“We’re the young generation, and we’ve got something to say.”
To be honest, I don’t think “I’m a Believer” or “Steppin’ Stone” were message songs. But that likely didn’t matter to fans of The Monkees.
There was a guy named Randy in my Grade 5 class who (no, I won’t say “went ape”) loved The Monkees. He had a Monkees lunch box and all kinds of other stuff. The band’s music didn’t do anything for me then, and I didn’t watch the show until it was in reruns (at least in Canada). It was crazy and eye-rollingly corny at the same time. The stars talked to the camera. The storyline was full of non sequiturs. It was maybe the closest thing to a live cartoon. The cleverest episodes worked a song into the plot. The direction and editing owed a lot to the Beatles’ film A Hard Day’s Night.
The United Press did a couple of stories about the show in 1966. The first one, which appeared in papers around May 24, claimed the coming series was competition for ABC’s Batman. It actually ran opposite the network’s The Iron Horse, starring a beautiful old steam train (that’s all I remember about it) and Gilligan’s Island on CBS, which is what I was watching.
Michael Nesmith has been recording for Colpix as “Michael Blessing”. Micky Dolenz’s stage name was Mickey Braddock when he starred on Circus Boy which, oddly, doesn’t get mentioned in the story.
'Monkees' Seeking Fame, Fortune On Television
By VERNON SCOTT
HOLLYWOOD (UPI) — N. B. C.-T. V. has a secret weapon aimed at "Batman" and will pull the trigger next fall.
It's not a zap gun. It's not even a roadblock for A.B.C.'s batmobile. What it is, is a new show concocted to woo the younger generation away from the Dynamic Duo.
The series stars a Fearsome Foursome in "The Monkees", a wholly manufactured singing group of attractive young men who come off as a combination of The Beatles, the Dead-End Kids and the Marx Brothers.
Critics will cry foul. Long-hairs will demand, outraged, that they be removed from the air. But the kids will adore The Monkees. You can bet on it.
Screen Gems, which produces the show, interviewed 650 young men and screen-tested 35 of them, before settling on the quartet. The stars-to-be are David Jones, Peter Tork, Mickey Braddock and Mike Blessing. Unlike other rock 'n' roll groups, the boys had never performed together before. Indeed, they'd never even met.
They shot the pilot show and sent the boys in their several directions with the admonition not to call Screen Gems. Screen Gems would call them. Six months later the show was sold and the boys were corralled once more.
Since last January they've been working like slaves to create their own sound, locking themselves on a small sound stage and working away on two guitars, a set of drums, and a tambourine.
The boys are from all four points of the compass. Jones is a 20-year-old one-time jockey apprentice from London. Tork is a New Yorker, Blessing is a Texan and Braddock a Californian.
An interview with the Monkees is an impossibility. Ask if any of them are married and Davy immediately claims he and Mike have been married for years. Peter makes the same claim for Mickey. They give their ages variously from 2 to 98 years.
They break into off-key singing at the slightest provocation and rather than give straight answers they come up with rehearsed and ad lib nonsense, most of it hokey.
They're an irreverent lot who are certain to offend the press. Their antics, however, are natural and boisterously funny.
Beneath the veneer of loud-mouthed confidence, the boys are fervently hoping to make good. They wear their hair Beatles fashion. Their clothes are kookie and their antics off-beat. But somehow on them it looks good.
Each show will have a Marx Brothers-type story line with quick cuts, imaginative camera shots, slow motion and speeded up chases and all manner of gags.
The only thing going against them is an NBC survey which predicts the Monkees will be the big hit of next season. The network said the same thing last spring of a bomb titled “Hank.”
Mr. Scott profiled one of the stars in a column that showed up in papers after the series began. He picked the one that became girl-bait for “16” and other magazines aimed at boy-crazy teenagers. It appeared around October 14.
Davey the Jockey Is Also a 'Monkee'
By VERNON SCOTT
HOLLYWOOD (UPI) — David Jones is a pint-sized Cockney jockey with shoulder-length hair who is also a Monkee.
Sounds implausible, or at least something out of Dickens. But Jones is real and a member of the rock 'n' roll group "The Monkees," television's new offering for teen-agers.
A native of Manchester, England, Davey is a scrappy little cuss who dared Western star Dale Robertson to do something about it when he parked his own car in Robertson's parking space at Columbia studios. Robertson passed.
Davey picked up his Cockney accent when, as a lad, he was told he could make his stage debut if he could master the patois in six weeks. Davey out-Cockneyed the Cockneys and it's stuck with him.
His accent won him a two-year role in "Oliver" on Broadway as well as in "Pickwick."
Only last winter he rode 26 winners in 3 1/2 months. But the trainer with whom he worked told the lad he must choose between show biz and riding nags.
"I like horses and acting," said diminutive Dave. "But I never went back to riding.
"I'm 20 years old but I've had more experience than most chaps of 30. I had no idea of becoming part of a singing group when I came out here to Hollywood. But they put me in with the other three and now I'm a Monkee.
"But there's one difference between me and the others. I didn't have a contract. I hope the series runs a couple of years so I can count my money and rest. Then I'll start all over again."
The little guy—who resembles a male version of Patty Duke—has no desire to perpetuate his current success.
"Put me down anywhere, flat broke, and I'll find my way home,” he said. "I can take care of myself."
The other day he was driving down Sunset Blvd. when a car-full of teen-age females shrieked at him. At a stoplight they insisted they recognized him.
"They thought I was George Harrison of the Beatles," he said outraged. "Imagine a thing like that. Enough to send a chap back to England. But I like it better here in America.
With his first big paychecks Davey bought a new home for his parents in Manchester. Now he's moving into a new apartment to escape fans who clutter his doorstep.
"If things get tight I can lose a few pounds and return to racing,” Davey concluded. "I once earned $10,000 as a jockey, but I lost $9,000 of it betting on the horses.”
The series picked up two Emmys but lasted only two seasons. The show’s still fun to watch; all kinds of great comic actors were hired for one-shot appearances. It wouldn’t get made today. It’d be turned into a reality format.
I remember Jones talking about the " Funny how things work out " scenario. When The Beatles appeared on " The Ed Sullivan Show ", that same night he also appeared with the touring group from " Oliver ". He went on to say the energy was insane in the theater that night. Jerry Stiller and Ann Meara, who also performed that night, were less enthused.. Stiller said a lot of the youth in the audience were impatient, talking back and fourth loudly, simply waiting for " The Lads ", wanting everything else to be over. Very distracting. Not all, but enough. Back on the subject. I also had a friend in fourth grade, who looked eerily like Peter Tork, hair style and all, but, wore a stocking cap like Mike Nesmith. Mickey *did* say, he never thought of The Monkees as a television answer to The Beatles, but more like a little bit of The Marx Brothers put to music.
ReplyDeleteDespite it's Sixties trappings, this series has a genuine timeless quality that many longer-running, more prestigious comedies do not. That each subsequent generation has rediscovered and embraced the show and the music would bear that out.
ReplyDeleteAnd in mentioning the comedic actors who were cast on the program, we would be remiss if we neglected to single out Monte Landis, who portrayed villains on numerous season two episodes, for special praise. Versatile and always funny, his lowbrow museum guard in "Art, for Monkees' Sake", in particular, never fails to crack me up
Davy Jones told a slightly different version of his first stage gig in his autobiography DAYDREAM BELIEVIN'. He was asked to do, not a Cockney accent, but a Bolton city one, which is very distinctive and difficult to imitate. Davy feigned a sore throat to give himself some extra time to practise. He said he bungled the accent terribly at the audition, but the producers liked him and gave him the role anyway.
ReplyDeleteI'm going by memory here. I bought Davy's book in 2000, the same year that I met him, and he was kind enough to inscribe and autograph it for my wife. She doesn't know where it is now.
My wife and I saw the Monkees on their "Good Times" tour in 2016. By then it was just Micky and Peter with an excellent backing band; Mickey's sister was one of the backup singers. Davy had passed away in 2012, and Mike seldom toured with the others, but recordings of their voices were incorporated into the show. It was a dream come true for my wife, whose mother wouldn't allow her to see the Monkees when they toured Australia in 1968. Good times indeed!