Watching quite a few of these softcore video magazines from the Playboy channel "hips" me to the fact that it's the producer who makes the segment happen more than 500 pairs of breasts could. Jane Hamilton (Veronica Hart) put together World Nudes Tonight, while Adam Cole is responsible for the other two reviewed here. Cole's direction is slapdash and schizophrenic, never settling down to much of anything except weak scripting, and even weaker segues that showcase a human cannonball amidst a silly piece about space-traveling bimbos out to save the U.S. from the evil clutches of Dr. Lust.

While Cole focuses on the absurd, Hamilton chooses the sly and silly to titillate. She uses a gaggle of East Coast porn stars such as Samantha Fox and Jack Wrangler to bring their talents to a piece that would have been hamburger in the hands of Cole. The Electric Blue format is structured to give the viewer something different to look at every few minutes, but for every fun twist and turn Hamilton provides, Cole's pieces seem to hang over an abyss while some gratuitous T&A fills the screen, before returning us to a story that would have beenbetter left untold.

Search For A Star centers around a trip to an English pub where a British lovely is chosen to star in an upcoming Electric Blue episode. We are taken to a pub where the contest is held, only to have Cole's name dropped with the frequency of a greased pigskin, so that we expect to see him by the end of the tape if for no other reason than to prove he really exists.

Nothing against Cole, his episodes sound like they'd sound great on paper. But the schizoid quality of Cosmic Coeds becomes so unnerving that this critic must admit it was the longest hour he ever spent watching a 60-minute tape. If it is hoped the viewer be entertained and aroused watching such uninspired segments about sexual advice — like "Ask Bon Bon," featuring a dubbed-voiced Roxanne Holland — only to have everything climax in an ending that would better serve as an intro, then I suggest this installment be screened for returning hostages. They would probably be the only ones in the right state of mind to appreciate such stuff.

I must report that all episodes have segments included by various other directors and producers. But I single out the styles of Hamilton and Coles as examples of the overall content. In a nutshell, anything that Hamilton produces comes off as lighthearted and mildly arousing, while Coles' work has a tendency to collapse from the weight of too many ill-conceived ideas. How does the viewer know the difference until it's too late? You don't. But you can rent World Nudes Tonight.