Speaking – Page 36 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

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

…and of course, the music still matters because two years ago they put on an album on their 50th anniversary that made the top 50 in the Billboard charts. Fifty years after their last top-ten album. No other artists can say that. No other living artists right. If you put up dead people’s stuff then it’ll sell yeah but no other living artists and the people that wrote for them on this album again very major modern songwriters. So I think that’s really really cool Rivers Cuomo, Andy Partridge, Ben Gibbard wrote a beautiful song called Me and Magdalena which is just a very gorgeous song — a Nesmith thing. These are all amazing people today. What they did, the folks at Rhino records went out and asked people from hit rock bands today, if you could write for The Monkees would you and a bunch of them said yes and then they said okay write me a song that sounds like a Monkees song and that was a great challenge for them. They really, really enjoyed it. Ben Gibbard sings the Me and Magdalena when he’s on tour.

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

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?

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25 Songwriters and The Monkees from “Why The Monkees Matter: Even 50 Years Later [Video] (53 seconds)

Enjoy This Clip? Watch this entire presentation and Buy Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

From Denver Pop Culture Con 2019.

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Transcript

Obviously, as I said, the TV Writers, the music writers mattered. I mean, Carole King — how many Grammy’s in her day — and she wrote Some Time In The Morning, which I think is one of the most beautiful love songs ever. Boyce and Hart, as I mentioned were the major songwriters for them in the first couple of years and then it expanded. Neil Sedaka wrote for them. Neil Diamond — how about that young picture of Neil Diamond. Paul Williams, who also — somehow the Muppets and The Monkees — I need a book that connects them because there is a lot that connects them. David Gates from Bread wrote a couple of songs and actually, Micky has an album of — he does a new album called Remember and in that he records Diary which is a famous David Gates song which David wrote and tried to sell to him in the late ’70s and he said no, I don’t think I’m a singer anymore. So he did that later in his career. But that’s how important — and Carole Bayer Sager of course. So they knew that writers were an important thing.

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

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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24 The Beatles, Hendrix, and The Monkees from “Why The Monkees Matter: Even 50 Years Later [Video] (1 minute 7 seconds)

Enjoy This Clip? Watch this entire presentation and Buy Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

From Denver Pop Culture Con 2019.

Subscribe to Rosanne’s Channel and receive notice of each new video!

Transcript

Speaking of The Beatles, as I said they actually did know each other. They hung out with each other. They respected each other. When Davy Jones died there was a clip of Paul McCartney and he was doing a little ‘Here They Come” bit and going you know I remember them I liked them. It was so cool. So they were respected by lots of people. Peter himself attended the Monterey Pop Festival with Micky Dolenz who’s not in this picture. Again behind him is Janis Joplin as we said but also at the Pop Festival is when they met this young, really great guitar player who they invited to come along as the opening act to their concerts the next season and his name was Jimi Hendrix and they thought he was so flamboyant and so much of a character that it would match the characters they were playing. Except after about 6 or 7 concerts he quit because all the kids were doing was yelling please bring Davey onstage and they didn’t recognize the quality of Jimi Hendrix. So he left. He was never angry at them and they were friends and obviously, sadly he died just a couple of years later. There’s some great footage — photographs of them sitting in hotel rooms together riffing and playing and again all respecting each other’s work. So I think that’s really cool.

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

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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36 Star Wars, Alien, and Women Characters from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (1 minute)

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The Sisterhood of Science Fiction: A Walk Through Some Writers and Characters You (Should) Know And Love

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This one allowed me to riff on some of my favorite female science fiction writers across time, whether they be novelists or television writers. It also opened up a good conversation on what art we support and include in our lives – and what that art says to us and about us. — Rosanne

Transcript:

And of course, it brought us many other powerful engaging women right? We got Rei. We’re dealing with Padme from the earlier session. We had Jyn Erso. I really like Rogue One more than I even like the new Star Wars, but that’s just me. Then we have Rose Tiko which was a big move right and then there are people kind of Oh, what’s she doing in there. She doesn’t have any place in the movie. She does. She’s showing us that people of Asian descent show up in the future. That’s a huge message right and again she does it mostly peacefully you know there’s a gun in there someone but we get rid of that pretty quick and then it’s about your skill with it with lightsaber stuff. Moving forward we all know or we think we know Alien right and Sigourney Weaver. Sadly the rumor in Hollywood is that the reason that character is so strong and interesting is the it was written to be a man and when they couldn’t get a male to star in the movie they just threw it to Sigourney Weaver and they never rewrote it girl-ify it up. So she’s powerful because she’s doing all the things we expect men to do in movies without having to be a guy.

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!

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23 Music and The Monkees from “Why The Monkees Matter: Even 50 Years Later [Video] (1 minute 9 seconds)

Enjoy This Clip? Watch this entire presentation and Buy Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

From Denver Pop Culture Con 2019.

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Transcript

But part of what made them last, we all know, it’s the TV show and it’s the music. The music mattered very much to them. There was, of course in the beginning, the first two albums. The first two up there More Of The Monkees and The Monkees, they sang everything. They played nothing. Not their fault. It was played by The Wrecking Crew who were the band that played The Beach Boys albums for the Beach Boys. They played for lots of famous bands in the day. It’s just that people got very angry that The Monkees were famous so quickly because they had a TV show, and so they got a bad reputation, but because of that reputation, the third album Headquarters is entirely them. Every song is written by one of the four of them. Every tune is sung by all of them and all the instrumentation is all of them. They have nothing else. That is to prove they could do it. That album was second the entire summer of 68. The first album all summer was Sgt. Pepper’s. That’s not too shabby. If you think about it, if there wasn’t Sgt. Pepper they would have been number one the whole summer. So that’s how much the music mattered. It’s a pretty good album. There’s quite a lot of good music on that album.

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

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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Listen to “Between the Sheets: Writing About Sex on TV” from the Writers Guild Foundation and Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting [Audio]

Between the Sheets: Writing About Sex on Television

Listen to Between the Sheets: Writing About Sex on TV from the Writers Guild Foundation and Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

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The Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting program teamed up with the Writers Guild Foundation to pull the covers back on a topic that still makes viewers blush: sex. On this special evening, our panel of TV writers and producers share how they approach writing about sex, from intimate scenes to revealing dialogue, and the nuances they consider when crafting stories about sex and sexuality.

Panelists:

Michelle Ashford – Masters of Sex, The Pacific
Cindy Chupack – I’m Dying Up Here, Divorce, Sex and the City
Sahar Jahani – 13 Reasons Why, Ramy
Dayna Lynne North – Insecure, Single Ladies, Lincoln Heights
Gladys Rodriguez – Vida, Dynasty, Sons of Anarchy
Moderated by Dr. Rosanne Welch.

Writers Guild Foundation – @wgfoundation

Visit Stephens.edu/mfa for more information.

Follow @StephensMFA on Instagram

Between the Sheets: Writing About Sex on Television Photos via Instagram

Between the Sheets: Writing About Sex on Television

Panelists:

Michelle Ashford – Masters of Sex, The Pacific
Cindy Chupack – I’m Dying Up Here, Divorce, Sex and the City
Sahar Jahani – 13 Reasons Why, Ramy
Dayna Lynne North – Insecure, Single Ladies, Lincoln Heights
Gladys Rodriguez – Vida, Dynasty, Sons of Anarchy
Moderated by Dr. Rosanne Welch.

Writers Guild Foundation – @wgfoundation

Visit Stephens.edu/mfa for more information.

Follow @StephensMFA on Instagram

Follow and Like the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

35 Princess Leia – Part 3 from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (58 seconds)

Watch this entire presentation

The Sisterhood of Science Fiction: A Walk Through Some Writers and Characters You (Should) Know And Love

Subscribe to Rosanne’s Channel and receive notice of each new video!

Transcript:

What’s really cool about her is that the series survives into a couple of generations later and now, of course, she gets to be a general. That’s huge. That is a huge step that people didn’t necessarily foresee and, of course, in the new versions we’re surrounded by women in power. However, you have probably seen online much controversy over the fact that when she, who’s a general, didn’t tell dude who has got no rank what she was up to — oh no, it’s all her fault. Trouble happened. She should have told the boy. He’s way lower than her rank. She had no business telling him anything that was being planned at the higher levels, but there was so much discussion about how it was all her fault that things went bad because she should have told the boy and he would have saved the day. He’s not in charge. They are. Right? But our biases — our ideas are that they have to let the boy take over. So I think it’s really, really fascinated where we’re going with this series.

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!

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22 The 2000’s and The Monkees from “Why The Monkees Matter: Even 50 Years Later [Video] (36 seconds)

Enjoy This Clip? Watch this entire presentation and Buy Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

From Denver Pop Culture Con 2019.

Subscribe to Rosanne’s Channel and receive notice of each new video!

Transcript

In our current era The Monkees have suddenly come around in all our popular culture. So many TV shows have referenced them because the people making television now are the people who were little when they were watching the show. Whether it be the sixties and seventies. So they’ve been riffed on — they had music played on Breaking Bad. They’ve been riffed on in Mad Men. There was a marvelous moment in Grace and Frankie where they were discussing dumb things they did when they were younger and Frankie says that she had sex with one of The Monkees. She just can’t remember which one. Turns out to be Micky. So that just came out of nowhere, right?So I think that’s pretty cool.

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

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

Subscribe: RSS