This 1997 interview clip involves all four actor/musicians on the Clive James program out of the UK. They discuss the Justus tour, their history, and the 30th anniversary special that aired that year. James (or his editors) are good at giving each their individual moment during the interview. James defines the show as “their old but always new” series – which is a compliment and shows how James understood the show and its importance. It’s always interesting to compare the questions asked by American interviewers and those from other countries. — Rosanne
“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:
In the course of this episode they do this song, which is hugely anti-war, if you look at it. Zoor and Zam.
“The king of Zor, he called for war And the king of Zam, he answered.
Two little kings playing a game. They gave a war and nobody came.”
That’s a hugely anti-war song to be in the middle of the still, fussing around kind of program. They got away with it. They got away with it. I’m not — I just find that fascinating. At the very end of the episode, they get to the bad plant. They’re going to kill it unti the plant says, “No, no, it’s not my fault. The other guy used me. I want to help the world. If I reenergize my Frodis power, more people will be happier. It will be a lovely thing.” This is the bad Wizard Glick and once he gets near the plant this is how he starts to feel. It’s an entire episode dedicated the love of marijuana. In 1967 in American television. I just love that.
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.”
The only positive representation of Asian culture came unexpectedly in the final episode, “Frodis Caper”, co-written by Dolenz and Dave Evans. As discussed in the chapter on counter-culture, a Buddhist chant known as the Lotus Sutra aided the band in escaping the evil Wizard Glick and saving the world. Therefore these all-American boys save the world with the help of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, a teaching from the first historical Budda, Siddhartha Gautama.
You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!
Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library
Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.
We all know that recently there’s been a whole run of Jane Austen. Suddenly the whole world loves Jane Austen again, which is fun. Recently — well not that recently — Sense and Sensibility ws turned into a movies. Hugely Successful. The best of this particular story ever. It was written by Emma Thompson, who some people forget is also a writer, not just an actress. She was hired because they wanted a writer who would retain the humor on Jane Austen. Many people don’t think she has humor. And in fact she does. So, Emma Thompson was a famous comedian at the time. It was long before she did any work in America with Kenneth Branaugh, so she was just know as a comedian in England. She took on the job — it took them about 5-6 years to get it made. What’s really interesting is that she kept a diary of the process of adapting it and the process of filming the adaptation, wherein continued changes were made on a daily basis on the set. So she documents changes — why they were made — who asked for them — whether she agreed of not — how that discussion took place. It’s a really excellent look at the full process of adapting something and it became quite a financial success. So, it was a pretty big adaption to note.
About this talk
Dr. Rosanne Welch (RTVF) speaks on the craft of history of film adaptations from the controversy of the silent film Birth of a Nation (protested by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1915) to Breakfast at Tiffany’s (to which author Truman Capote famously said, “The only thing left from the book is the title”) to The Godfather . Naturally, the behemoth in adaptation – Harry Potter (which depended on the relationship created by adapter Steve Kloves and author J.K. Rowling) will be discussed, as will the subject of this month’s celebration: Dune.
Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm
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.”
‘The book is an important read for persons who practice or study within the field. Anyone with experience or interest in the topic will come away with a deepened understanding of debates within cultural studies and with an array of nfew questions and ideas to pursue. The book would make a fine text for graduate level classes dealing with culture and media; the question/debate-orientated structure especially could provide the launching pad for a whole range of discussions, profjects, and papter topics’ — The Southern Communication Journal
In this sequel to the best-selling text Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice, Chris Barker turns his attention to the significance and future of the field. He analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of cultural studies, providing students and practitioners with an authoritative diagnosis of the subject and a balanced prognosis, and investigates the boundaries of cultural studies elucidating the main underlying themes of study.
Written with panache, and an understanding of classroom needs, Making Sense of Cultural Studies is the perfect teaching complement to Chris Barker’s earlier textbook. It is a rich resource for seminar work and undergraduate and postgraduate thesis topics, yet it can also be read as a free-standing analysis of the condition of cultural studies today.
“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 particular episode is very famous. It’s call “Frodis Caper.” Frodis is a code word for marijuana. Right? And so this whole episode is built around this alien plant. What does it look like? What does it look like to you? Nobody caught that. The entire episode is built around one bad American who ties in with the alien, uses his power to zombie out everybody in town and we have to stop this guy. They do it — they use the aliens power through the TV which is the bad thing. TV will destroy your brian if you watch too much of it. So you notice this — that’s the CBS logo kind of messed around with. Their on NBC. So they’re riffing on the other network right now being the bad thing you shouldn’t focus on.
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.”
The oddest part of having most Italian characters presented as gangsters and none of them as normal Italian friends populating the world of The Monkees, is, as previously mentioned, that Dolenz was essentially Italian. His father, George Dolenz, came from Trieste, Italy (though when the elder Dolenz was born it was still part of Austria-Hungary). Since Micky’s character did not conform to any of the broader Italian stereotypes involving accents or criminal activity (and he was only ½ Italian) did the audience even sense that he was representing that ethnicity?
You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!
Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library
Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.
I think it’s a really good movie — I mean it got an Oscar nomination. I just don’t think in this case you want to know about the book. Now, I read the book afterwards and because I was so interested in the Tom Wingo character, I was bored with the Luke character. That didn’t work for me and I thought, Oh, I wish I had read it first so I could have made that comparison, but an interesting look at how big a change you can make and still, essentially, create a successful storyline having to do with major characters who were invented. So that was a huge controversy.
About this talk
Dr. Rosanne Welch (RTVF) speaks on the craft of history of film adaptations from the controversy of the silent film Birth of a Nation (protested by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1915) to Breakfast at Tiffany’s (to which author Truman Capote famously said, “The only thing left from the book is the title”) to The Godfather . Naturally, the behemoth in adaptation – Harry Potter (which depended on the relationship created by adapter Steve Kloves and author J.K. Rowling) will be discussed, as will the subject of this month’s celebration: Dune.
Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm
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.”
“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:
It’s called “Monkee’s Watch Their Feet.” It’s written by Coslough Johnson, who’s the brother of Arte Johnson who is from Laugh-In and this is the story of aliens who come down to Earth and they kidnap Micky Dolenz and make a copy of him who’s a robot and their trying to understand the brain of Americans, which is pretty silly, but notice the sort of patriotic backdrop here. It guest starred Pat Paulsen, who is going to end up on Laugh-In and these are some lines that he has in this episode. Think about what he’s talking about right in the center of the Vietnam War. Particularly I like this line. This is the aliens talking about the Americans. We don’t ever have to say Vietnam. We know what they’re talking about. These are the guys. This is the age of the guy who is being drafted to go. This other is a nice chunk that they talk about. “They want to put the blame on teenagers. Take the war for example. Whose fault is it? Not ours. we’re not fighting. It must be those crazy kids. They’re the ones doing all the fighting.”
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.”
![Zor and Zam and The Monkees from 1960’s TV Censorship and The Monkees [Video] (1:00)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/monkees-censorship-18-zor-zam.jpeg)
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