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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
The thing about TV is it comes into everybody’s house for free. Granted now we pay for cable but back then it was free. To see a movie with a new idea you had to pay money and not everybody could do that certainly not younger children. So these ideas are coming into homes where they can affect more people and I think Peter was very right about that. I love this. This is a shot of the entire cast and crew. So you can see the guys sitting in several places in front and then the gentleman to the left of the camera by two, holding the coffee cup, that’s James Frawley. He’s gonna win an Emmy for Best Directing in this first season. So this is an Emmy winning show not just Emmy nominated. It won as best comedy of the year and it won for Best Directing. James Frawley will grow up to direct The Muppet Movie and many many of the things. So he’s been involved in the business for a long time and this was his first directing job. So again quality people putting together a quality show. I think if the show had stayed on longer and we’d gotten more understanding of it, we’d be looking at — essentially this is The Big Bang Theory except they’re not for nerds they’re for rock and roll kids right but that’s what it’s all about.
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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