad, identikit blondes" (complete, if memory serves, with unnaturally round, high, shiny breasts, landing strip pubes, and weird occupational costumes), is now behind the times. Where once it interviewed Bob Dylan and Jean-Paul Sartre, it now lands such luminaries as Pete Wentz and Kevin Connolly. And at just 132 pages, it's a lightweight. Vogue could kick sand on it at the beach.

Attractive, much-younger women have long been willing to play by Hef's rules — including a 9 p.m. curfew, and monogamy for them but not for him — because of what former girlfriend Izabella St. James calls "the glamour and glitz and the attraction of Hef and this life in Hollywood." If the glitz fades, will Hugh still be able to fill his revolving bed? Will someone else (Dov Charney? Joe Francis?) rise up to fill his slippers? Or is his whole breed, the celebrity pornography-polygamist, now passe?

We hope so, but Joan Smith, writing in today's Guardian, fears otherwise. She sees The House Bunny, with its portrayals of a fatherly Hef and fun Bunny shopping sprees, as a sign that women have accepted "the bunny girl image" as something "benign, and even cool." Other evidence includes the Playboy logo on pencil cases, jewelry, and slippers. To girls who want to dress like Bunnies (like teenage Dodai!), Smith offers a reminder of Bunny life in the 60s. Women at Playboy clubs of that era had to conform to a variety of stringent male-imposed standards, like wearing the right shade of lipstick and spouting the right amount of small talk — all for very little pay. Young women may want to take up the mantle of Hef themselves — Female Chauvinist Pigs-style — but Smith warns that the Playboy magnate is little more than "an 82-year-old polygynist whose chief claim to fame is dressing up adult women as rabbits" and "young women shouldn't fall for it."

Is the party over for Playboy? [Independent]
The problem with Playboy [Guardian]

It seems that San Diego native Wilkinson still hasn't forgiven Brady for beating her beloved Chargers in the AFC championship, and she'd rather go naked (a simple proposition!) then wear the number of the noted Gisele diddler. Lucky for Wilkinson, then, that the Chargers won't be playing the Philadelphia Eagles, where her rumored secret fiance Hank Baskett is a wide receiver. Meanwhile, we await the sports affiliations of brand-new Girls Next Door Karissa and Kristina Shannon, though we do hear that the twins are no strangers to "unnecessary roughness." [E!]

A report today in The Guardian points out what we suspected since seeing Hef's long-form commercial in August: The old man cashed in, not only on the use of his brand but also while playing himself as a bereft mogul caught up in the conspiracy that expelled Anna Faris's upbeat Shelly from Eden in the first place. For an undisclosed sum, Hef lent Playboy, the mansion, his girlfriends and his pajamaed self to the producers; in exchange, the studio got the verisimilitude of an authentic break-up inside the 82-year-old's plush redoubt.

At least they thought it would be authentic; that centerfold bargaining chip probably won't be enough to entice Holly Madison back to his bed. But hey, close enough. Memo to studios: For a better bang for your buck, next time consult Defamer first. In terms of drama, brand and cheap nudity, trust us — we can swim grotto laps around Playboy.

• The Curious Case of 'The House Bunny'... [The Guardian]

When cops showed up, Kristina was lying on the ground outside their apartment "wearing only blue jean pants" and "bleeding from her nose," while Karissa was standing over Kristina asking who had done this, "as if she had no idea what had happened."

Best part: a neighbor said he witnessed the one twin kicking the other twin in the face, though "he could not identify which sister was which." Karissa eventually fessed up.

We beg to differ, TMZ; the "best part" is almost certainly that Kristina wore nothing but "blue jean pants" to the outdoor rumble with her twin sister, thus providing a pugilistic back story for what will almost certainly be a tastefully topless recreation of the incident in the pages of Playboy. Hef, enjoy your makeouts with the twins while they last, but if you take a Jimmy Choo to the face that was meant for Kristina, don't say we didn't warn you.

• Hef Twin Busted for Catfight with Her Sis! [TMZ]

According to TMZ, both sisters were arrested earlier this year for felony aggravated battery in the decidedly non-Holmby Hills locale of St. Petersburg, Florida. What exactly transpired in this bunny-on-bunny-on-civilian crime? Says the website:

We just talked to a relative of one of the victims and here's what they tell us went down. The twins went out after work with one of their Wing House co-workers, Erica Civello, to a house party. Kristina allegedly started arguing with Erica, and Karissa came up behind her and hit Erica over the head with a bottle of beer and they both "jumped her." Erica suffered a concussion.

The mystery of Wing House rears its engimatic head once more! Was the twins' former place of employment this Hooters knockoff, or was it this transitional house for adult survivors of traumatic brain injury? Based on the context clues, we're thinking the former...but Erica? That other Wing House might be just the ticket for you in your Bud Light-brained state. Godspeed!

• Hef's Girls Put the Jail in Jailbait [TMZ]

"If Holly says it's over, I guess it's over," Hefner told the AP on Wednesday, adding that Madison is still living in the Mansion despite her recent confession that she's ready to settle down and start a family. Hef also acknowledged telling Madison six months ago that he wanted none of that, apparently triggering an internal crisis about which even he was unaware:

"The fact that she was depressed after that, I didn't know at all. That was a revelation in the last days and weeks. Quite frankly, we thought when the time came, we would make a combined statement and we expected that combined statement would be somewhere in the weeks and months ahead."

Of course, anyone who's seen The House Bunny can corroborate this and vouch for Hef's despair; nobody leaves the Mansion without saying goodbye, lest the 82-year-old's sad voice turn up on the other end of her phone at the most inopportune time — like, in the middle of a date with Colin Hanks or something. Awkward! Moreover, this is why some of us choose to avoid The Girls Next Door — how have we missed out on the drama of this dissolution since April? Step it up, E! Man cannot live by Kendra's Olive Garden controversies alone.

• HEFNER 'DOWN IN THE DUMPS' ABOUT MADISON SPLIT [AP]

we are kristina & karissa shannon we are idenical twins we work well together and have worked for winghouse doing advertisement for 3 yrs. and are now working on the centerfold for playboy!!!we are new playmates and are exploding fast we are going to be shooting the girls next door show while doing our centerfold while we are out at the mansion in LA we love modeling,acting, and are very outgoing with great,fun ,and exciting personality's! we are interested in doing movies,commercial's, host events exc.We have done commercials and billboards and the cover of the swimsuit calender's and things for winghouse!

We were somewhat curious about the much-mentioned "winghouse," so we did some further digging and can narrow the Winghouse in question to one of two alternatives: either the twins posed for this Hooters knockoff, or they've kindly devoted their time to cheering up adult survivors of traumatic brain injury. Either way, their sparkling "personality's" should help them take the Mansion by storm! Enjoy your high-flying, semi-incestuous new life, ladies!

• Hugh Hefner’s New Twins [Buzzfeed]

• karissa&kristina [OneModelPlace]

When a TMZ cameraman recently asked her if she can get him into an upcoming Halloween bash at the Playboy mansion, she replied: "I have no pull anymore. Hef and I aren't together."

Madison then took to her Myspace blog for an an ellipsis-filled elaboration:

Current mood: lonely

Hef and I care about each other immensely and will always be best friends . . . I do have my own place, but I am still at the Mansion, too, right now . . . I'm too busy to move even if I wanted to! hahaha . . . Bridget, Kendra and I are all still best friends and plan on doing several projects together in the future . . . even though Bridget is in Europe right now and I am sad and lonely without her . . .

You will see how it all happens in Season 5 . . . Sunday nights on E! . . . How lame, I just turned that into the most shameless plug ever . . . lol!

Love-Holly

We've heard rumors that Hef has replaced Madison with a pair of younger twins, representing a savvy divestment of his portfolio and an example of the "buy low" philosophy that distinguishes the sex mogul's business savvy. Kendra and Bridget, you'd better watch out: today, you may be flying high in a Holmby Hills mansion, but before you know it, you bunnies may be bounced, forced to turn to a foreclosed mansion (filled with bobcats) in Lake Elsinore.

• Holly Madison: "Hef and I Aren't Together" [Us]