“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.”
You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!
Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library
Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.
The characters exist, right? They are true. However, in real life George Peppard’s character, Turman Capote, in the book, the character’s gay. That’s why the 2 of them never end up together. It’s not a love tory. It’s a friendship. It’s a buddy story between a gay man and a woman. This is “Will & Grace” before there was “Will & Grace.” The problem is, you couldn’t do that onscreen. So, how can we show he’s doing something wrong sexually that isn’t being a homosexual. Oh! He’s a gigolo. Just like she makes her money from rich men, he makes his money from a rich woman who “keeps” him and buys him suits and that’s the perversion that he’s allowed to have onscreen and it’s with Patricia Neal, a famous actress back in the day. And I always thought that was so sad because they make her out to be this little old lady. She’s not that much older than he is actually at this moment. So, that’s kind of funny. So, that’s a huge change and to Truman Capote a huge loss in his particular story.
About this talk
Dr. Rosanne Welch (RTVF) speaks on the craft of history of film adaptations from the controversy of the silent film Birth of a Nation (protested by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1915) to Breakfast at Tiffany’s (to which author Truman Capote famously said, “The only thing left from the book is the title”) to The Godfather . Naturally, the behemoth in adaptation – Harry Potter (which depended on the relationship created by adapter Steve Kloves and author J.K. Rowling) will be discussed, as will the subject of this month’s celebration: Dune.
Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm
About Dr. Rosanne Welch
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.”
Rosanne Welch on writing for female characters, changing the pronoun in a script, and the power of research.
Rosanne Welch is a TV writer, author, professor, and feminist, who’s able to combine her passion in one place thanks to her current position as an adjunct professor at Stephen’s College (the oldest women’s college in the U.S.) for its screenwriting M.F.A. program.
The Stephen’s College screenwriting M.F.A. program is certainly unique: it’s the first low-residency program specifically for TV and screenwriting, and is explicitly designed to increase the number and impact of women working in film and TV. It’s the perfect fit for Welch, who teaches all four of its History of Screenwriting courses, from the Silent Era throughout modern day, as well as a One Hour Spec Script course, and Writing the One-Hour pilot.
Senior Hall, Stephen’s College. Image by HornColumbia (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia CommonsSenior Hall, Stephen’s College. Image by HornColumbia, via Wikimedia CommonsThe idea for the program came from Ken LaZebnik, who Welch had met decades earlier when they both wrote for Touched By An Angel.
According to Welch, “Ken LaZebnik came up with the idea for the program, to create a Master’s program for screenwriting, opposed to extension or continuing education screenwriting programs where there is no degree at the end of it, you just have the experience of writing in the program.
“He needed someone to do curriculum, he needed someone who had a PhD on staff, and he also only wanted to hire writers who were part of the Writer’s Guild, because he wanted the students taught by working writers and writers who had experience.”
Fortunately Welch fit the criteria. “I was really excited because a lot of Master’s programs focus on directing or film production or being a master of all trades, and he just wanted to focus on screenwriting.”
Welch’s current life as an academic is a far cry from her days as a secretary at Stephen J. Cannell productions, back when he was the biggest independent TV producer with shows like The A-Team and 21 Jump Street.
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.”
![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)
![Gay, but not gay, in Breakfast at Tiffany’s from A History of the Art of Adaptation [Video] (1 min)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/adapt-12-gay-but-not.jpeg)
![Why move into Academe? from An Interview with Dr. Rosanne Welch, Author of “Why The Monkees Matter” on the Zilch Podcast [Audio]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Zilch48-940x198.jpg)
