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From Denver Pop Culture Con 2019.
Wherever you go, you find Monkees fans and the Denver Popular Culture Con was no different. Amid rooms full of caped crusaders and cosplay creations, I was initially not sure how many folks would attend a talk on a TV show from the 1960s – but happily I was met by a nice, engaged audience for my talk on Why the Monkees Matter – and afterward they bought books! What more could an author ask for?
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Transcript
This is a particular moment in the show that shocks me that got on to network television at that time. They’re playing dominoes as you can see and at one point when all the dominoes fall down Davy says to Peter “What do you call this game?” and Peter says “Southeast Asia.” which if you know about Domino Theory of Communism is it — I mean — and the censors didn’t cut that and a lot of times it’s because Trevor Silverman said that Network people didn’t understand the joke. They didn’t get it because they were an older generation of men — all men — and they didn’t see what was going on. So that to me is an amazing thing who got away with what they did. Television mattered to The Monkees — both the writers and, of course, the performers. They understood that it was this giant place — this giant podium from which to send out a message to everybody and they they knew that was important.
Buy Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture
A hit television show about a fictitious rock band, The Monkees (1966-1968) earned two Emmys–Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Directorial Acheivement 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 Riderand Five Easy Pieces.
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