The Playboy Mansion with Wings

So I just heard that the Big Bunny—Hugh Hefner's customized DC-9 that for years was a standard bearer for the jet set as well as the mile-high club—is now being used by Mexican schoolchildren.

Wait.

What? 

Here's the skinny: In 1969, dreaming of a "bedroom in the sky," the Playboy publisher got a new McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 for $9 million. He obtained special permission from the FAA to paint the Big Bunny black. Needless to say, it was equipped with a disco, a movie theater, a sunken Roman tub, and a king-size elliptical water bed (with seat belts. "Coolest private jet ever," Hef says.

The jet served as a traveling version of the Playboy Mansion—"except better," according to the proprietor—until 1976, when Playboy hit hard times. Hefner was forced to sell the jet to Venezuela's Aeropostal, which in turn dealt it to AeroMexico.

Two of the four stewardesses, aka Jet Bunnies

Hefner and a regular Bunny

The plane's second, less exciting chapter

The Big Bunny was transformed into a passenger jet, serving until 2004, when AeroMexico decided to scrap it before instead donating the fuselage to the city of Cadereyta, Queretaro for use as a classroom.

Their classroom's singular past is not lost on the schoolchildren, particularly the boys, who enjoy reading Playboy Magazine in order to better understand the history.

The Big Bunny in retirement, as a classroom in Mexico