BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — For five decades, "Playboy" founder Hugh Hefner has been the envy of several generations of men. (Some men, anyway.)

And the goings-on inside the Playboy Mansion have been the stuff of legend. Smutty legend, of course.

The E! channel goes inside Hefner's life and the mansion in its new reality series "The Girls Next Door" (Sunday, 11 p.m.) and reveals . . . a rather pathetic old man who is paying three buxom young blondes to be his live-in girlfriends.

Really.

"The girls are on an allowance to take care of their clothing and they have cars and that's it," Hefner said, refusing to elaborate on how much he's paying Holly Madison, 25 ("Hef's No. 1 girlfriend"), Bridget Marquardt, 31, Kendra Wilkinson, 20. "That's personal," he said.

But letting people inside the mansion isn't, apparently.

At least in the first episode, Hefner is little more than supporting player in this little slice-of-unreal reality. The show is really about the girlfriends, who scamper about in skimpy bikinis while telling us just how smart they are and how many college degrees they have.

"I've seen a couple of the episodes, and I'm actually surprised at how funny they are," Madison said. "I didn't want to do this show in the beginning. I thought, 'Oh, I'm just going to look like some stupid bimbo or whatever,' but I'm actually really surprised at how funny the show turned out."

Holly, dear, you should always go with your first instinct.

It doesn't really matter how cute and funny and sexy they are. These are three grown women who have a 9 p.m. curfew issued to them by the 79-year-old man who pays them to live in his house and, well, be with him.

There are words for what that is — many of which can't be printed in a newspaper.

It is, as one fellow critic put it, "kind of like living with your dad that you have to sleep with."

Well, maybe not "dad." Maybe "grandpa."

Hefner will be 80 in April, so that's no exaggeration.

And playing this out on television — even if it's only the E! channel on cable — is just one more indication of how desperate all four of these people are for media attention.

There. I've just given them some. Their mission is accomplished.

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E-mail: pierce@desnews.com