“It wouldn’t be until after The Monkees won their Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series in 1967 that networks began planning and programming pilots for prime time that involved young performers singing, dancing and doing sketch comedy: Laugh-In(1967-1973), The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (1967-1970), and The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour(1971-1974).”
It was fun to research and write and I want to send big thanks to my editors Paolo Russo and Lindsay Steenberg, both Senior Lecturers in Film Studies at Oxford Brookes University, for inviting me to contribute and for all the assistance as I researched and wrote the article.
When Paolo (who I met at a Screenwriting Research Network conference at the University of Wisconsin, Madison a few years ago) told me they were collecting pieces about how police procedurals transmit culture, I teasingly said, “Advances in modern forensic science have rendered the procedures on television police procedurals repetitive across the globe”. Well, maybe not in those exact words at that first utterance – but I basically said all cop shows seem so similar, nothing sets them apart anymore — and then, in the wonderful way brainstorming works, I thought that the only characters who keep close to the culture of the country in which the show is created are the parents because they aren’t confined to scientific procedures/they are ruled by emotions. So the article deals discusses parents on cop shows such as Cagney and Lacey (from the U.S.), Inspector Montalbano (from Italy), and Murdoch Mysteries (from Canada) among others.
Abstract
Advances in modern forensic science have rendered the procedures on police procedurals repetitive across the globe, yet television writers continue to transmit their cultures transnationally via the way these popular television detectives interact with their on screen parents. Case studies will include Inspector Morse (UK, 1987–2000), Il Commissario Montalbano/Inspector Montalbano (Italy, 1999–2015), and Murdoch Mysteries (Canada, 2008–present) with some attention paid to female police officers in US dramas Cagney & Lacey (1981–1988) and Southland (2009–2013). A close reading of the relationship between parents and adult children in these programmes shows parent characters serve many purposes. They expand our knowledge of the main character by helping us understand their moulding, their mentality and their motivations; they provide universal themes; they also offer a chance for stunt casting – a combination that helps transmit the culture of the country of origin to international viewers.
“Each actor in his own right was an authentic, mostly American teenager from various parts of the country; Nesmith (25) the too-young-married Texan; Tork (25) the Connecticut gentleman turned Greenwich Village folksinger; Dolenz (22) the Valley boy Cruise-Nighting Californian (later glamorized in 1973 in American Graffiti), and Jones (22), whose English childhood offered a throwback to the 19th century teenage life of apprenticeship, first to a racing stable and then to an agent.”
In honor of the segment CBS Sunday Morning aired today with Micky, Peter and Mike, here’s an interview the show did with Davy in 1993.
Charming is the way he discusses each member’s personality, his pride to still be part of The Monkees and his memories of sitting on the beach during filming and eating their boxed sandwiches. Today on television and film shoots the craft services people dish out lobster and shrimp and all manner of luxury foods to actors and PAs alike.
This segment was part of a look back at what they called “TV Goodies” so not connected with any particular tour. Just a focus on the show – as I do in the book – since that is what started it all. it was fun to watch both segments as I spend my Memorial Day weekend copy-editing the proofs of the book which the publisher sent me this week. They want it to go to print by late June so I’d better get back to work!
“The CalPoly University Library invited me to do a presentation for National Libraries Week on Star Wars so I packed up my paraphernalia box full of Stormtrooper helmets and light sabers and Lego creations to share with the community at CalPoly. It gave me a chance to remind the audience that while George Lucas invented the universe, writers like Lawrence Kadan created the dialogue we still echo today – once again showing the importance of writers in the medium.”
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.”
Dr. Welch’s other books and articles include, Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space and pieces for Los Angeles Times and the Journal of Screenwriting.
“Depending on their family backgrounds, parents and teenage viewers of the late 1960s saw The Monkees existing on a plane anywhere between squeaky clean and troubled. Their squeaky-clean reputation came from their tame adventures, which were dictated by television standards and practices at the time.”
“Peter Tork often reminds interviewers that television was only sixteen years old when the show debuted, the age of the average audience members. All of this adds layers to the critical study of the program.”
“With The Monkees in particular what the writers intended is not always what the audience continues to read into each show. Amid all the slapstick and recycled vaudevillian bits there are deeper themes that spoke to teenagers then and speak now such as the idea that fame is not a desired goal, rather making a living as an artist is the desired goal.”
“Studying The Monkees illustrates the history and evolution of the medium of television and provides a time capsule of American society at the burgeoning of the focus on youth culture that continued into the millennium generation”
![Transmitting culture transnationally: the characterisation of parents in the police procedural. [Article]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/RFTS.jpg)
![How Star Wars Influenced Movie Themes, Female Characters, and Fandom with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (20:40)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/cpp-star-wars.jpg)
