Dr. Rosanne Welch – Page 262 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Who Wrote The Monkees? – “Case of the Missing Monkee” and “I Was A Teenage Monster” – by Gerald Gardner and Dee Caruso and Dave Evans

Who Wrote The Monkees? – “Case of the Missing Monkee” and “I Was A Teenage Monster” – by Gerald Gardner and Dee Caruso and Dave Evans Part 5 of an on-going series

Did you know The Monkees had a connection to RFK? Not the movie, but the man. Read on…

This weekend Antenna TV is showing 2 episodes of The Monkees “Case of the Missing Monkee” and “I Was A Teenage Monster”. One was written solely by Gerald Gardner and Dee Caruso, who were the showrunners, and one written by them AND Dave Evans, who I’ve written about before on this page. So today I’ll focus on Gerald Gardner and Dee Caruso.

Sadly, Mr. Caruso had passed away just a few months before I first had the idea to interview the writers of The Monkees for the article in Written By magazine that turned into the proposal for my eventual book so I was never able to meet him. But his writing partner, Gerald Gardner, welcomed me warmly into his wonderful home and told me all about their work before, during and after The Monkees.

How does Robert F. Kennedy fit into the story?

Mr. Gardner had begun his writing career doing comical political satire books called Who’s In Charge Here?. Those books caught the attention of then President John F. Kennedy, who invited the writer to lunch at the White House. After his assassination, Mr. Gardner sent a condolence letter to then Attorney General RFK. When RFK decided to run for the Senate in New York, he asked Mr. Gardner to join his speech writing team. (Sound a bit like The West Wing, doesn’t it?) After Senator Kennedy went to work in Washington, Mr. Gardner wrote a book about the campaign: Robert Kennedy in New York. Mr. Gardner’s first work in television was in New York as the senior writer on That Was the Week That Was which was a forerunner to “Weekend Update” on SNL. All this work in comedy led him to partner up with Dee Caruso to work for producer Buck Henry on Get Smart and when Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson came to Henry asking to meet some hot young comedy writers to run their new show… well, you know what happened. And that’s how The Monkees are connected to Camelot?

More information on The Monkees:

Previously in Who Wrote The Monkees?:

Quotes from “Why The Monkees Matter” by Dr. Rosanne Welch – 3 in a series

Monkees Question of the Moment: How did you defend The Monkees to your friends?

Leave your thoughts in the comments!

“…But I also wrote it in honor of and to honor the fans who love the show and lived with years of teasing when the mistaken reputation of the band and the show as ‘plastic’ kept dogging them. With this book I hope to show that those early and continuing fans all recognized the diamond in the rough from the start. ”

from Why The Monkees Mattered by Dr. Rosanne Welch — Coming Fall 2016 – Click for more info!

Danny Pink and Fatherhood Part 2 from How Doctor Who Redefined Masculinity [Video Clip] (1:10)

Dr. Rosanne Welch presents “How Doctor Who Redefined Masculinity: A Study of the Doctors and their Male Companions“ at the Cal Poly Pomona University Library. Dr. Welch teaches in the IGE (Interdisciplinary General Education) program.

Watch the entire presentation here

Transcript:

…and then what happens, God Forbid. You did realize there would be spoilers. Right? I assume people have seen these episodes. God Forbid, he is turned into a Cyberman, too and this so awful, so awful. But. He is a warrior and he’s able to do a thing that will save the family around him — the people of Earth, right?…by beating the Cybermen by getting all the other Cybermen to follow him up. he loses Clara, which is terrible, but, being the show, he gets that second chance to come back from the afterlife and he doesn’t take it, because there’s only one chance to come back and instead he gives it to little Afghan boy that he killed by accident, when he was at war. So, he gives up his happiness and his chance essentially at a resurrection to give it to the child whose chance he took away and he sends that child back into the world so he can start again. Again, if that isn’t the pseudo-father to that child than I don’t know who is.

A clip from this 5th talk on various aspects of Doctor Who presented by Dr. Welch. You can find Dr. Welch’s other Doctor Who talks using the links below.

Follow Dr. Rosanne Welch on the Web and via social media at:

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Why The Monkees Matter: We Were Made for Each Other: The Monkees Menagerie of Metatextuality

Why The Monkees Matter: We Were Made for Each Other: The Monkees Menagerie of Metatextuality

from Why The Monkees Mattered by Dr. Rosanne Welch — Coming Fall 2016 – Click for more info!

With Garry Shandling, it always came down to good writing [Video]

I’m not a specialist in comedy but I always enjoyed the “It’s the Garry Shandling Show” for his unique take on the world.

Like all good writers (and Garry started as a sitcom writer – with Sanford and Son and Welcome Back, Kotter among his early credits before he turned to performing stand up.

As a writer Garry knew the truth is always where to go for story – and this never rang so true and raw as when he invited Gilda Radner on his show during her battle with ovarian cancer. Together they wrote the deeply honest joke that involved Gilda saying she hadn’t been on TV in a while, Garry asking her why, Gilda saying she had cancer and then smiling up at him and asking, “What did you have?”

In this Emmy Legend oral history clip, Shandling spoke about working with her on that episode and how they both knew the subject had to be faced — and somehow made funny. It turned out to be the SNL star’s last appearance on television.

Link: Garry Shandling on IMDB

Out of the Research Vault: Micky Dolenz & Peter Tork on Nightwatch – 1986

Since Micky and Peter are conducting this current tour alone, this 1986 episode of Nightwatch, hosted by Charlie Rose, is quite fun to watch as it only involves the two of them.

Micky discusses “Why now?” for their 20th anniversary tour in 1986 – and pins it all on the success of the premiere of the television show and the new generation introduced to it by MTV’s “Pleasant Valley” Marathon. Peter discusses why the show worked – citing things I cover in the book about how The Monkees were originally considered dangerous (due to their long hair and connection to the counter-culture). He also mentions how the fan base went from mostly female to nearly 60/40 female/male. Then Micky discusses his directing career in England and how hard it was to leave it behind for this one summer – that he had no idea how long this one anniversary tour would last!

from The Monkees Live Almanac

The video is shaky but fun to watch because they are so deeply complimentary to each other’s talents, they talk about the ‘patrimony’ of the series in how the money made by the producers funded Five Easy Pieces and the new musical-variety version of the show they hoped to do in the third season that lead to the cancellation.

Previously in Out of Research Vault:

The Monkees In Melbourne, Australia 1968 [Video]

Quotes from “Why The Monkees Matter” by Dr. Rosanne Welch – 2 in a series

Monkees Question of the Moment: How did you decide what to watch in your childhood?

Leave your thoughts in the comments!

“I was a fan from the beginning at the age of 6 when the show debuted on NBC and caused what I often tease was the first great choice of a childhood lived without benefit of DVR. Should I watch The Monkees or Gilligan’s Island?”

from Why The Monkees Mattered by Dr. Rosanne Welch

Receive on-going info about “Why The Monkees Mattered” book and more!

Danny Pink and Fatherhood from How Doctor Who Redefined Masculinity [Video Clip] (0:49)

Watch the entire presentation here

Transcript:

Now we go back to Danny Pink. Danny we don’t get a chance to see do the whole Dad thing, but we see a few things. First of all, what’s his job when he’s not being a soldier? He’s a teacher. So, we define again teacher as a gendered kid of job. We generally see women int he education field. Especially when it’s in middle school, elementary school, a few more guys in high school, but largely we see that as a female job, because it’s about nurturing a younger generation of people. So, as a teacher we see him protective of the children in his care. He is their pseudo-father when they are at school with him and I think that’s really important. That’s how Danny is defined for us. We see him first as this and then we hear about the warrior — oh yeah, he was a soldier. So his first definition is this.

A clip from this 5th talk on various aspects of Doctor Who presented by Dr. Welch. You can find Dr. Welch’s other Doctor Who talks using the links below.

Follow Dr. Rosanne Welch on the Web and via social media at:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Why The Monkees Matter: Shades of Grey: An Ethnic Studies look at Minority Representation on The Monkees

Why The Monkees Matter: Shades of Grey: An Ethnic Studies look at Minority Representation on The Monkees

from Why The Monkees Mattered by Dr. Rosanne Welch — Coming Fall 2016 – Click for more info!

Monkees Question of the Moment: What did The Monkees Teach You About Race and Ethnicity?

Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Out of the Research Vault: The Monkees In Melbourne, Australia 1968 [Video]

A taste of Monkeemania at it’s height in Melbourne in 1968.

Once you pass the first minute of fans screaming as the foursome descends their DC-9, the footage moves to a press conference where Mickey predicts they will perform in different variations in the years to come – trios, duos, etc. – much as it has all played out…. How did he know?

From AussieTVOne