Grateful Dead on "Playboy After Dark" (1969)

Taped on January 18, 1969, this world-colliding episode of the shortly lived Playboy After Dark variety program featured the Grateful Dead for musical entertainment. Jump to 3:30 in the linked clip: We mere mortals are ferried inside a super swanky leisure zone as the camera conveys us past the polyester duds and cocktail dresses to discover, amid this debonair atmosphere, a zonked and poncho'd Jerry Garcia at the lounge bar where Hugh Hefner is about to realize he is very out of his depth as he hazards an interview with his jubilant, mile-a-minute-talkin' guest. Jer's beatific grin vis-à-vis Hef's guardedly convivial demeanor is a hoot to behold as the Playboy impresario makes a hasty segue after a minute of surreal conversation with this shaggy visitor, urging him toward his bandmates across the room. A trio of Jerry, Bobby Weir and Tom Constanten play a sweet "Mountains of the Moon" before the whole band gets up for a ripping "St. Stephen." "Turn on Your Lovelight" was also played, but just a snippet of the performance was used for the closing credits. (Yes, this is the same television recording of sixties lore in which psych chemist and Dead soundman Owsley Stanley allegedly dosed the coffee urn on set.)