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“1960s TV Censorship and The Monkees” gives a brief overview of where censorship standards were in the era – and how The Monkees pushed the envelope with its mentions of the Vietnam War – and Sunset Strip riots – and even with the outrageous storytelling behind “Frodis Caper”, the episode that celebrated the saving of an alien plant that very closely resembled a marijuana plant…
Writer Treva Silverman said the staff got away with such jokes because the network executives were just old enough not to understand any of the references.
Presented at Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting classes on Friday, August 5, 2016
Transcript:
And this is the Sunset Strip Riots which had to do with Pandora’s Box which was a club down in Hollywood and the curfew was that kids under 21 had to go home by 10 o’clock and so there were marches and protests and stuff and these guys were part of that. But they had been told when they went to press events they weren’t allowed to talk about any of this stuff. And they didn’t, at the press events, but they did in the show all the time. Which I think is hilarious. Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart wrote most of the songs for the first 2 years of the show and I love this, in the early 70’s they started this protest, Let Us Vote, the L.U.V. protest and it contributed obviously to lowering the voting age from 21 to 18. I think that’s really cool. And Peter Tork said, probably, one of the most intelligent things “the show probably garnered a larger audience for their point of view than The Beatles did” because TV comes into your house for free. You had to buy The Beatles albums. You had to pay to go to a concert. TV came into your house whether your parents allowed it or not and the parents just thought these were just a bunch of goofy guys and, by the way, who’s he sitting with at the Monterey Pop Festival? Janis Joplin. She was going to guest on the show in the 3rd season but it was cancelled.
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Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture
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About Dr. Rosanne Welch
Dr. Rosanne Welch is a professor in the Low Residency MFA in Screenwriting Program from Stephens College, California State University, Fullerton, Mount San Antonio Community College and Cal Poly Pomona. In 2007, she graduated with her Ph.D. in 20th Century U.S./Film History from Claremont Graduate University. She graduated with her M.A. in 20th Century United States History from California State University, Northridge in 2004.
Welch is also a television writer/producer with credits for Beverly Hills 90210 , CBS’s Emmy winning Picket Fences and Touched By An Angel . She also writes and hosts her own podcasts on 3rdPass.media, her first one titled “Mindful(I) Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch.”
Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space are two books she has written. Los Angeles Times and the Journal of Screenwriting hold some of her published articles.
Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog
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