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.”
Transcript:
Rosanne: Even in the very first episode of the series, called “Royal Flush”, Davy, of course, falls in love with a princess from an unknown country and you think princes that’s silly and non-sensical, but near the end of the episode he asks her to stay in America with him and she says no because she has an obligation to her people. Of course, every girl’s dream was to have Davy Jones ask them to do that, but she didn’t pick the boy. She picked her — and she didn’t pick “I’m a princess . I want to wear pretty dresses and go do that.” She picked a duty. A job that had been given to her that she was going to do well.
Jean: Like Princess Leia from Star Wars. It ties back!
Rosanne: …or even The Crown is very big on Netflix now. You know that’s all what Queen Elizabeth was about. I have an obligation. So, I thought it was hilarious that I found no girl who was useless among all the girls that ended up guesting on the show so my theory, if you will, that as a 6-year-old and 8-year-old watching the show, learned that if I wanted to marry a Monkee I had to be a woman of substance.
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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