On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch
Writing, Film, Television and More!
“Television forced families to see things they might not have chosen to see, but needed to see, such as independent women, people of color and new political perspectives. All these things appeared on The Monkees long before the rise of social commentary comedies such as All in the Family.”
from Why The Monkees Mattered by Dr. Rosanne Welch — Coming Fall 2016 – Click for more info!
Who Wrote The Monkees? – “Monkees At The Circus” by David Panich – Part 6 of an on-going series
David Panich wrote Monkees at the Circus as one of only a few freelancers contracted for the series and was also on the staff 1967 of writers who won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing Achievement in a Music or Variety show for his work on Laugh-In, a show that took a page from The Monkees by bringing the counter-culture into more and more homes in that era.
The other Monkees freelancer who shared the Emmy with Panich was Coslough Johnson.
Likewise, Panich had been nominated for the same Writing award but for a different show and with a different future Monkees writer – Gerald Gardner – when they both worked on That Was the Week That Was. This is likely where Gardner knew of Panich and why Panish was invited to pitch ideas for The Monkees. He would be nominated for Laugh-in three more years in a row, and then receive a writing nomination in 1975 for his work on Cher, the show she headlined after her divorce from Sonny. A seasoned variety show sketch writer Panich had also written for The Dean Martin Show, and would later work for the Hudson Brothers and Dom DeLuise. Sadly, Panish died in 1983.
More information on The Monkees:
Previously in Who Wrote The Monkees?:
“This book allows academics to critically study The Monkees as a program that challenged the nascent rules of a new medium and paved the way for future innovation.”
from Why The Monkees Mattered by Dr. Rosanne Welch — Coming Fall 2016 – Click for more info!
Do you want to be one of the first people to get your hands on “Why The Monkees Matter”?
Amazon, Barnes & Noble and others will be coming online in the next 2 weeks or so.
Even better news, the book might even be out as early as mid-July 2016 (fingers crossed)
The publishers’ site will also provide academic discounts for students and class sets and review copies (in pdf form) available for professors.
I hope it pleases academics and fans alike!
Monkees Question of the Moment: What Do The Monkees Mean to You?
Leave your thoughts in the comments!
“The Monkees have come to mean so many things over the years – to me and to many others who have followed their careers both together and individually. As the band members said, even they don’t belong to themselves anymore. The Monkees belong to the audience.”
from Why The Monkees Mattered by Dr. Rosanne Welch — Coming Fall 2016 – Click for more info!
Who Wrote The Monkees? – “Case of the Missing Monkee” and “I Was A Teenage Monster” – by Gerald Gardner and Dee Caruso and Dave Evans Part 5 of an on-going series
Did you know The Monkees had a connection to RFK? Not the movie, but the man. Read on…
This weekend Antenna TV is showing 2 episodes of The Monkees “Case of the Missing Monkee” and “I Was A Teenage Monster”. One was written solely by Gerald Gardner and Dee Caruso, who were the showrunners, and one written by them AND Dave Evans, who I’ve written about before on this page. So today I’ll focus on Gerald Gardner and Dee Caruso.
Sadly, Mr. Caruso had passed away just a few months before I first had the idea to interview the writers of The Monkees for the article in Written By magazine that turned into the proposal for my eventual book so I was never able to meet him. But his writing partner, Gerald Gardner, welcomed me warmly into his wonderful home and told me all about their work before, during and after The Monkees.
How does Robert F. Kennedy fit into the story?
Mr. Gardner had begun his writing career doing comical political satire books called Who’s In Charge Here?. Those books caught the attention of then President John F. Kennedy, who invited the writer to lunch at the White House. After his assassination, Mr. Gardner sent a condolence letter to then Attorney General RFK. When RFK decided to run for the Senate in New York, he asked Mr. Gardner to join his speech writing team. (Sound a bit like The West Wing, doesn’t it?) After Senator Kennedy went to work in Washington, Mr. Gardner wrote a book about the campaign: Robert Kennedy in New York. Mr. Gardner’s first work in television was in New York as the senior writer on That Was the Week That Was which was a forerunner to “Weekend Update” on SNL. All this work in comedy led him to partner up with Dee Caruso to work for producer Buck Henry on Get Smart and when Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson came to Henry asking to meet some hot young comedy writers to run their new show… well, you know what happened. And that’s how The Monkees are connected to Camelot?
More information on The Monkees:
Previously in Who Wrote The Monkees?:
Monkees Question of the Moment: How did you defend The Monkees to your friends?
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“…But I also wrote it in honor of and to honor the fans who love the show and lived with years of teasing when the mistaken reputation of the band and the show as ‘plastic’ kept dogging them. With this book I hope to show that those early and continuing fans all recognized the diamond in the rough from the start. ”
from Why The Monkees Mattered by Dr. Rosanne Welch — Coming Fall 2016 – Click for more info!
Since Micky and Peter are conducting this current tour alone, this 1986 episode of Nightwatch, hosted by Charlie Rose, is quite fun to watch as it only involves the two of them.
Micky discusses “Why now?” for their 20th anniversary tour in 1986 – and pins it all on the success of the premiere of the television show and the new generation introduced to it by MTV’s “Pleasant Valley” Marathon. Peter discusses why the show worked – citing things I cover in the book about how The Monkees were originally considered dangerous (due to their long hair and connection to the counter-culture). He also mentions how the fan base went from mostly female to nearly 60/40 female/male. Then Micky discusses his directing career in England and how hard it was to leave it behind for this one summer – that he had no idea how long this one anniversary tour would last!
The video is shaky but fun to watch because they are so deeply complimentary to each other’s talents, they talk about the ‘patrimony’ of the series in how the money made by the producers funded Five Easy Pieces and the new musical-variety version of the show they hoped to do in the third season that lead to the cancellation.
Previously in Out of Research Vault:
Monkees Question of the Moment: How did you decide what to watch in your childhood?
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“I was a fan from the beginning at the age of 6 when the show debuted on NBC and caused what I often tease was the first great choice of a childhood lived without benefit of DVR. Should I watch The Monkees or Gilligan’s Island?”
Who Wrote The Monkees? – “I’ve Got a Little Song Here” written by Treva Silverman Part 4 of an on-going series
This weekend Antenna TV airs “I’ve Got a Little Song Here” written by Treva Silverman. One of several staff writers for The Monkees who went on to win Emmy Awards for her later work in television (Her Emmy came from The Mary Tyler Moore Show). Treva was the only woman writer on the The Monkees.
If you’re interested in learning more about Treva’s post Monkees work, the blog “…by Ken Levine” did a nice coverage of her work on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, complete with some script pages and a whole page of biography noting that Valerie Harper (Rhoda) called Treva the “Feminist conscience of the show”. In my book, I write that Treva brought that same feminist conscience to The Monkees where viewers can note that none of the young women the Monkees dated were ever ditzy – they were always women of substance – serious about their schoolwork or with careers already in place or otherwise involved in the world. Not bad for a show about four band members. I believe that attitude came to The Monkees from Treva – the only female writer on staff.
More information on The Monkees:
Previously in Who Wrote The Monkees?: