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Were the Monkees "mainstream moles" for the '60's revolution, as the late Timothy Leary once claimed. . . or were they merely actors in a (sometimes) hilarious TV show-- which aired on NBC for two seasons from '66 thru '68-- that exploited the prevailing youth counterculture?
Did they play their own instruments or what?
Many of these (no doubt burning) questions are easily answered by attending to the reformed Pre-Fab Four's 30th Anniversary Tour (alas, without Nesmith, the group's musical leader), but also by just viewing the old TV shows.
The Emmy-winning "Monkees" series introduced the world to the antics of Micky, Mike, Davy and Peter, and managed to take the Richard Lester-Beatles school of precursor MTV to new, and often dizzying, heights.
With top notch talent on its side (musically as well as cinematically-- everyone from Neil Diamond to Paul Mazursky to Vic Tayback to Stan Freberg to Tim Buckley to show co-creator Bob Five Easy Pieces Rafelson aided in the birth), "The Monkees" project broke visual ground for '60's TV, and-- in our humble opinions-- the band didn't embarrass the era's heady music scene one iota for being the first "Made for TV" rock combo.
Now that Rhino Records owns the rights to the Monkees complete oeuvre, you can purchase the uncut, unedited episodes at your local retailer, two episodes per volume. Still, on the 30th Anniversary of their inception, most of these packed little 30-minute wonders deserve another viewing. You can see for yourself how this peculiar marriage of rock, tube and marketing evolved (and how actors "playing" a rock band actually ended up becoming a working, and somewhat creative, rock band). You can also catch the episodes as part of the Nickelodeon Network's "Block Party" summer schedule.
VCR-owning, Gretch guitar-lovin' Dobolinas are now on notice It's a Viewer's Guide to the Best of the Monkees on TV. Time to laugh, and to listen to the band, all over again.
"Monkee Vs. Machine" (1st season, episode 3) One of the series' masterpieces, with bespectacled humorist Stan Freberg an absolute scream as a yuppie boss trying to "streamline" a toy factory that Mike works for. To their credit, the Monkees distinguish themselves quite nicely in between Freberg's fits and bits of business.
"Monkees A La Mode" (1st season, episode 24) A side-splitting swipe at the ravenous and exploitative teenybopper magazines of the period, with the Monkees in the middle of a big publicity campaign started by a magazine to make all the chicks dig 'em. Kind of like Arch Hall's Wild Guitar.
"Monkees In The Movies" (1st season, episode 31) Another must-see, taking on beach movies and puffed-up teenage idols in one fell swoop. Davy gets a job as an extra in a "Frankie Cavalina" surf flick, and there are more jokes, puns and camera shots clocked per minute than in an old Warner Brothers cartoon. Hilarious.
"Monkees On Tour" (1st season, episode 32) Did the Monkees play their own instruments on tour? This concert documentary shows that they really did, as well as detailing the behind-the-screams mayhem of a concert from that still (relatively) innocent time. The sound quality sucks, but you can still tell that the Monkees were a raucous garage band, albeit one performing in cavernous ampitheatres in front of rabid 16 Magazine subscribers.
"Double Barrel Shotgun Wedding" (2nd season, episode 7) The times start 'a changin' with the second season, as the hair got longer, the jokes got weirder, the eyeballs of the Pre-Fab Four got a bit slittier, and the music was (mostly) from the Monkees' prime era of Headquarters and Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones Ltd.. This episode has Davy being forced to marry an Ellie Mae Clampett-lookalike from a deranged backwoods family made to resemble a certain Beverly Hills bunch. . . before they moved out of town. Manic stuff.
"The Fairy Tale" (2nd season, episode 16) Nesmith might want to forget this one-- he appears in drag as an ill-tempered princess in this jaw-droppingly strange "fairy tale" episode. This is one of the episodes that starts to reveal the influence of narcotics on the collective minds of the Monkee organization. No one in their right mind could take this one straight. Bonus surprise A super-cool, almost contemporary video at the end of the band's super-psychadelic "Daily Nightly" with Micky Dolenz going off the Moog. Krautrock-meets-PreFab!!
"The Devil and Peter Tork" (2nd season, episode 20) Quintessential '60's-- Peter sells his soul to the devil and then has to play the harp to save himself. It's a thinly-veiled something or other; a strange, almost melancholic episode (and Monkees fans would see this theme repeated ad nauseum in the TV special, 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee).
"Monkees In Paris" (2nd season, episode 22) The band travels to Paris to "film their own episode." A bit like "Monkees on Tour," with the band riding unicycles on French thoroughfares and generally just hanging out and getting chased by European chicks for a change. Not very exciting, maybe, but an interesting look at the group in the middle of the Flower Power era.
"The Monkees Blow Their Minds" (2nd season, show 25) You gotta love the title. While the comedy isn't really up to it, Frank Zappa does guest star at the end. He dons a wool cap and Nesmith puts on a fake nose and mustache and they pretty much insult each other for a few minutes before the credits roll (Zappa to Nesmith "So, Mike, is it true that you are quitting the Monkees and joining the Byrds"). Put it in a time capsule.
"The Frodis Caper" (2nd season, show 26) Save the best, or the most esoteric, for last. This final-ever episode of the series was directed by Micky and is the one show that most resembles the oddball feature film, Head. Drug-addled, dreamlike and sci-fi oriented, this little wonder may just be an excerpt from the pretentious and precious film that Fellini's director was planning to shoot in 8 1/2. Okay, maybe not. . . but it was definitely among the strangest half-hours that NBC ever broadcast. Inspirational dialogue "I Just wanna lay down on the grass and be cool for awhile."
33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee (1968 NBC TV Special. Also available thru Rhino Video)
Talk about mind-rot! To some fans, this "last gasp" Monkees TV special, produced after the group's show was canceled, remains one of the most freaky and bombastic psych-rock spectacles ever unleashed on a public not particularly taken to doses of Purple Sunshine after dinner.
To others, it is an embarrassing, amateurish shambles, with the Monkees revealing themselves to be as talentless as their critics always claimed. NBC showed its pride by pitting the special against that year's Oscar telecast on ABC.
It's possible, too, to be in the middle on this argument The special boasts Fats Domino, Little Richard and a manic Jerry Lee doing frenzied versions of their '50's hits, plus head-scratching excursions into Bach (Peter Tork on the harpischord-- he still had to "prove" he could play), plus some rousing psych-gospel (courtesy of Clara Ward and her Singers, who dance with rainbow-colored skeletons{!!}), plus a ten-minute freakout finale as dozens of stoned hippy musicians & hanger-ons run Mike Nesmith's "Listen to The Band" into the ground (a zonked-out Buddy Miles drum solo doesn't help matters much). Something like this has got to be appreciated on some level, if only for chutzpah value.
Little wonder that "33 1/3" spelled the death knell of the group. U2 should have seen this one before they did their low-rated "A Year in Pop" show-- no rock star TV special has been taken seriously since the Monkees let this one fly.
-- Shorty Blackwell