This book signing at Book Soup was wonderful – good people, good conversation (before and after the signing). Just another example of the kind of quality positive people who have been drawn to The Monkees across generations – I even met a former head of publicity for ScreenGems who had some fun stories to tell. — Rosanne
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When I talked to the writers about that they said it was because the censors didn’t get it. They had no ideas what they were actually saying.They just thought it was some sort goofy — I don’t know — you could have called it Italy for all anyone cared. They did not see the connection. That happened a lot. There are a lot of drug jokes on the show. They talk about taking trips a lot and that sort of thing. They talk about taking pills that will give you funny visions and they have a great moment in one of the episodes where they’re doing a little flashback — a fake fantasy — and Micky goes to visit Mike who is the “Middle Llama” because the High Llama is off sleeping it off out back. And it stayed on the air, but just a year after The Monkees went off the air The Smothers Brothers come on and they make the same jokes and they get canceled. They get canceled for being overtly political on television, but here were these guys doing the very thing for two years and nobody noticed. Partially because it was all slapstick humor — you’re talking about vaudeville — they were very much like The Marx Bros as we know and partially the censors just didn’t get it.
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Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture
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