On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch
Writing, Film, Television and More!
Monkees Question of the Moment: What Do The Monkees Mean to You?
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“The Monkees have come to mean so many things over the years – to me and to many others who have followed their careers both together and individually. As the band members said, even they don’t belong to themselves anymore. The Monkees belong to the audience.”
from Why The Monkees Mattered by Dr. Rosanne Welch — Coming Fall 2016 – Click for more info!
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!
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?:
Monkees Question of the Moment: How did you defend The Monkees to your friends?
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“…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!
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!
Monkees Question of the Moment: How did you decide what to watch in your childhood?
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“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?”
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?
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“The Monkees as a television show introduced young audiences to new ideas of political ideology, a new anti-military discourse and new concepts of class and feminist theory.”
from Why The Monkees Mattered by Dr. Rosanne Welch — Coming Fall 2016 – Click for more info!
Monkees Question of the Moment: What did you learn from The Monkees?
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Why The Monkees Mattered: Chapter 4: The Kind of Girl I could Love: Feminism, Gender and Sexuality in 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 Dating and Relationships?
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Keeping my focus on the television program it’s nice to post this cast and crew photo – traditionally taken at the end of each season. (Found at The Monkees Live Almanac. A great resource for tons of Monkees info) This offers fans and students the chance to see just how many skilled and talented craftsmen and women are required to create television.
In Why The Monkees Matter I discuss the work of several of these folks and how it contributed to the magic of The Monkees.
#14 is of particular interest as property master Jack Williams actually appeared on the program and was referenced in a couple of episodes. And many of these folks were invited in front of the camera in the Tag for the Christmas episode, reminding the audience of their contributions.
The pity is that, since writers work in offices elsewhere on the lot, they often don’t appear in such photos – as has happened here.
Link: The Monkees Live Almanac