Category: Academic

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“1960s TV Censorship and The Monkees” gives a brief overview of where censorship standards were in the era – and how The Monkees pushed the envelope with its mentions of the Vietnam War – and Sunset Strip riots – and even with the outrageous storytelling behind “Frodis Caper”, the episode that celebrated the saving of an alien plant that very closely resembled a marijuana plant…  

Writer Treva Silverman said the staff got away with such jokes because the network executives were just old enough not to understand any of the references.
Presented at Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting classes on Friday, August 5, 2016

Transcript:

Now we think about censorship and the timeframe we’re in. Let’s think about what’s going on in television right now. Ok? We have codes about what you can and can’t do. The Smothers Brothers are going to get cancelled because they talk too much about the Vietname War and The Monkees talked about it before The Smothers Brothers showed up. Pete Seeger is not going to be allowed to sing “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy” because that’s about the Vietnam War and so he will not be allowed to sing that on television for a couple of years. Barbara Eden — who knows what was censored about Barbara Eden? (Audience) “Belly Button!” Her belly button. Her outfit, her harem outfit could not go below the belly button. You can’t show women’s belly button. On That Girl, Marlo Thomas had — any time she dated her boyfriend, Donald, we had to see Donald leave her apartment and her shut the door behind him. You could not assume that he had spent the night with her. She was a single woman living alone and you had to know that she was stilla virgin to make her acceptable to television. Right? This is what we’re talking about here in 1966. 

Buy “Why The Monkees Matter” Today!

 Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

McFarland (Direct from Publisher) | Amazon | Kindle Edition | Nook Edition

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch is a professor in the Low Residency MFA in Screenwriting Program from Stephens College, California State University, Fullerton, Mount San Antonio Community College and Cal Poly Pomona.  In 2007, she graduated with her Ph.D. in 20th Century U.S./Film History from Claremont Graduate University.  She graduated with her M.A. in 20th Century United States History from California State University, Northridge in 2004.

Welch is also a television writer/producer with credits for Beverly Hills 90210 , CBS’s Emmy winning Picket Fences and Touched By An Angel . She also writes and hosts her own podcasts on 3rdPass.media, her first one titled “Mindful(I) Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch.”

Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space are two books she has written. Los Angeles Times and the Journal of Screenwriting hold some of her published articles.

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Watch this entire presentation

“1960s TV Censorship and The Monkees” gives a brief overview of where censorship standards were in the era – and how The Monkees pushed the envelope with its mentions of the Vietnam War – and Sunset Strip riots – and even with the outrageous storytelling behind “Frodis Caper”, the episode that celebrated the saving of an alien plant that very closely resembled a marijuana plant…  

Writer Treva Silverman said the staff got away with such jokes because the network executives were just old enough not to understand any of the references.
Presented at Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting classes on Friday, August 5, 2016

Transcript:

This gentleman directed most of the episodes of the Monkees and you all, right here on this lot, should know something about him, because he won and Emmy as a director of The Monkees and then he grew up to direct The Muppet Movie. He’s got a couple Emmys to his credit — so James Frawley. there’s a lot of really interesting people involved in the show early on that, of course, most people didn’t know that much about and that was fun. These are the guys — this is Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork, Michael Nesmith and Davy Jones who was the big heartthrob. In fact, he passed away a couple of years ago. He’s been voted the greatest heartthrob of all time. The greatest teen idol of all time beating out any other person you can think of. That’s them holding their Emmy. The show won an Emmy for Best New Sitcom in its opening year in 1967. So, that’s something people don’t really think about. People think of the music and whether or not they played their own instruments, but they won an Emmy. This was The Big Bang Theory, The Seinfeld of its day. It was that popular and that well-respected within the business. So I think that’s cool.

Buy “Why The Monkees Matter” Today!

 Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

McFarland (Direct from Publisher) | Amazon | Kindle Edition | Nook Edition

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch is a professor in the Low Residency MFA in Screenwriting Program from Stephens College, California State University, Fullerton, Mount San Antonio Community College and Cal Poly Pomona.  In 2007, she graduated with her Ph.D. in 20th Century U.S./Film History from Claremont Graduate University.  She graduated with her M.A. in 20th Century United States History from California State University, Northridge in 2004.

Welch is also a television writer/producer with credits for Beverly Hills 90210 , CBS’s Emmy winning Picket Fences and Touched By An Angel . She also writes and hosts her own podcasts on 3rdPass.media, her first one titled “Mindful(I) Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch.”

Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space are two books she has written. Los Angeles Times and the Journal of Screenwriting hold some of her published articles.

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Watch this entire presentation

“1960s TV Censorship and The Monkees” gives a brief overview of where censorship standards were in the era – and how The Monkees pushed the envelope with its mentions of the Vietnam War – and Sunset Strip riots – and even with the outrageous storytelling behind “Frodis Caper”, the episode that celebrated the saving of an alien plant that very closely resembled a marijuana plant…  

Writer Treva Silverman said the staff got away with such jokes because the network executives were just old enough not to understand any of the references.
Presented at Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting classes on Friday, August 5, 2016

Transcript:

…and Treva Silverman — in the world of looking for women writers was the first woman to write comedy on television without a male partner and a couple of years after The Monkees — yeah, I know, Yea for her!. After The Monkees she joined the Mary Tyler Moore Show where she won an Emmy for writing the episode where Lou Grant’s wife asks for a divorce and that was because, as the only female writer on The Mary Tyler Moore Show — which seems crazy, but was, in fact, true, she came to the producers and said, “You know, all my friends think Ed Asner is sexy, but they feel guilty liking him because his character is married. So, if we got rid of the wife then they wouldn’t feel so guilty.” and the guys on the show were like “Ed Asner? You’re out of your mind” but they let her write that episode and she won an Emmy for it because it was, of course, in the early 70’s and this idea of women choosing to be divorced because they’s never had a life and they didn’t want to be the side of their husband, was a really fascinating thing. So she won an Emmy — she won 2 Emmys — that year actually. So all these folks had really — these are the people I interviewed and helped me get a focus on what was going on with the show, which I think is really interesting.

Buy “Why The Monkees Matter” Today!

 Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

McFarland (Direct from Publisher) | Amazon | Kindle Edition | Nook Edition

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch is a professor in the Low Residency MFA in Screenwriting Program from Stephens College, California State University, Fullerton, Mount San Antonio Community College and Cal Poly Pomona.  In 2007, she graduated with her Ph.D. in 20th Century U.S./Film History from Claremont Graduate University.  She graduated with her M.A. in 20th Century United States History from California State University, Northridge in 2004.

Welch is also a television writer/producer with credits for Beverly Hills 90210 , CBS’s Emmy winning Picket Fences and Touched By An Angel . She also writes and hosts her own podcasts on 3rdPass.media, her first one titled “Mindful(I) Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch.”

Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space are two books she has written. Los Angeles Times and the Journal of Screenwriting hold some of her published articles.

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Watch this entire presentation

“1960s TV Censorship and The Monkees” gives a brief overview of where censorship standards were in the era – and how The Monkees pushed the envelope with its mentions of the Vietnam War – and Sunset Strip riots – and even with the outrageous storytelling behind “Frodis Caper”, the episode that celebrated the saving of an alien plant that very closely resembled a marijuana plant…  

Writer Treva Silverman said the staff got away with such jokes because the network executives were just old enough not to understand any of the references.
Presented at Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting classes on Friday, August 5, 2016

Transcript:

Bernie Orenstein had written for a bunch of shows. He later on created/co-created Sanford and Son and that was his huge claim to fame. He now teaches at New York University. Peter Meyerson. I met him at an assisted living facility in Orange County and — this i won’t put in the thing when I eventually post it, but — well maybe I will. I asked him what his memory was of The Monkees and his best memory was having been at a party at Peter Tork’s house when the most beautiful girl in the world stripped naked, jumped off the roof into the pool in the back yard. That was his vivid memory as an 82 year-old man and you can see from his dress, he was already one of the hippie dudes. These guys were a little bit older. They weren’t quite hippies.

Buy “Why The Monkees Matter” Today!

 Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

McFarland (Direct from Publisher) | Amazon | Kindle Edition | Nook Edition

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch is a professor in the Low Residency MFA in Screenwriting Program from Stephens College, California State University, Fullerton, Mount San Antonio Community College and Cal Poly Pomona.  In 2007, she graduated with her Ph.D. in 20th Century U.S./Film History from Claremont Graduate University.  She graduated with her M.A. in 20th Century United States History from California State University, Northridge in 2004.

Welch is also a television writer/producer with credits for Beverly Hills 90210 , CBS’s Emmy winning Picket Fences and Touched By An Angel . She also writes and hosts her own podcasts on 3rdPass.media, her first one titled “Mindful(I) Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch.”

Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space are two books she has written. Los Angeles Times and the Journal of Screenwriting hold some of her published articles.

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Watch this entire presentation

“1960s TV Censorship and The Monkees” gives a brief overview of where censorship standards were in the era – and how The Monkees pushed the envelope with its mentions of the Vietnam War – and Sunset Strip riots – and even with the outrageous storytelling behind “Frodis Caper”, the episode that celebrated the saving of an alien plant that very closely resembled a marijuana plant…  

Writer Treva Silverman said the staff got away with such jokes because the network executives were just old enough not to understand any of the references.
Presented at Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting classes on Friday, August 5, 2016

Transcript:

So I wanted to focus on a little TV history and a little bit on censorship. So, I’m looking at them and the whole part of their story that makes them interesting is that they got away with doing and saying things on television in the 1960’s that other people — like The Smother’s Brothers — were cancelled for saying. So, my question was, “How did they do that? What’s the story?” And part of it comes from having interviewed the writers and one of them said, “Network executives didn’t understand what we were saying. So we got by with a lot.” They were referencing marijuana and all these things that the older executives had no idea. So, I thought that was kind of funny. Now, I always talk about writers. I love The Monkees as actors, but these are the people whose words I fell in love with as a kid and these are the people who I met when I wrote the article. Dave Evans, he’s a marvelous, lovely guy. He had written for Bullwinkle and then he moved to The Monkees. Gerald Gardener had been a speech writer for Robert Kennedy when he ran for the senatorship in New York. He’d been friends with the Kennedy family and then he went into television — started on Get Smart and when the folks were putting together The Monkees they wanted hip, flip, new, young kids and the guys on Get Smart recommended him and his partner Dee Caruso. So I got to interview him. Fascinating guy. 

Buy “Why The Monkees Matter” Today!

 Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

McFarland (Direct from Publisher) | Amazon | Kindle Edition | Nook Edition

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch is a professor in the Low Residency MFA in Screenwriting Program from Stephens College, California State University, Fullerton, Mount San Antonio Community College and Cal Poly Pomona.  In 2007, she graduated with her Ph.D. in 20th Century U.S./Film History from Claremont Graduate University.  She graduated with her M.A. in 20th Century United States History from California State University, Northridge in 2004.

Welch is also a television writer/producer with credits for Beverly Hills 90210 , CBS’s Emmy winning Picket Fences and Touched By An Angel . She also writes and hosts her own podcasts on 3rdPass.media, her first one titled “Mindful(I) Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch.”

Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space are two books she has written. Los Angeles Times and the Journal of Screenwriting hold some of her published articles.

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS