On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch
Writing, Film, Television and More!
One attendee comment made my evening, “This panel was both inspirational and aspirational!”
Tonight: This panel of rockstar writers shares their process for crafting strong female characters. Thanks for moderating, @rosannewelch! pic.twitter.com/W8FUfWWSz6
— Writers Guild Found. (@WritersGuildF)
Rosanne Welch talks about “Why The Monkees Matter” with Jean Hopkins Power
Watch this entire presentation (45 mins)
Jean Powergirl takes the host reigns and welcomes her guest Rosanne Welch, PhD to the show! They’ll be discussing Roseanne’s book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture.”
Transcript:
So he had been a child star, but as a child star he didn’t go by the name Dolenz — he used Braddock, which was a fake last name. It sounds very much more American and they dyed his dark hair blond. So if you look that up on YouTube you’ll see this little blond kid, but you can see, in the face, that in 8 years he is going to grow up to be the kid on The Monkees.
So he was already a known actor. He had been in and out of the business going to school but also doing some shows here and there — Peyton Place and what not as a guest actor and then he auditioned for this because, you now, it is what actors do. You audition for pilots and see if they get picked up. The joke about it is that he played guitar when people talk about who did or didn’t play instruments. He played guitar. Actually played classical Spanish guitar and he had gone on a tour around the country as th star of Circus Boy playing classical Spanish music, but when they came to film the show, they needed a “character” who would be the drummer and they originally thought is might be Davy Jones, but he was very short and they thought he would get lost behind the drums.
A hit television show about a fictitious rock band, The Monkees (1966-1968) earned two Emmys–Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Directorial Achievement 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 Rider and Five Easy Pieces.
Rosanne Welch, PhD has written for television (Touched by an Angel, Picket Fences) and print (Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space). In the documentary world she has written and produced Bill Clinton and the Boys Nation Class of 1963 for ABC NEWS/Nightline and consulted on PBS’s A Prince Among Slaves, the story of a prince from West Africa who was enslaved in the 1780s, freed by order of President John Quincy Adams in the 1820s and returned to his homeland.
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From The Research Vault: Why Sinatra Matters by Peter Hamill
In honor of Sinatra’s 100th birthday, Pete Hamill’s classic tribute returns with a new introduction by the author.
In this unique homage to an American icon, journalist and award-winning author Pete Hamill evokes the essence of Sinatra–examining his art and his legend from the inside, as only a friend of many years could do. Shaped by Prohibition, the Depression, and war, Francis Albert Sinatra became the troubadour of urban loneliness. With his songs, he enabled millions of others to tell their own stories, providing an entire generation with a sense of tradition and pride belonging distinctly to them.
With a new look and a new introduction by Hamill, this is a rich and touching portrait that lingers like a beautiful song. — Amazon
Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture
The Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting was excited to host an interview with Helen Estabrook, producer of Whiplash and Casual – who was interviewed for the “How I Wrote That” podcast, hosted by Khanisha Foster on Thursday night.
** Buy “Why The Monkees Matter” Today **
Gangster films are one of the writers’ favorite genres to parody, enjoying giving Micky Dolenz a chance to do his Jimmy Cagney impression three times in the first season. This happened in “Monkees in a Ghost Town”, which also parodied John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, and in “Monkees ala Carte”, which was rife with Italian-American clichés from meatballs to machine guns.
from Why The Monkees Mattered by Dr. Rosanne Welch — Buy your Copy today!
Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture
McFarland (Direct from Publisher) | Amazon | Kindle Edition | Nook Edition
Rosanne Welch talks about “Why The Monkees Matter” with Jean Hopkins Power
Watch this entire presentation (45 mins)
Jean Powergirl takes the host reigns and welcomes her guest Rosanne Welch, PhD to the show! They’ll be discussing Roseanne’s book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture.”
![15: Micky Dolenz and The Monkees : “Why The Monkees Matter” Interview with Jean Power [Video] (1:04)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/rmw-power-15-dolenz.jpeg)
Transcript:
Jean: So let’s talk about our second Monkee here. Who’s this guy on the drums?
Rosanne: On the drums, we have Micky Dolenz who came to this audition as a child actor. He’d been in a show called Circus Boy when he was 10, but in that show his father George Dolenz was the star of a show in the 50’s called The Count of Monte Cristo and so they didn’t want to look like nepotism and also Micky Dolenz provides — on this show, believe it or not, because when you look at the pictures he looks like a white boy. He was….
Jean: They’re all white. So there’s an ethnicity here.
Rosanne: The Italians were still a weird ethnic group in the 1960s. We don’t have The Godfather yet. We don’t have any main…
Jean: …Corleones…
Rosanne: No. Exactly, so and it’s interesting to me in studying this, had the show been made 5 years later, they would have had an African-American character. I mean this was the trend in the civil rights movement, but they weren’t there yet. So, to them. the most ethnically odd was this guy because he was Italian.
Jean:…and Rosanne is Italian-American…
Rosanne: Exactly. So, of course, I was drawn to that character because that was representative of my culture on television.
A hit television show about a fictitious rock band, The Monkees (1966-1968) earned two Emmys–Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Directorial Achievement 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 Rider and Five Easy Pieces.
Rosanne Welch, PhD has written for television (Touched by an Angel, Picket Fences) and print (Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space). In the documentary world she has written and produced Bill Clinton and the Boys Nation Class of 1963 for ABC NEWS/Nightline and consulted on PBS’s A Prince Among Slaves, the story of a prince from West Africa who was enslaved in the 1780s, freed by order of President John Quincy Adams in the 1820s and returned to his homeland.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Rosanne Welch talks about “Why The Monkees Matter” with Jean Hopkins Power
Watch this entire presentation (45 mins)
Jean Powergirl takes the host reigns and welcomes her guest Rosanne Welch, PhD to the show! They’ll be discussing Roseanne’s book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture.”
Transcript:
Rosanne: One of the interesting things — it was the first show that had a set of teenagers who didn’t have a father figure or a mother who looked over them and watched over them. And Peter Tork has often said that that’s one of the things that attracted teenagers that they saw teenagers living independently and out current teenagers think of themselves as 16 and 17. These guys are 18-19 — those are still considered teenagers because you still had to wait until you were 21 to vote. You were not a full adult and…
Jean: …and if kids didn’t go to college or join the military, they still lived with their parents in American culture and they have a job and they have to do things.
Rosanne: So they were teenagers.
Jean: Isn’t he the one whos mother invented Liquid Paper? Yes, that’s always…so, the funny thing was he wasn’t going to get that inheritance till later in life. So he didn’t have much cash as a young man. He got on the show and made a ton of cash and has admitted in other interviews that he spent it all on cars and pretty much bankrupted himself when everything was done and had to revive — he began a video company in Northern California that was very successful and so he’s quite well off these days.
A hit television show about a fictitious rock band, The Monkees (1966-1968) earned two Emmys–Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Directorial Achievement 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 Rider and Five Easy Pieces.
Rosanne Welch, PhD has written for television (Touched by an Angel, Picket Fences) and print (Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space). In the documentary world she has written and produced Bill Clinton and the Boys Nation Class of 1963 for ABC NEWS/Nightline and consulted on PBS’s A Prince Among Slaves, the story of a prince from West Africa who was enslaved in the 1780s, freed by order of President John Quincy Adams in the 1820s and returned to his homeland.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
What wonderful news to wake up to! The 4-volume Women in American History encyclopedia I co-edited with my wonderful friend Peg Lamphier received this review that shows the reviewer found all the things we tried so hard to do in the work.
From the review by R. Tolley:
“Care was taken to provide a woman’s best-known name as well as variants, and to include many lesser-known figures, including non-Protestants, lesbians, and women of color. The work is corrective in bringing those who were ignored into the story and succeeds in representing a wide spectrum of North American womanhood (including some Canadian and Mexican figures from history and folklore as well as individuals associated with the US proper and its precolonial past). Further, editors avoided gendered language and ideas reflecting patriarchal and militaristic ideology. Clarity regarding their subjects’ sexuality was another emphasis; the entry on Margaret Mead, for example, mentions her bisexuality.”
If you have a chance, send this on to a librarian you know and love – or drop a copy off at your local library and ask them to stock a set.
* 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!
