The Big Bunny

Discovery's aviation-themed channel devotes an entire half hour episode of its series Celebrity Wings to Hef and the Big Bunny jet. First, host Brianne Leary gets Hef to open up about attending the University of Illinois on the G.I. Bill where he learned stunt flying in an open cockpit prop plane, received his pilot's license and, in the summer of 1948, flew across the country. Twenty years later, Hef built the Big Bunny, the world's largest, most luxurious, privately owned plane in the world at the time. Archive footage shows the flying black limousine -- a $6 million, stretched McDonnell Douglas DC-9 -- retrofitted with bedrooms, dining areas, a disco and even a movie theater. At night, all you could see of the jet was a white rabbit head, illuminated by a 75,000-candlepower spotlight on the tail.