Barker, Scully and Hefner have passed test of time

Bob Barker, 83 years old or thereabouts, has been on weekday TV since 1956.

Vin Scully, 80 or thereabouts, has been broadcasting Dodgers games since 1950.

Hugh Hefner, 81 or thereabouts, has been publishing Playboy magazine since 1953.

(Why am I am writing about these old guys? Because I grew up joyfully watching Barker on “Truth or Consequences,” because no one has ever made a summer night feel more like a summer night than Scully and because most men in America have fantasized about spending one night in Hef’s shoes. That’s why.)

Barker – who is retiring this month from “The Price Is Right” after a 35-year stint – has been on-air longer continuously than anyone in TV history. Scully’s 58-season tenure with the Dodgers is the longest of any broadcaster with a single franchise in pro sports history. And Hefner holds a variety of records that the late Wilt Chamberlain could only dream about.

You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone as enduring in pop culture as these three men.

(Hey, we’re not talking about Carrot Top with a paper-cup-and-string telephone strutting across a Las Vegas stage 15 weeks a year, we’re talking about a half-a-century-plus run in the brightest lights.)

Barker, Scully and Hefner all reside much of the time in Los Angeles, where the fountain of youth comes in the form of air-brushing and Botox.

Barker is to game shows as Weber is to gas grills

Who knows the in-studio, live-audience format better?

Do you think it’s coincidence that “The Price Is Right” attracts 5 million viewers daily and people wait hours to get a seat in the studio audience? Do you think it’s coincidence that Barker attracts only the finest announcers, fellas like Johnny Olson and Rod Roddy? Do you think it’s coincidence that he attracts the most beautiful and most litigious TV models?

(Barker’s been like a father to me – like my dad, he is a smart and successful octogenarian who sometimes acts as if he doesn’t know me – but, since the 1990s, he’s been in a court room more than the green room. Every time he steps out of wardrobe, one of his former models is suing him, usually for sexual harassment. My advice to Bob: Like they said in “Scarface,” “Don’t get high on your own supply.”)

Scully is to baseball broadcasting as Cezanne is to still life.

Who has ever painted a better picture on radio?

Scully was smart enough to leave Brooklyn – well, he had no choice, because the Dodgers moved west in 1958, but, trust me, New York would’ve chewed him up and spit him out onto a subway platform, like happened to my Uncle Nathan – and he’s been smart enough to go it alone.

That’s right: Scully works solo. No partner in the booth. How brilliant is that? Why should he share the mike, so some half-juiced ex-jock can spout inanities about moving the runner to third with less than two outs?

(Scully allowing, say, Rick Monday to share air time on Dodgers games would be like Michelangelo asking Earl Scheib to help out with the Sistine Chapel ceiling.)

Hefner is to soft porn as Mrs. Butterworth’s is to maple syrup.

Who would’ve ever thought of putting nude women and Vladimir Nabokov under the same cover?

There’s Playboy and then there’s everything else. Penthouse? Hah! Hustler? Sure, Larry Flynt gets the nod for loving seven-card stud, but Hef’s the stud anywhere he plays his cards.

And, even today, while most of us thirty- and fortysomethings have trouble getting an out-of-work meter maid to give us a phone number at a Second Chance singles dance, the ageless Hef has three girlfriends living with him and an E! reality TV series, “The Girls Next Door,” tracking his surreal maze.

In the land of sex, power and greed, Hef is forever the centerfold. In fact, if you’re looking for America’s No. 1 sporting figure of the last century – with apologies to Jim Thorpe, Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan – I’d say, “Hugh Hefner, come on down!!!”

Ask The Slouch

Q. While attending an Astros-Brewers game, I noticed a teen reading Steinbeck and a woman reading a romance novel. Would The Slouch bring books to the ballpark? (Ruth Olszewski; West Milwaukee, Wis.)

A. When I was at the University of Maryland, I once brought a Sociology of the Soap Opera take-home exam to the ballpark. I spilled some Bud Light on it and withdrew from school.

Q. If you’re Billy Donovan and you have to stay in the state of Florida, why would you choose Gainesville over Orlando? (Jeffrey Howard; Sacramento, Calif.)

A. Less traffic, more T.G.I. Friday’s.

Q. What is better TV, the MLB draft or the first five minutes of any “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood”? (Barry Josowitz; Pittsburgh)

A. Gotta give the nod to Mr. McFeely the delivery man and Cornflake S. Pecially.

Q. Is it true that ring announcer Michael Buffer did the introductions at your latest divorce hearing? (Mike Teneb; Pittsburgh)

A. Pay the man, Shirley.