06 : From Soap Operas to Primetime : “Why The Monkees Matter” Interview [Video] (0:51)

Rosanne Welch talks about “Why The Monkees Matter” with Jean Hopkins Power

Watch this entire presentation (45 mins)

Jean Powergirl takes the host reigns and welcomes her guest Rosanne Welch, PhD to the show! They’ll be discussing Roseanne’s book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture.”

06 : From Soap Operas to Primetime : “Why The Monkees Matter” Interview

 

Transcript:

Jean:Your saying that part of thing was that this was just this era was the dawn of trying to show people more real life situations as opposed to fantasy like, for example, you cited in your book, the “Look Who’s Coming to Dinner” film about an interracial couple, which is this huge production back then and this was already happening in film, but not so much in TV, right?

Rosanne: Now, TV is interesting. I have to give credit, of all things, afternoon soap operas are some of the places where controversial stuff happened first. AIDS stories were first done. Gay characters were first introduced. People didn’t take the soaps seriously because they were just for housewives to watch.

Jean: Right.

Rosanne: … bit as those things seeped into daytime TV then they slowly can seep into nighttime television and usually in the hipper, younger, new programming.

Get your copy today!

A hit television show about a fictitious rock band, The Monkees (1966-1968) earned two Emmys–Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Comedy. Capitalizing on the show’s success, the actual band formed by the actors, at their peak, sold more albums than The Beatles and The Rolling Stones combined and set the stage for other musical TV characters from The Partridge Family to Hannah Montana. In the late 1980s, the Monkees began a series of reunion tours that continued into their 50th anniversary.

This book tells the story of The Monkees and how the show changed television, introducing a new generation to the fourth-wall-breaking slapstick created by Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers. Its creators contributed to the innovative film and television of 1970s with projects like Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Laugh-In and Welcome Back, Kotter. Immense profits from the show, its music and its merchandising funded the producers’ move into films such as Head, Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces.

Rosanne Welch, PhD has written for television (Touched by an Angel, Picket Fences) and print (Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space). In the documentary world she has written and produced Bill Clinton and the Boys Nation Class of 1963 for ABC NEWS/Nightline and consulted on PBS’s A Prince Among Slaves, the story of a prince from West Africa who was enslaved in the 1780s, freed by order of President John Quincy Adams in the 1820s and returned to his homeland.

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