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.”
“As Peter Tork has often commented in interviews, “The Monkees was the only TV show about adults that did not have a senior adult on the show. So it represented a new kind of egalitarian, ‘we’re all in this together.’ I can’t tell you how many people (have) said they had half an hour of sanity every week, and that was in front of the television watching The Monkees.”
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.
But more importantly, change wise, we have George Peppard — who some of you will remember in childhood as part of the A-Team — but he’s a huge movie star in this period. He’s a leading man and he’s a write in this piece. He rally stands in for Truman Capote. This is really a story about Truman Capote’s first time in New York getting his first novel sold. So, George Peppard in the movies, this is a love story and they fall in lovd with each other in the end even though she’s a free spirit. She’s never going to fall in love with anybody. She doesn’t want to be tied down by a man. Becomes a lovely romance. By the time we’re done, the cat is a symbol of how she won’t commit, because she never names her cata and at the very end of the movie — to prove she doesn’t need anybody — she dumps the cat out of a taxi int eh rain and it goes sauntering off and gets all soaking wet and the proof that she’s changed and grown is that she jumps out of the taxi and chases down the cat and she saves it. Then she names that cat and we’re like “Ok. She’s grown. She’s changed. What a beautiful love story.” There’s a small problem with that adaptation. even Truman Capote himself said “The only thing they took from my book was the title.”
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.”
This is one of the best articles celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Monkees as a television show (my particular interest) written for the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences by Herbie J. Pilato, author of (among others) Dashing, Daring and Debonair: TV’s Top Male Icons from the 50s, 60s and 70s.
When happy music met happy television. That’s The Monkees TV show in a nutshell.
Originally airing Monday nights on NBC from 1966 to 1968, later added to the ABC and CBS Saturday daytime schedule, and created by Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider, this ground-breaking, Emmy-winning mosaic of a “musical comedy” was an uncommon weekly half-hour hybrid of all-things media that coincided with the popularity the Beatles.
Monkee members Micky Dolenz, Mike Nesmith, Peter Tork, and Davy Jones (who died February 29, 2012 of a heart attack at 66) became nearly as popular as the Beatles.
While the British-born Beatles forever altered mainstream music history, the Monkees managed not only to change the vast TV and lyrical landscape, but added enough sparkle and delight to its horizon to cross all generations, timelines, and hemispheres. The dynamic of each Monkee’s personality also synergistically combined as one unit for the television series, as well as for the band.
![From Television Writer to Professor 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)
![More on Breakfast at Tiffany’s from A History of the Art of Adaptation [Video] (1:03)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/adapt-11-breakfast-2.jpeg)
![Hey, Hey, It’s the Monkees at 50! Part I via Emmys.com [Article]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Monkee-4.jpg)