Gangster films are one of the writers’ favorite genres to parody, enjoying giving Micky Dolenz a chance to do his Jimmy Cagney impression three times in the first season. This happened in “Monkees in a Ghost Town”, which also parodied John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, and in “Monkees ala Carte”, which was rife with Italian-American clichés from meatballs to machine guns.
Jean Powergirl takes the host reigns and welcomes her guest Rosanne Welch, PhD to the show! They’ll be discussing Roseanne’s book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture.”
Transcript:
Jean: So let’s talk about our second Monkee here. Who’s this guy on the drums?
Rosanne: On the drums, we have Micky Dolenz who came to this audition as a child actor. He’d been in a show called Circus Boy when he was 10, but in that show his father George Dolenz was the star of a show in the 50’s called The Count of Monte Cristo and so they didn’t want to look like nepotism and also Micky Dolenz provides — on this show, believe it or not, because when you look at the pictures he looks like a white boy. He was….
Jean: They’re all white. So there’s an ethnicity here.
Rosanne: The Italians were still a weird ethnic group in the 1960s. We don’t have The Godfather yet. We don’t have any main…
Jean: …Corleones…
Rosanne: No. Exactly, so and it’s interesting to me in studying this, had the show been made 5 years later, they would have had an African-American character. I mean this was the trend in the civil rights movement, but they weren’t there yet. So, to them. the most ethnically odd was this guy because he was Italian.
Jean:…and Rosanne is Italian-American…
Rosanne: Exactly. So, of course, I was drawn to that character because that was representative of my culture on television.
A hit television show about a fictitious rock band, The Monkees (1966-1968) earned two Emmys–Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Comedy. Capitalizing on the show’s success, the actual band formed by the actors, at their peak, sold more albums than The Beatles and The Rolling Stones combined and set the stage for other musical TV characters from The Partridge Family to Hannah Montana. In the late 1980s, the Monkees began a series of reunion tours that continued into their 50th anniversary.
This book tells the story of The Monkees and how the show changed television, introducing a new generation to the fourth-wall-breaking slapstick created by Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers. Its creators contributed to the innovative film and television of 1970s with projects like Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Laugh-In and Welcome Back, Kotter. Immense profits from the show, its music and its merchandising funded the producers’ move into films such as Head, Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces.
Rosanne Welch, PhD has written for television (Touched by an Angel, Picket Fences) and print (Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space). In the documentary world she has written and produced Bill Clinton and the Boys Nation Class of 1963 for ABC NEWS/Nightline and consulted on PBS’s A Prince Among Slaves, the story of a prince from West Africa who was enslaved in the 1780s, freed by order of President John Quincy Adams in the 1820s and returned to his homeland.
Jean Powergirl takes the host reigns and welcomes her guest Rosanne Welch, PhD to the show! They’ll be discussing Roseanne’s book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture.”
Transcript:
Rosanne: One of the interesting things — it was the first show that had a set of teenagers who didn’t have a father figure or a mother who looked over them and watched over them. And Peter Tork has often said that that’s one of the things that attracted teenagers that they saw teenagers living independently and out current teenagers think of themselves as 16 and 17. These guys are 18-19 — those are still considered teenagers because you still had to wait until you were 21 to vote. You were not a full adult and…
Jean: …and if kids didn’t go to college or join the military, they still lived with their parents in American culture and they have a job and they have to do things.
Rosanne: So they were teenagers.
Jean: Isn’t he the one whos mother invented Liquid Paper? Yes, that’s always…so, the funny thing was he wasn’t going to get that inheritance till later in life. So he didn’t have much cash as a young man. He got on the show and made a ton of cash and has admitted in other interviews that he spent it all on cars and pretty much bankrupted himself when everything was done and had to revive — he began a video company in Northern California that was very successful and so he’s quite well off these days.
A hit television show about a fictitious rock band, The Monkees (1966-1968) earned two Emmys–Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Comedy. Capitalizing on the show’s success, the actual band formed by the actors, at their peak, sold more albums than The Beatles and The Rolling Stones combined and set the stage for other musical TV characters from The Partridge Family to Hannah Montana. In the late 1980s, the Monkees began a series of reunion tours that continued into their 50th anniversary.
This book tells the story of The Monkees and how the show changed television, introducing a new generation to the fourth-wall-breaking slapstick created by Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers. Its creators contributed to the innovative film and television of 1970s with projects like Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Laugh-In and Welcome Back, Kotter. Immense profits from the show, its music and its merchandising funded the producers’ move into films such as Head, Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces.
Rosanne Welch, PhD has written for television (Touched by an Angel, Picket Fences) and print (Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space). In the documentary world she has written and produced Bill Clinton and the Boys Nation Class of 1963 for ABC NEWS/Nightline and consulted on PBS’s A Prince Among Slaves, the story of a prince from West Africa who was enslaved in the 1780s, freed by order of President John Quincy Adams in the 1820s and returned to his homeland.
Unlike Get Smart where the only genre they parodied was spy thriller, on The Monkees the writers were free to parody them all, again keeping the audience guessing. Across the run of the show they would parody Hollywood films, gangster movies, monster movies, racing films, motorcycle sagas and a slew of other styles.
Jean Powergirl takes the host reigns and welcomes her guest Rosanne Welch, PhD to the show! They’ll be discussing Roseanne’s book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture.”
Transcript:
Jean: So let’s talk about the individual Monkees, all right. Again, here they are again. So tell us — who is this guy right here.
Rosanne: On the end there you see Michael Nesmith. he was from Texas and had come to Los Angeles to be a rock and roll singer. He hosted at a couple of clubs in town. He would host open mic nights and whatnot for local rock bands and he had written Different Drum which is the song Linda Ronstadt msde famous. So he was looking for a job and a career as a singer-songwriter.
Jean: …and already had the talent obviously.
Rosanne: Exactly….when the audition came up and basically hey, who doesn’t want extra cash. So he auditioned and he was cast.
A hit television show about a fictitious rock band, The Monkees (1966-1968) earned two Emmys–Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Comedy. Capitalizing on the show’s success, the actual band formed by the actors, at their peak, sold more albums than The Beatles and The Rolling Stones combined and set the stage for other musical TV characters from The Partridge Family to Hannah Montana. In the late 1980s, the Monkees began a series of reunion tours that continued into their 50th anniversary.
This book tells the story of The Monkees and how the show changed television, introducing a new generation to the fourth-wall-breaking slapstick created by Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers. Its creators contributed to the innovative film and television of 1970s with projects like Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Laugh-In and Welcome Back, Kotter. Immense profits from the show, its music and its merchandising funded the producers’ move into films such as Head, Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces.
Rosanne Welch, PhD has written for television (Touched by an Angel, Picket Fences) and print (Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space). In the documentary world she has written and produced Bill Clinton and the Boys Nation Class of 1963 for ABC NEWS/Nightline and consulted on PBS’s A Prince Among Slaves, the story of a prince from West Africa who was enslaved in the 1780s, freed by order of President John Quincy Adams in the 1820s and returned to his homeland.
This book signing at Book Soup was wonderful – good people, good conversation (before and after the signing). Just another example of the kind of quality positive people who have been drawn to The Monkees across generations – I even met a former head of publicity for ScreenGems who had some fun stories to tell. — Rosanne
For me, the book is hoping to contribute to the significance of The Monkees. That’s why it’s called “Why The Monkees Matter.” What is it that we learn from them and those are just a few of the thing that strikes me. I think that if we meet this group of early television writers and performers and directors — all of them who made television back in the day — it’s going to help us understand what I call the magic of The Monkees and how much The Monkees have contributed to the myths we have about the magic of the 1960s. So, for me, that was the purpose of putting the book together along with getting to interview Micky Dolenz. That was always underneath it all.
While I have the chance, of course, I want to thank a lot of people that were involved with helping me with the book. My friend, Mia — who’s not here tonight, but she copyedited for me and that was really important to have somebody look at all my spelling. I’m not bad at spelling, but you know, when you’re in a hurry and see things it was great to have someone do that. Of course, I want to think my Mom for letting me watch TV so much when I was a kid, because, geez whiz, I grew up to be a TV writer and write books about TV. So I was actually studying back in the day. Nobody was really paying attention. So I think that’s really important. Some people said you shouldn’t let your kids watch TV. It will be bad for them and it turned out to be very good for me. So, I have to say, I have to thank my husband and my son, because I spent many nights just typing on my computer ignoring them and they seemed to be fine with that and, in fact, i also have to thank my son for coming to Monkees concerts with me and for reminding me that they have something else yet to teach which is that when he was 15 and saw them perform at the age of 70, yet he had seen them in television at the age of 18, because that is when they are forever saved in these programs, he said that what he learned from watching them is that he should find something he loved to do in life because he wanted to be able to do it as long as they were doing what they loved and to me that’s a huge lesson and I think they just continue teaching us lessons over and over and over.
The only flat out farce ever attempted, “Fairy Tale” involved Mike in the challenging dual role of both Mike the cobbler and in drag as the Queen that Peter’s character worships. As part of the farcical element of the episode, Davy later played Little Red Riding Hood and Gretl while Micky played Goldilocks. No other episode breaks the fourth wall nearly as much from the cardboard sets to the stumbling delivery of dialogue to the anachronistic props that keep popping up.
![15: Micky Dolenz and The Monkees : “Why The Monkees Matter” Interview with Jean Power [Video] (1:04)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/rmw-power-15-dolenz.jpeg)
![14: More On Michael Nesmith and The Monkees : “Why The Monkees Matter” Interview with Jean Power [Video] (1:00)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/rmw-power-14-nesmith-2.jpeg)
![13 : Michael Nesmith and The Monkees : “Why The Monkees Matter” Interview with Jean Power [Video] (0:35)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/rmw-power-13-nesmith.jpeg)
![Conclusion and Acknowledgements from Why The Monkees Matter Book Signing [Video] (1:48)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wtmm-reading-16-conclusion.jpeg)
