On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch
Writing, Film, Television and More!
“The Monkees as a television show introduced young audiences to new ideas of political ideology, a new anti-military discourse and new concepts of class and feminist theory.”
from Why The Monkees Mattered by Dr. Rosanne Welch — Coming Fall 2016 – Click for more info!
Monkees Question of the Moment: What did you learn from The Monkees?
Leave your thoughts in the comments!
Came across this in my Internet travels and I hadn’t seen it before. This is a very funky, caricature-style of the 4 lads and quite unlike anything else I have ever seen.
Click for larger image
In her coverage of a day at the set of The Monkees, Gloria Malerba was able to show her (largely teen) readers how much hard work goes into filming a television show – and how many people are employed by such a hit show.
I particularly like the photo on the lower left of Davy Jones in costume taking “a last minute look at the script’ – a nice reminder that as often as we hear the show as ‘all ad-libbed’ – it was not. Writers conceived the characters and conflicts and then wrote dialogue for each of the regular stars.
Image: Big Glee: The Albert Bryan Bigley Archives – Click for larger image
Who Wrote The Monkees? – “Don’t Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth” by Dave Evans Part 3 of an on-going series
This week’s Antenna offering for The Monkees – “Don’t Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth” – was written by Dave Evans who is one of the nicest, kindest, men I have ever had the pleasure of interviewing.
Mr. Evans remembered being asked by Davy’s manager, Ward Sylvester, to write something that would highlight Davy’s ability with horses and hence this episode was born. Mr. Evans also remembered being asked by Bob Rafaelson to be on set for rewrites as needed, which gave him the chance to get to know the actors early on – an opportunity not all the other writers shared. After his two-season, nine episode run on the show he moved on to Laugh-in and Love, American Style, but told me no other job ever gave him the pleasure The Monkees did, so he eventually quit writing and went into conflict resolution, where he won awards for his ability to bring deeply distant parties together in compromise.
A 2014 article in the Los Angeles Times tells you all you need to know about him:
A tale of two churches — and a persistent racial divide, The Los Angeles Time
After the 1992 Los Angeles Riots Evans, the son of a minister, was a member of an all white Presbyterian church that created a cross town friendship with an all black Presbyterian church. Members of each began to visit the other church to create community. Twenty years later, Evans is the only member of his church still visiting the other church.
More information on The Monkees:
Previously in Who Wrote The Monkees?:
In honor of Micky Dolenz 71st birthday here’s my opinion of his best natural smile, displayed in a moment from Monkee Mother (written by Peter Meyerson and Bob Schlitt).
The episode involves guest star Rose Marie (from the recently ended Dick Van Dyke Show) as Millie, a woman who moves into the Monkees’ beach house when they can’t pay rent. As a way of highlighting each Monkees’ niceness (in a time when all long-haired boys were bad ones) Millie has a moment with each boy where she asks him to do a household chore and then declares each ‘a nice boy’.
From 7:40-8:09 she asks Micky to fix a leaky faucet.
Another highlight is at 9:06 when Peter asks Millie if she likes music and then they go into Micky’s lead vocals on “Sometime in the Morning”, perhaps the finest of Carole King and Gerry Goffin’s songs written for the show.
We all know he’s done great work behind the cameras and on the Broadway stage since the show – but today we’re wishing Happy Birthday to the Voice of The Monkees.
Who wrote The Monkees? – “Monkees in a Ghost Town” by Robert Schlitt and Peter Meyerson Part 2 of an on-going series
The second Monkees episode Antenna TV is airing this weekend is “Monkees in a Ghost Town”, by the writing team of Robert Schlitt and Peter Meyerson. The partnership ended shortly after their work on The Monkees with Schmitt moving into one-hour dramas such as The Father Dowling Mysteries and, eventually, Matlock while Meyerson teamed up with fellow Monkees writer Treva Silverman on an episode of That Girl and a Buck Henry series called Captain Nice before eventually co-creating Welcome Back, Kotter.
I was lucky enough to interview Mr. Meyerson several months before he passed away and he regaled me with several stories about his time on the show and socializing with the actors, particularly at parties at Peter’s house, as Meyerson himself was quite the hippie, so their philosophies were well matched.
A few of the other writers I interviewed kept referring to Mr. Meyerson as their ‘college guy’ and in “Ghost Town” we see his homage to that perennial of literature courses – Of Mice and Men.
Yes, that is veteran actor, Lon Chaney, Jr. on the right.
More information on The Monkees:
Previously in Who Write The Monkees?:
In memory of the anniversary of the loss of Davy Jones in 2012 I wanted to post this newscast by Diane Sawyer where she spoke of the news as “startling bulletin” which came across her desk in the newsroom that day (February 29, 2012). Sawyer then proclaimed “He is still that forever young and sunny singer from The Monkees who made more than one generation want to sing along.”
The question I ask in the book is why would a serious journalist (not merely an entertainment reporter) consider news of the death of a former teen idol ‘startling’ unless she, too, had once been among his fans? To me it speaks volumes about how he – and The Monkees – effected all our lives.
You can join The Monkees Discussion on my Why The Monkees Mattered Facebook Page
Today we thank Shonda Rhimes for bringing color blind casting to television when she casts a diverse array of ethnicities in lead roles on her shows. But she didn’t invent the idea. On our visit to the Autry Museum of the American West I was reminded of a show I used to watch on television but that disappeared too quickly (I didn’t then know why) and didn’t reappear in reruns as much as the more successful, longer-running program also created by the same writer (Bonanza).
The show I only vaguely remembered was The High Chaparral – the story of a Mexican woman married to a man of European descent (then controversially considered an inter-racial marriage) who owned a rancho in the West post the Civil War. I remembered it for its diverse cast and honest portrayal of the discrimination played out against minorities in the West.
Special Projects Archivist Mallory Furnier wrote the blog post, “Casting Actors as People” highlighting the archives of The High Chaparral in the David Dortort Archive, where she noted:
“Though The High Chaparral faced untimely cancellation, its four seasons embodied a step away from tired, inaccurate stereotypes and a movement toward greater respect for actors and characters, regardless of race. As a June 16, 1970 NBC memo instructed, “let’s cast actors to play people and, in so doing, give the ‘minorities’ a break.”
In a second blog post, “Finding Aids and Places”, Furnier discussed her trip to the Old Tuscon Studios in Arizona, site of some of the exterior filming of the show.
As always, I found it fascinating to wander around in the papers (old, handwritten first drafts of scripts, typed rewrites ready for production meetings, cast lists, shooting schedules, etc) and see the inside ideas of a show I had only seen from the outside all those years ago.
One of the papers was even a 1971 letter to Dortort from then U.N. Representative George H. W. Bush saying he sympathized with the producer over the cancellation of such a quality show and would do what he could to communicate that to those who had made that decision. Fascinating.
Listen to the High Chapparal Theme Song.
Dr. Rosanne Welch presents “How Doctor Who Redefined Masculinity: A Study of the Doctors and their Male Companions“ at the Cal Poly Pomona University Library. Dr. Welch teaches in the IGE (Interdisciplinary General Education) program.
Watch the entire presentation here
Transcript:
When he (Mickey) made the choice to stay in the alternative universe, he didn’t choose that just because it meant that he was going to continue to fight bad aliens, which is the Warrior part of him. He chose to stay there because, in the real world his grandmother, who he lived with was already dead. In the alternative universe she was still alive and so he chose to stay there so he could continue to kno his grandmother. THAT is a family man. That is a man making a choice about what’s useful and beneficial to his family above and beyond any of the other things that masculinity would require. I think that’s adorable. It’s not like he was staying with his grandfather to manhood from him. It’s staying with his grandmother who needed somebody to take care of her and who he still needed in his life for that influence that she had. And I think that’s a really, really, beautiful part of Mickey and where he grew.
A clip from this 5th talk on various aspects of Doctor Who presented by Dr. Welch. You can find Dr. Welch’s other Doctor Who talks using the links below.
Follow Dr. Rosanne Welch on the Web and via social media at:
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Dr. Rosanne Welch presents “How Doctor Who Redefined Masculinity: A Study of the Doctors and their Male Companions“ at the Cal Poly Pomona University Library. Dr. Welch teaches in the IGE (Interdisciplinary General Education) program.
Watch the entire presentation here
Transcript:
When I think about Mickey Smith and I want to think about masculinity, he suits a lot of little places. A lot of these definitions. You would think we can talk about him as a warrior, because, in fact, he did become one. He’s probably the man who grew the most in his knowledge and his time with The Doctor. He went from a little puppy dog boyfriend of Rose who was dumb and she wasn’t liking him any more. Then he found his way to being a hero in his own life and so much so that, of course, as we know, he ended up marrying Martha (Jones) who is really a very, very powerful female character I believe.
A clip from this 5th talk on various aspects of Doctor Who presented by Dr. Welch. You can find Dr. Welch’s other Doctor Who talks using the links below.
Follow Dr. Rosanne Welch on the Web and via social media at:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
![Diane Sawyer’s Obituary to Davy Jones 2012 [Video]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/davey-jones-abc-857x198.png)
![Mickey’s Masculine Choices from How Doctor Who Redefined Masculinity [Video Clip] (1:00)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/dw-masculinity-14-mickey-choices-anim-480x198.gif)
![Mickey Smith and Martha Jones from How Doctor Who Redefined Masculinity [Video Clip] (0:38)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/dw-masculinity-13-mickey-smith-anim-480x198.gif)