Category: Podcast

Transcript:

This lady people should know more. You might recognize from the title of her book Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. This is Anita Loos. Anita Loos is probably the most prolific female writer of the silent era and she made the transition into talkies. Many, many writers did not. She did because she could write really witty dialogue but Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is a novel that fascinates me. She wrote it because she was on a train with M Somerset Maugham who she loved as an intellectual and a blonde chick got on the train and he started to fawn all over her after they were having this lovely intellectual conversation and it made her mad. So she wrote a book about how blonds aren’t stupid. They’re actually working it and getting out of men exactly what they want. Yeah. So they pretend to be dumb. It’s really Legally Blonde long before there was Legally Blonde and it’s never gone out of publication but it is not taught in American literature class where The Great Gatsby is always taught.

Dr. Rosanne Welch discusses the women in her new book “When Women Wrote Hollywood” which covers female screenwriters from the Silents through the early 1940s when women wrote over 50% of films and Frances Marion was the highest paid screenwriter (male or female) and the first to win 2 Oscars. Yet, she fails to appear in film history books, which continue to regurgitate the myth that male directors did it all – even though it’s been proven that the only profitable movies Cecil B. de Mille ever directed were all written by Jeannie Macpherson film ever won for Best Picture was written by Robert E. Sherwood (who people have heard of, mostly due to his connection to Dorothy Parker) and Joan Harrison.

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06 TV After The Monkees from “Why The Monkees Matter: Even 50 Years Later [Video] (53 seconds)

Buy Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

Wherever you go, you find Monkees fans and the Denver Popular Culture Con was no different. Amid rooms full of caped crusaders and cosplay creations, I was initially not sure how many folks would attend a talk on a TV show from the 1960s – but happily I was met by a nice, engaged audience for my talk on Why the Monkees Matter – and afterward they bought books! What more could an author ask for?

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Transcript

So this is TV before our folks showed up and this is TV after and it’s definitely different. Suddenly we’re talking about on Laugh-In sex, politics, what’s going on in the world. We have Sonny and Cher who a couple of the writer’s The Monkees moved on to the Sonny and Cher show. If you know enough about The Monkees, there were two seasons of the program. The third season, the four guys wanted it to be a variety show — set around rock and roll and the problem was the network said “Nobody’s gonna watch a variety show that has to do with rock and roll” and the next season Sonny and Cher showed up and won some Emmys right? So there you go. Of course, The Smothers Brothers who were canceled you’re being too political. The Mod Squad which was a whole movement into the new hippie generation and of course All In The Family is gonna happen in the 70s and we’re going to get very serious about how we talk about politics on television but The Monkees were there in the beginning.

A hit television show about a fictitious rock band, The Monkees (1966-1968) earned two Emmys–Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Directorial Acheivement 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 Riderand Five Easy Pieces.

McFarland (Direct from Publisher) | Amazon | Kindle Edition | Nook Edition

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20 Gene Gauntier & D.W. Griffith from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (15 seconds)

Part of the California State University, Fullerton Faculty Noon Time Talks at the Pollak Library.

Transcript:

Other things she did. She gave the first directing job to a guy named Larry who was an actor who wasn’t doing very well and he needed some money and he became DW Griffith. So she put him into the world right? She started his career which i think is important.

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05 Writers Changing The Face of TV from “Why The Monkees Matter: Even 50 Years Later [Video] (40 seconds)

Buy Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

Transcript

So these folks changed I say the face of television. Before 1966 we’re having a lot of fairly — for small very white folks — but also very sort of middle-of-the-road. — Very gentle and there’s nothing wrong with that but it’s all one flavor. There’s not a whole lot of difference there right? If you’ll notice in the bottom corner, who do you think that is? Micky Dolenz was a TV star. People think they were nobodies coming to the show but Micky Dolenz had himself had a show for three years because his parents were performers right and they had a friend who said they’re doing this show called Circus Boy. Would your kid die his hair blonde to be in it? and his parents were like “Yeah that’s good. That’s his college fund right there.”

A hit television show about a fictitious rock band, The Monkees (1966-1968) earned two Emmys–Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Directorial Acheivement 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 Riderand Five Easy Pieces.

McFarland (Direct from Publisher) | Amazon | Kindle Edition | Nook Edition

Want to use “Why The Monkees Matter” in your classroom?

Order Examination Copies, Library and Campus Bookstore orders directly from McFarland

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19 Gene Gauntier from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (32 seconds)

Part of the California State University, Fullerton Faculty Noon Time Talks at the Pollak Library.

Transcript:

Gene Gauntier is from Ireland. She was born in Kansas. She ended up being the first person to film a movie on location and it was “From The Manger to the Cross” which was the story of The Christ. It was the first time that the story of Jesus was told on film and she went to Jerusalem and then she filmed some in other places in Europe. So she was pretty famous for a good long time. A company called the Kalum company. Again when that company went out of business and all their paperwork disappeared, a lot of her history disappeared with it but you can find “From The Manger to the Cross” on YouTube

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** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

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04 More On The Writers of The Monkees from “Why The Monkees Matter: Even 50 Years Later [Video] (1 minute 4 seconds)

Buy Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

Transcript

Down in the right corner is Peter Meyerson. Clearly from his photograph truly on the hippie train back in the day — had a very interesting life and ended up married to one of Michael Nesmith’s early girlfriends later in life — like his third wife was Nesmith’s first girlfriend or some silly thing like that. Gentlemen the middle is Bernie Ornstein. He was a writer of more mainstream work and had a lot to say about what The Monkees were about, Dave Evans, the gentleman who’s smiling. He’s so adorable He’s the nicest man you would ever want to meet and he had written for Bullwinkle before he came to The Monkees and then Treva Silverman is the woman I was speaking of. The first woman to write on television write comedy without a male partner and so she went on to earn two Emmys in her career writing on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. So all these writers had very good histories coming into and then moving out of The Monkees and again people dismissed the show but it really deserves much more attention. She wrote the particular episode of Mary Tyler Moore where Lou Grant’s wife asked for a divorce which was huge in the early 70s and that’s what she got the Emmy for.

A hit television show about a fictitious rock band, The Monkees (1966-1968) earned two Emmys–Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Directorial Acheivement 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 Riderand Five Easy Pieces.

McFarland (Direct from Publisher) | Amazon | Kindle Edition | Nook Edition

Want to use “Why The Monkees Matter” in your classroom?

Order Examination Copies, Library and Campus Bookstore orders directly from McFarland

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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18 Jennie Louise Toussaint Welcome from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (52 seconds)

Part of the California State University, Fullerton Faculty Noon Time Talks at the Pollak Library.

Transcript:

Really more interesting, I want to know more about Jennie Louise Toussaint Welcome. That is actually her full name, which is beautiful. She as well, she wrote a movie that was meant to be the answer to “Birth of a Nation”, right? She wrote a movie in defense of how badly African-Americans were treated in “Birth of a Nation”, that doesn’t exist anymore. Bits and pieces online you can find of “The Charge of the Colored Divisions”. She was covering the African-American men in World War I, right? So she did some work like that, both reality and fiction. I have to believe we’ll find some more work on her, because her brother was Booker T. Washington’s personal photographer during the Harlem Renaissance and her parents were the butler and maid to President Ulysses S. Grant, so there’s got to be somebody mentioning them somewhere. It’s just that nobody’s put all that together, but I really think we’re going to to get more about her pretty soon.

America’s Forgotten Founding Father: A Novel Based on the Life of Filippo Mazzei with Author, Dr. Rosanne Welch

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Mentoris Project Podcast: America’s Forgotten Founding Father: A Novel Based on the Life of Filippo Mazzei with Author, Dr. Rosanne Welch

The latest podcast is about my Mentoris book and is now available on the Mentoris Web Site. Give it a listen and Subscribe for More! — Rosanne

Guest Hosted by Dr. Peg Lamphier

Listen Now

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His loyalty lasted a lifetime…

Surgeon, merchant, vintner, and writer Filippo Mazzei influenced American business, politics, and philosophy. Befriending Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, Mazzei was a strong liaison for others in Europe. Mazzei was Jefferson’s inspiration for the most famous line in the Declaration of Independence: “All men are created equal.”

About the Author

Rosanne Welch is a writer, producer, and university professor with credits that include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, Touched by an Angel, and ABC NEWS/Nightline. She is the author of Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture (McFarland, 2017). She is co-editor, with Peg A. Lamphier, of Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia and Document Collection (ABC-CLIO, 2017).

Welch has also published chapters in Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television (I. B.Tauris) and The American Civil War on Film and TV: Blue and Gray in Black and White and Color (Lexington Books, 2018), and an essay in Doctor Who and Race: An Anthology.

By day she teaches courses on the history of screenwriting and on television writing for the Stephens College MFA in screenwriting programs. You can also watch her TEDx talk, “The Importance of Having a Female Voice in the Room”

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Also from the Mentoris Project

Want to use these books in your classroom? Contact the Mentoris Project!`

03 The Writers of The Monkees from “Why The Monkees Matter: Even 50 Years Later – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (50 seconds)

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