Footage from 1962 of NBC TODAY's Barbara Walters in a Playboy Bunny costume and taking a shift at the the famed New York City night club has been found as the iconic news hound announces her retirement. Courtesy NBC TODAY

IT'S 1962- The Twist is rocketing up the US charts, everyone smokes and female TV journalists are thin on the ground- enter a young Barbara Walters.

As the world remembers the serious interviews the trail-blazing TV journalist made her own in a career spanning five decades which is due to end next year, it's easy to forget how what TV news was like Walters began her career as a writer researcher on The Today Show in 1961.

She quickly graduated to being a regular on camera Today girl, doing the weather and lighter reports which is when she briefly became a Playboy bunny.

In 1962, just two after Hugh Hefner opened the famous Playboy Club in Chicago, Walters suited up to learn the secrets of the new and mysterious creatures - Playboy bunnies-with some surprising results.

The soft news story sees Walters being fitted out in the now iconic tight bunny suit before she learns how to serve customers without spilling drinks or being constrained by the tight body suit the girls wear in a move dubbed the bunny dip.

While she admits that she "feels ridiculous" in the outfit she soon gets the other bunnies to show her their best moves as she learns their secrets.

Watching the light report today is a reminder of just how much TV journalism has changed during Walters' era as the focus is on her serving skills, her sore feet and memorising the 35-page bunny manual.

"When my turn came I felt pretty awkward, but at least I didn't spill anything on the customers," Walters noted in her voice over.

The seedy side of dressing in skimpy outfits to let men ogle you while you bring them alcohol doesn't rate a mention.

A young Walters also seems genuinely unconcerned by the doorman's attempts to pick her up and when she tells him she's a reporter and not a real bunny, he says:"Gee, you could have fooled me"- a remark which she admits in her voice over actually pleased her.

The camera then cuts back to Walters and her co-anchor Hugh Downes whose eyes linger as he tells her: "You should be pleased. You make a very cute bunny."

The clearly uncomfortable studio banter continues as she raises her eyebrows while Downes offers up an impromptu editorial about how "it has been said that the atmosphere is depressingly moral in the Playboy Club as there is no hanky-panky whatever."

"The furore that is raised about it is ridiculous," he said. "I mean the criticism of is it ridiculous," he said before adding "but I enjoyed seeing you as a bunny" to a clearly uncomfortable Walters.

The clip featured in the highlights package which aired as the veteran news reporter announced she would be disappearing from TV screen from next year but was proud to have been the first woman anchor on a network evening news program on ABC.

"I've had an amazing career - beyond anything I could have imagined," Walters said, "and I hope I have inspired some other women both in front of and behind the camera."