“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.
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.”
Meyerson mixes a metatextual moment with a comment on the counter-culture when a western deputy answers the second call. This time, when Davy says the boys are in trouble the deputy says, “I better get Mr. Dillon.”
Davy asks, “Marshall Dillon?”, referencing the long-running Gunsmoke.
But the deputy answers, “No Bob Dylan. He can write a song about your problems.”
Meyerson was also behind the Vietnam War reference in the domino-playing scene in “Monkee Mother”.
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.
…and it was worse when it went to television, which is another level of adaptation. I’m going to take a movie and I’m going to put it on TV where you can do even less, because we’re not in the movies. In this case, just look at how once we bring in Sally Field into the picture it gets even younger and there’s not a surfboard in sight. This entire book is about a girl who masters a sport. On TV it’s about a girl who talks on the phone and hangs out with cute boys. That’s an entire destruction of the point of that story and it was written by the father of the girl who had achieved that. So he was looking to make his daughter a respectable, interesting person. So, I think that’s an interesting example of something being ruined. Only in the book do you get the true story of what it was like. So, again, I’ll just go back, you have to read the book.
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:
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.
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.”
Clearly, neither Gardner nor Evans felt connected to the counter-culture. Neither did freelancer Coslough Johnson. To Johnson, “Counter culture meant you were a communist. I was older than the actors and most of the writers since I’d been in the military and then done industrial films so I didn’t even know the smell of marijuana.
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.
…and that’s the story that people remember if they saw the movies. When this book came out, it was compared to “The Catcher in the Rye.” It was considered that kind of novel for girls. It was a “coming of the age.” She decides whether or not to have sex with a couple of the guys. it’s entirely up to her. There’s really nothing wrong with it. It’s a fascinating story that has been totally destroyed by the way it was turned into a film and it became a bubble gum film about a cute girl on the beach with cute boys. Totally, totally, cut the knees off of that book. Right? And she wen’t Hawaiian. She went to Rome. I mean it just became this cutesy-pie girl trying to find a boyfriend. Not the point of the novel at all. So the movies completely destroyed it to the point that we don’t teach Gidget in school. But you all probably had to read “The Catcher in the Rye.” Everybody. Right? we read the boy’s coming of age story. We don’t read the girl’s coming of age story. And I think that’s a huge mistake. I didn’t read Gidget until I was in my 40’s. And I went “Oh, it’s a cool book. I don’t know why anyone didn’t give this to me.”
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.”
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