Back in the early days of Playboy video, the clips remained pretty tame. Mostly the models posed and pouted, as they essentially just brought their photo shoots to life. As the video market broadened, the folks at Playboy opened up to different scenarios, and not surprisingly, girl-on-girl clips entered the fray. These proved popular and inspired programs devoted entirely to that sort of material.

In that vein, we get No Boys Allowed 2, a “sequel” to the original entry in the series; it came out in 2000. As the title implies, the 10 different vignettes focus on women with other women. Here’s how they break down:

Ruby Fruit Jungle: Three models find a bed in the middle of the jungle, strip and make out together then take a dip in the water. All three women are very attractive, especially the wonderful Sydney Moon (oddly billed as “Willow” here). The vignette seems more provocative as most, since it features the women kissing, rubbing, and licking each other. It has some very good moments, but it’s too long and gets a little tedious.

Lip Smackin’ Good: Two models feed each other provocatively and lick things off each other. Unfortunately, it’s not as sexy as it sounds, so even though it features the lovely and voluptuous Miriam Gonzalez, it fails to come to life.

Lady Luck: Two models dance and pout in a larger-than-life Vegas setting. We see a little light touching between the pair but there’s not much to it. I like the fact it features two models with smallish breasts; while I prefer better endowed women, I like natural chests more than anything, so it’s refreshing to see under-endowed women who resist the allure of silicone.

Legs, Legs, Legs: Three models pose in stockings and little else as they occasionally fondle each other. However, the emphasis here is on a stylized look at gams; we see more than a few silhouette and other odd shots. A few sexy images pop up, but this one mainly tries to be too artsy for its own good.

Slow Simmer: Two models strip and make out during a steamy, non-air-conditioned evening. Despite the presence of Pam Anderson-wannabe Amy Miller, this one offers the hottest scenario and most graphic footage since “Jungle”. The women kiss, lick, and touch each other provocatively. The presence of someone other than Miller would have made this one great, but it’s still above average. (Sexy Jennifer Rovero helps balance out Miller’s excesses, at least.)

Barefoot Spirit: Three models romp naked in a field and caress each other with posies. This one suffers from an abundance of silicone. Jennifer Walcott sports the ugliest pair of fake breasts ever to appear on a Playmate, while Christi Shake heads down Pam Anderson lane too much. (Walcott’s choice remains a tragedy; she’s gorgeous and has a tight body, so she’d look amazing if she didn’t have those absurdly massive melons.) Only the natural beauty of Irina Voronina helps redeem this one. It also seems pretty tame and doesn’t include enough quality interaction among the models.

Oil & Water: Two models massage each other and make out on a waterbed. Jennifer Rovero and Sydney Moon (again called “Willow”) together? Heaven! They offer the best pairing of the whole DVD, and they help make this the strongest of the 10 vignettes. It doesn’t hurt that their action is more intense than my synopsis makes it sound, as the pair get pretty intimate.

Wet & Wild: Two models sun by the pool and then rub oil on each other before they romp in the water and in the shower. Plastic Amy Miller again mars a vignette, but natural and sexy Roxanne Galla helps balance her out and makes this one pretty good, though not as hot as its predecessor.

Bath Tub Gin: Two models get tipsy on home-made booze, douse themselves in it, strip and cavort. Natalia Sokolova and Summer Altice offer one of the DVD’s sexier pairings, but they don’t interact enough, and the silliness of the scenario negatively affects it. Wouldn’t it be uncomfortable to have moonshine splash all over you?

Girls Will Be Girls: Four models hold a slumber party in which they pose, touch themselves and romp, an enterprise that eventually involves Silly String. It’s nice to see hot little redhead Heather Carolin, but the scenario lacks much interaction and goes nowhere.

Hosted by model Chelsea Chandler, she pops up in between vignettes to introduce them. She also changes outfits for each connecting piece, an enterprise that adds to the program’s value. She occasionally strips a bit and some of the outfits seem quite enticing.

For Playboy video regulars, one negative element of Boys comes from the vintage of the footage. At least some of the vignettes originally appeared elsewhere; for example, “Simmer” already showed up in Roomates and “Barefoot Spirit” came from Barefoot Beauties. One can surmise the origins of some other clips, as I’d guess both “Lip Smackin’ Good” and “Legs, Legs, Legs” first showed up in Hot Lips, Hot Legs. That factor makes No Boys Allowed 2 less useful to many Playboy fans. Dedicated aficionados will likely already have all this footage elsewhere, so why buy it again?

Others will likely be more interested in Boys. It’s not the first all-girl compilation from Playboy, and it’s also not the best. Nonetheless, it maintains a generally high standard of quality, and its best sequences sizzle. I wouldn’t recommend it above titles like Roomates or the Girlfriends series.

No Boys Allowed 2 appears in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 on this single-sided, single-layered DVD; due to those dimensions, the image has not been enhanced for 16X9 televisions. Typical for a Playboy product, the picture seemed satisfactory but no better than that.

Part of the problem stemmed from the nature of the photography. The various vignettes often adopted a moderately filtered and gauzy look that reduced their clarity. Don’t get me wrong; sharpness usually appeared more than adequate, as the clips looked consistently decent in regard to definition. However, they didn’t often become as defined as I’d like, for that sense of mild softness showed up most of the time. Some light examples of jagged edges and shimmering also occurred, but those remained minor, as did edge enhancement. Source flaws seemed absent, and video artifacting stayed at a minimum, which was an improvement over many prior - and messier - Playboy DVDs.

As with the sharpness, colors were affected by the visual styles. The tones usually looked slightly smeared and diffuse, which seemed intentional. This made them a bit overblown and dense, but not badly so, and the tones usually were acceptably concise. Blacks seemed decent but a little muddy, and shadows could be somewhat thick. The low-light shots maintained adequate definition but that was about it. Ultimately, I felt the image of Boys was fairly average for this sort of production.

On the other hand, the stereo soundtrack of No Boys Allowed 2 seemed more flawed. For one, the soundfield rarely stretched beyond the bounds of monaural imaging. Music heavily dominated the program. Dialogue only popped up during Chelsea Chandler’s introductions, as all of the vignettes came solely with music. Some of them offered nice stereo delineation to the tunes, but most were stuck in the center channel.

Audio quality was also erratic. Chandler’s speech was brittle and edgy, and some of the musical elements followed suit. The stereo songs sounded reasonably clear, though they failed to demonstrate much range and remained rather restricted in dynamics. The monaural numbers portrayed a similar lack of zest and also displayed moderate distortion. Granted, one doesn’t expect much from the audio for a product like this, but the generally rough sound heard here still came as a disappointment.

As we head to the supplements, we find a few useful materials. First we get program host Chelsea Chandler’s appearance on Playboy TV’s Sexy Girls Next Door. This consists of two clips: her “Amateur Home Video Submission” (101 seconds) and “Behind-the-Scenes of Her Playboy Photo Shoot” (95 seconds). Despite my disdain for blondes with fake breasts, Chandler’s better than most of that ilk. Although these snippets are too short, she still looks pretty good. I like her bits from the main program better, however.

Next we find a Clip from the Playboy Video Wet and Wild LIVE! Backstage Pass. It runs eight minutes, 19 seconds as we watch various models strip and fondle each other backstage at the event. It acts as little more than a teaser for a two-year-old product, but it has some hot moments.

One more clip appears via a Scene from the Playboy Original Movie Hollywood Sins. It goes for six minutes, 48 seconds as we watch two women make out and get intimate in other ways, some of which involve fruit. It’s more graphic than anything in the main program and also pretty sexy.

A useful database comes to us with the Playmate Videographies. In this domain you’ll find listings for all the Playmates who showed up in Playboy videos. It’s an easy and effective way to find out where to locate your favorites. Less helpful is the collection of Playmate Datasheets. These present the texts written for the 12 Playmates who appear in Boys.

Next we get a Photo Gallery that presents 46 nude stills of Chelsea Chandler and the other models from the program. We can watch these via the usual stillframe access or a running filmed gallery that lasts six minutes, 59 seconds. It’s a quality collection of photos.

The set also offers some trailers. This includes promos for Women of Wal-Mart, Inside the Sexy Girls Next Door House, The Ultimate Playmate Search, 2004 Video Playmate Calendar and Women of Starbucks.

No Boys Allowed 2 will disappoint some Playboy fans since it apparently only includes footage recycled from prior projects. Despite that negative, it provides a pretty good collection of sexy vignettes and maintains a generally high standard of quality. The DVD presents average picture with rough audio and a small but interesting collection of extras. I wouldn’t recommend Boys over similar predecessors like Girlfriends, but it’s still a nice set for those who don’t have the footage already.