I did find an article in the Washington Post about it... but it raises more questions than it answers.

Here are the first two paragraphs...

SEX-ORIENTED CHANNEL

By Kenneth E. John
September 1, 1982

The nationwide Escapade/Playboy R-rated cable television channel, with sexually oriented programs ranging from features with real life centerfolds to a game show in which losers strip to bikinis, can be viewed today for the first time in the Washington area by subscribers of Arlington Telecommunications Inc., an Arlington cable network.

More than 1,000 of 23,000 ARTEC subscribers have already paid an additional monthly fee to receive "sensuous and sexy" movies and a variety of other R-rated shows from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. daily. About 300 are scheduled to receive the channel today with its formal debut set for Sept. 8. The channel is a joint venture of Playboy and Rainbow Programming Service Inc.

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Ok....my musings: The article calls it "Escapade/Playboy." I guess that means the link with (and ownership by) "Playboy" was always there. I remember no such link on TV, and the branding on the channel was simply "Escapade," but then, I wasn't reading the fine print in the credits back then to see that it was a joint venture of Playboy and Rainbow Programming Service Inc.

Also... the wikipedia article on "Playboy TV" says the service began as "The Playboy Channel" in November of 1982. So, if "Escapade" launched in September of 1982... it certainly wasn't called "The Playboy Channel" by November. I wonder why "Playboy" seems to want to erase all traces of "Escapade."

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From doing some basic research, Escapade wasn't The Playboy Channel, it was owned by Chuck Dolan. Christy Hefner approached Dolan when Playboy was looking to expand to television and it looks like Playboy acquired Escapade and rebranded it to The Playboy Channel over the course of a year officially becoming The Playboy Channel in 1982.

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The Washington Post article, calling it "Escapade/Playboy" must have reflected a time when the channel was in the process of being purchased or had just been purchased. It was never called "Escapade/Playboy" on the air, to my recollection.

So, it looks like "Escapade" was launched before 1982. I think my family accidentally got the channel for free since its beginning.

*** Does the book say when "Escapade" began, and when it became "The Playboy Channel?"

As a very young person I just remember thinking how revolutionary the channel was. Sure, HBO and Cinemax had their topless women and strong language, but "Escapade" was a channel ABOUT sex! I learned names such as John Leslie and Marilyn Chambers by sneaking peaks at "Escapade."

My knowledge is limited to "Escapade" and "The Playboy Channel," but I think other sex cable channels may have existed in the early 1980s, and this must have been the time when the concept of a "soft-core edit for cable" was created.

One unfortunate remnant of the "soft-core edit" today is the DVD version of "Talk Dirty to Me 2," a film I only recently saw and acquired. Except for the final scene, it is the soft-core edit of the the film on the DVD. I was really disappointed with the entire film until I saw some of the hardcore scenes online. In the case of that film, it hardly has a reason to exist in its soft-core version. With the hard-core scenes intact, it makes far more sense.

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A lot of good work has been done in recent years on the history of acable, softcore, etc. I think. A lot of thaz work is still in books, so much is not available online unless you have access to academic journals.

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I remember "Escapade" showed movies such as "Talk Dirty to Me" and "Insatiable." By the way... I was so young that I actually learned the words -escapade- and -insatiable- from this cable channel!

There was always a sexy female voice announcing the movies. I remember her in one promo saying "Ursala Andress IS the SENSUOUS Nurse" and a shot of bare-breasted Ursala doing the backstroke.

For it's entire short life on cable TV, "Escapade" was a new channel. Maybe that means the programmers sometimes were hurting for content.

Most of the time, "Escapade" looked very daring and edgy to me, but.... maybe, on an off-night or two, they were hurting for content. Maybe they were still trying to find their way..,because one night they showed CONRAD BAIN (Mr. Drummand from Diff'rent Strokes) ...at the height of his Diff'rent Strokes fame... in an absolutely terrible movie called "A Pleasure Doing Business" (1979). It was about Conrad Bain and two of his senior citizen buddies hatching a crazy scheme to make money off a prostitute. It rates a dismal 4.9 out of 10 on Internet Movie Database.

I think a topless woman appears maybe once, and VERY briefly, at the very beginning of the movie. The filmmakers actually wanted to get a PG rating for it, not an R. It was a soft R. Most movies on "Escapade" were X films with the hardcore bits edited out, sometimes showing alternate footage.

"A Pleasure Doing Business" was NOT the kind of movie my young cousin and I wanted to be watching on "Escapade" when our parents weren't supervising us.

I did NOT remember the title of this horrible movie all these years, by the way. I had to do an internet search of "Conrad Bain" and "wretched movie" to find out the title.

The reviewer in the Missouri town where the film premiered only saw the second half of it, and wrote in the paper: "The nicest thing I can say about the film is nothing. I can't imagine sitting through the whole thing."

Neither could my cousin and I. I'm sure we changed the channel after twenty minutes of ... nothing.

And on another "off" night (they were rare)... I'm pretty sure they showed Peter Sellers in "I Love You, Alice B. Toklas" (1968). What THAT one was doing on "Escapade," I'm sure I'll never know.

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