Photos of the panel and the full house/sold out audience from Women Who Run the Room: A Conversation with Showrunners. The Stephens MFA in Screenwriting co-sponsored this event with the Writers Guild Foundation. (from left to right: Dr. Rosanne Welch, moderator; Alexa Junge from Grace and Frankie; Dee Johnson from Nashville; Laurie McCarthy from Reign; Lizzy Weiss from Switched at Birth; SJ Hodges from Guidance)
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“As Glick and his men storm up the hillside they are overcome by smoke from the Frodis and fall to their knees saying, “I don’t want to fight anymore. I just want to lay down on the grass and be cool.” This is, clearly, the closest comment ever made on the show in reference to the existence of the drug culture, but still the softer, safer pot-smoking culture rather than the heavier, heroin culture that was to come.
“1960s TV Censorship and The Monkees” gives a brief overview of where censorship standards were in the era – and how The Monkees pushed the envelope with its mentions of the Vietnam War – and Sunset Strip riots – and even with the outrageous storytelling behind “Frodis Caper”, the episode that celebrated the saving of an alien plant that very closely resembled a marijuana plant…
Writer Treva Silverman said the staff got away with such jokes because the network executives were just old enough not to understand any of the references. Presented at Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting classes on Friday, August 5, 2016
Dr. Rosanne Welch is a professor in the Low Residency MFA in Screenwriting Program from Stephens College, California State University, Fullerton, Mount San Antonio Community College and Cal Poly Pomona. In 2007, she graduated with her Ph.D. in 20th Century U.S./Film History from Claremont Graduate University. She graduated with her M.A. in 20th Century United States History from California State University, Northridge in 2004.
Welch is also a television writer/producer with credits for Beverly Hills 90210 , CBS’s Emmy winning Picket Fences and Touched By An Angel . She also writes and hosts her own podcasts on 3rdPass.media, her first one titled “Mindful(I) Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch.”
The lyrics tell the story of kings from two countries who call for a war, with the twist being the ending when “the war was over before it begun” because “two little kings playing a game, they called for a war and nobody came”.
Few better examples of anti-Vietnam war or anti-draft songs appeared on national network television.
“The power of that love was inside of Peter. It was inside of him from the first. And it was that kind of power that made Peter able to play the harp… Don’t you understand what that is, when you have that inside of you. If you love music, man. You can play music… All it takes is just love, ‘cause baby in the final analysis, love is power. That’s where the power is at.”
“Director James Frawley framed the opening shot of Davy on the phone to include an embroidered sampler on the wall just above his right shoulder that reads, Money is the Root of all Evil. The sampler stayed in place – and in frequent shots – for the entire run of the series. Young audience members were being both visually and verbally carefully taught that their parents’ materialism would not bring them happiness.”
“As Peter Tork has often commented in interviews, “The Monkees was the only TV show about adults that did not have a senior adult on the show. So it represented a new kind of egalitarian, ‘we’re all in this together.’ I can’t tell you how many people (have) said they had half an hour of sanity every week, and that was in front of the television watching The Monkees.”
This is one of the best articles celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Monkees as a television show (my particular interest) written for the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences by Herbie J. Pilato, author of (among others) Dashing, Daring and Debonair: TV’s Top Male Icons from the 50s, 60s and 70s.
When happy music met happy television. That’s The Monkees TV show in a nutshell.
Originally airing Monday nights on NBC from 1966 to 1968, later added to the ABC and CBS Saturday daytime schedule, and created by Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider, this ground-breaking, Emmy-winning mosaic of a “musical comedy” was an uncommon weekly half-hour hybrid of all-things media that coincided with the popularity the Beatles.
Monkee members Micky Dolenz, Mike Nesmith, Peter Tork, and Davy Jones (who died February 29, 2012 of a heart attack at 66) became nearly as popular as the Beatles.
While the British-born Beatles forever altered mainstream music history, the Monkees managed not only to change the vast TV and lyrical landscape, but added enough sparkle and delight to its horizon to cross all generations, timelines, and hemispheres. The dynamic of each Monkee’s personality also synergistically combined as one unit for the television series, as well as for the band.
If you would like a signed paperback copy of “Why The Monkees Matter” you can order directly using the PayPal link in the side bar or directly using this link.
“ The phrase ‘counter-culture’ encompasses more than just an anti-war activism. In the 1960s, and therefore on The Monkees, counter-culture included anti-authority attitudes, anti-capitalist views, less conservative clothing styles, and even the introduction of Eastern philosophies into mainstream America. “
![Women Who Run the Room: A Conversation with Showrunners at the WGAw and co-sponsored by the Stephens MFA in Screenwriting Program [Photo]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/women-room-ig.jpg)
![1960’s TV Censorship and The Monkees with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (21:34)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/monkees-censorship-2016.jpeg)
![Hey, Hey, It’s the Monkees at 50! Part I via Emmys.com [Article]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Monkee-4.jpg)
