Books – Page 148 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Who Wrote The Monkees? – “Don’t Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth” by Dave Evans

Who Wrote The Monkees? – “Don’t Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth” by Dave Evans Part 3 of an on-going series

This week’s Antenna offering for The Monkees – “Don’t Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth” – was written by Dave Evans who is one of the nicest, kindest, men I have ever had the pleasure of interviewing.

Mr. Evans remembered being asked by Davy’s manager, Ward Sylvester, to write something that would highlight Davy’s ability with horses and hence this episode was born. Mr. Evans also remembered being asked by Bob Rafaelson to be on set for rewrites as needed, which gave him the chance to get to know the actors early on – an opportunity not all the other writers shared. After his two-season, nine episode run on the show he moved on to Laugh-in and Love, American Style, but told me no other job ever gave him the pleasure The Monkees did, so he eventually quit writing and went into conflict resolution, where he won awards for his ability to bring deeply distant parties together in compromise.

A 2014 article in the Los Angeles Times tells you all you need to know about him:

A tale of two churches — and a persistent racial divide, The Los Angeles Time

After the 1992 Los Angeles Riots Evans, the son of a minister, was a member of an all white Presbyterian church that created a cross town friendship with an all black Presbyterian church. Members of each began to visit the other church to create community. Twenty years later, Evans is the only member of his church still visiting the other church.

More information on The Monkees:

Previously in Who Wrote The Monkees?:

Why The Monkees Mattered: Chapter 3: Look Out, Here Comes Tomorrow: Counter-Culture Comes to Television and Middle America via The Monkees

Why The Monkees Mattered: Chapter 3: Look Out, Here Comes Tomorrow: Counter-Culture Comes to Television and Middle America via 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 you learn about the counter-culture from The Monkees?

Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Final Book Cover! – Why The Monkees Matter by Rosanne Welch

So exciting to share the cover art that the McFarland graphics team has put together for my book! It makes everything start to feel more and more real.

Even though it won’t be available until Fall (the better to coordinate with the premiere of the show!) I enjoy seeing each step in the process.

Guess it’s time to make up some bookmarks with this to hand out at events!

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

Who Wrote The Monkees? – “Monkees in a Ghost Town” by Robert Schlitt and Peter Meyerson

Who wrote The Monkees? – “Monkees in a Ghost Town” by Robert Schlitt and Peter Meyerson Part 2 of an on-going series

The second Monkees episode Antenna TV is airing this weekend is “Monkees in a Ghost Town”, by the writing team of Robert Schlitt and Peter Meyerson. The partnership ended shortly after their work on The Monkees with Schmitt moving into one-hour dramas such as The Father Dowling Mysteries and, eventually, Matlock while Meyerson teamed up with fellow Monkees writer Treva Silverman on an episode of That Girl and a Buck Henry series called Captain Nice before eventually co-creating Welcome Back, Kotter.

I was lucky enough to interview Mr. Meyerson several months before he passed away and he regaled me with several stories about his time on the show and socializing with the actors, particularly at parties at Peter’s house, as Meyerson himself was quite the hippie, so their philosophies were well matched.

A few of the other writers I interviewed kept referring to Mr. Meyerson as their ‘college guy’ and in “Ghost Town” we see his homage to that perennial of literature courses – Of Mice and Men.

Yes, that is veteran actor, Lon Chaney, Jr. on the right.

More information on The Monkees:

Previously in Who Write The Monkees?:

“Success Story” by Bernie Orenstein

My Favorite Book of Letters Between Writers, Cheever’s Glad Tidings

Answering another friend’s Facebook post reminded me today of one of my favorite books of letters between writers is between Cheever and John Weaver.

I stumbled upon Glad Tidings: A Friendship in Letters : The Correspondence of John Cheever and John D. Weaver, 1945-1982 many years ago at a used bookstore and deeply enjoyed reading how these two writers discussed their work and the origins of their most famous projects.

Of course, Cheever was also writing to Harriet Weaver but the editors left her name off the title, so it’s also a good look at how the Weaver marriage operated (in the same way The Letters of S.J. Perlemnan became a look at the marriage of Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell since he wrote so often to them).

What I enjoyed most was the inside look Cheever gave of coming to Hollywood when a studio adapted his story The Swimmer into a film – Weaver had much more experience living in Los Angeles as a writer of local histories so he helped Cheever navigate La-La-Land.

If you don’t know either of these writers, a selection of Cheever’s short stories, The Stories of John Cheever, won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (not too shabby) and John D. Weaver’s obituary in the Los Angeles Times tells you how important he was: “Weaver wrote two novels and eight nonfiction books, including one that helped change history: “The Brownsville Raid,” a 1970 book that led to the exoneration of 167 black soldiers who had been discharged without honor 64 years earlier.”

Both are well worth reading – as is Glad Tidings. Check them out.

Why The Monkees Mattered: Chapter 2: Authorship on The Monkees: Who Wrote The Monkees and what was that “Something” They Had to Say?

Chapter 2: Authorship on The Monkees: Who Wrote The Monkees and what was that Something They Had to Say?

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

Monkees Question of the Moment: Did you even think about the writing when you were watching The Monkees? Did you think they were just making it up as they went along? A lot of people did.

Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Diane Sawyer’s Obituary to Davy Jones 2012 [Video]

In memory of the anniversary of the loss of Davy Jones in 2012 I wanted to post this newscast by Diane Sawyer where she spoke of the news as “startling bulletin” which came across her desk in the newsroom that day (February 29, 2012). Sawyer then proclaimed “He is still that forever young and sunny singer from The Monkees who made more than one generation want to sing along.”

The question I ask in the book is why would a serious journalist (not merely an entertainment reporter) consider news of the death of a former teen idol ‘startling’ unless she, too, had once been among his fans? To me it speaks volumes about how he – and The Monkees – effected all our lives.

You can join The Monkees Discussion on my Why The Monkees Mattered Facebook Page

Why The Monkees Mattered: Chapter 1: Sweet Young Thing

Chapter 1: Sweet Young Thing: Contextualizing The Monkees with a Short History of Teenagers on Television

from Why The Monkees Mattered by Dr. Rosanne Welch — Coming Spring 2016

Monkees Question of the Moment: What did The Monkees teach you about being a teenager?

Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Screenwriting History Books: The Books I Use to Teach Screenwriting History

Here are some of the books I use to teach the History of Screenwriting in the MFA in Screenwriting Program for Stephens College. I’ll touch base on each of these books individually – their strengths and weaknesses (as I see them and as the students have reported them to me in class discussions) over the next few of weeks.

What are your favorite screenwriting History books? It’s a trick question because few film history books focus on screenwriting. They mostly focus on business moguls, directors and actors. But because this is an MFA in Screenwriting, the program Director, Ken Lazebnik, and I decided the writers who come through the program ought to have a deep understanding of the screenwriters who came before them.

Please tell your local librarian about my book, Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia and Document Collection

We know our new 4-volume encyclopedia Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia and Document Collection is not the kind of thing an average person purchases based on size and cost (though I remember a pre-internet time when door-to-door salesmen still hawked the Encyclopedia Britannica and my mom bought a copy to help me do well in school and get to college).

In this modern world, if you want to help Peg and I (and all the students who can benefit from learning about all these wonderful women who helped shape American culture) consider passing a copy of the attached flyer out to your local public or university librarians (in print and/or via email) and ask if they will order a set for their branch.

Thanks!

Click to download the PDF flyer, ready for printing or attaching to an email