Wall Street Journal - Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis has put his risqué empire into bankruptcy protection to keep Steve Wynn’s Las Vegas resort from picking at those assets to satisfy a multimillion-dollar lawsuit. Francis put GGW Brands LLC and other companies related to the brand under Chapter 11 protection Wednesday in California, listing a $10.3 million debt as disputed in the 12-page bankruptcy petition. Wynn’s resort has been chasing Francis, 39, for years after he failed to pay a $2 million gambling debt to the hotel during a February 2007 trip. In 2012, the resort got a $7.5 million judgment for defamation “stemming from Francis’s public attack falsely accusing Wynn of deceiving customers,” according to the resort’s lawsuit. Attorneys for Girls Gone Wild couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Thursday morning.

Today, gentleman, we honor one of the greats. One of the legends of the smut world. One of the forefathers that paved the way for amateur porn. Today, we celebrate the legacy of Girls Gone Wild.

The year was 1997. A very important year. A year when the world was not yet inundated with internet porn, but sick of porno magazines. The Jenna Jameson’s and Vivid Video’s of the world dominate the smut scene. But dudes wanted more than that. They wanted something different. They wanted average sluts who wanted to get naked and fuck. Real life girls. Girls that would….go wild. What a beautiful concept. Why hire professional whores and pay them money to get naked and have sex on camera when there is literally an entire planet of non-professional whores willing to do the same exact thing in exchange for a t shirt and some face time? The most resourceful smut model of all time – lets turn girls’ inherently slutiness on each other and use their whore-powers for good. Brilliant. The late night Girls Gone Wild infomercials were as close to internet porn as an adolescent boy could get in the late 90s. I’d watch Wild On E! and then the Howard Stern Show and then let it run right into the late night GGW infomercials. Sure, there was always little cartoon stars covering their tits an their pussy. But did that stop me from jerking off into a tube sock? For sure not. Those direct response ads were as sexy as it got in 1998. Fuck, I even bought the one with Snoop Dogg at Mardi Gras. I’m still not sure why an appearance from Snoop is what pushed me over the edge to finally get one, but it did. I owned the Girls Gone Wild: Doggystyle.

To be perfectly honest, I thought it would be a self-sustaining business model. I thought it would last for all eternity. Why would the world ever get sick of sluts in the wild? Whores in their natural habitat letting their inner-hooker out. I thought Joe Francis would be a billionaire forever. But alas, its not 1998 anymore. Nobody jerks off to infomercials and buys 30 dollar VHS videos. Too much competition. Too much free porn.

But just remember – every time you watch a girl audition on the Casting Couch – every time you see a girl suck dick in public for 50 bucks on Money Talks – every time you see a College Fuck Fest orgy – Girls Gone Wild was there first. Girls Gone Wild blazed the trail. It paved the path. It was one of the original amateur porn empires and it deserves a better fate than just Chapter 11 bankruptcy and a quiet send off. So today, we pay homage to the biggest scumbag in the world, Joe Francis, and his empire exploiting the daughters and the sisters of this sick world. A true pioneer. I speak for all of us when I say – thank you.