{"id":47148,"date":"2016-05-23T00:10:44","date_gmt":"2016-05-23T07:10:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=47148"},"modified":"2016-05-07T17:39:29","modified_gmt":"2016-05-08T00:39:29","slug":"the-story-of-the-monkees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2016\/05\/the-story-of-the-monkees\/","title":{"rendered":"The Story of the Monkees"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pf-content\"><div class=\"highlighter\">The following is an article from <em><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bathroomreader.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Uncle John\u2019s Bathroom Reader<\/a><\/em><\/div>\n<p><em>In 1966 the best-selling rock band in the United States wasn\u2019t the Beatles\u2014it was the Monkees. And they weren\u2019t even a \u201creal\u201d band (at least at first); they were a Hollywood creation.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/The_Monkees.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-47155\" src=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/The_Monkees-340x450.jpg\" alt=\"The_Monkees\" width=\"340\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/The_Monkees-340x450.jpg 340w, http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/The_Monkees-640x847.jpg 640w, http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/The_Monkees.jpg 1450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 340px) 100vw, 340px\" \/><\/a><strong>THE PRE-FAB FOUR<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In 1953 a TV producer named Bob Rafelson was traveling through Mexico with a group of \u201cfour unruly and chaotic folk musicians\u201d and thought their exploits would make for a fun TV show. He unsuccessfully pitched the idea to Universal in 1960. Five years later, Rafelson was working at Screen Gems, the TV division of Columbia Pictures, with another young producer, Bert Schneider. Both were fans of the Beatles\u2019 film <em>A Hard Day\u2019s Night<\/em> and marveled at how it had fused comedy and rock music. They wondered: Could that be translated to TV?<\/p>\n<p>The two men formed Raybert Productions and began developing their series. At first, they wanted to hire an established band, such as Herman\u2019s Hermits, but decided they didn\u2019t want to deal with record company contracts. But through the magic of TV, the band didn\u2019t even need to be musicians\u2014they wouldn\u2019t really be playing the instruments; they only had to look convincing. Acting experience wouldn\u2019t be necessary, either.<\/p>\n<p>In 1965 they ran this ad in Hollywood Reporter and Variety: \u201cMADNESS!! AUDITIONS. Folk &amp; Roll Musicians, Singers for acting roles in new TV series. Running parts for 4 insane boys, age 17\u201321.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>MICKY, DAVY, PETER, AND MIKE<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Word spread around the L.A. music scene, and 437 \u201cfolk &amp; roll musicians\u201d and \u201cinsane boys\u201d showed up to audition. After a three-month process in which the leading candidates were called back several times to perform in various groupings to see who had chemistry together, Raybert ended up with two professional actors and two professional musicians\u2014all of whom could sing and all of whom were funny.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Micky Dolenz, 21, a former child star (he\u2019d starred as an orphaned acrobat on the 1956 show <em>Circus Boy<\/em>), was hired to be the drummer, even though he couldn\u2019t play the drums or even look like he could. His singing, however, was top-notch, so he ended up singing on most of the Monkees\u2019 hits.<\/li>\n<li>Davy Jones, 21, was an experienced stage performer who had toured with the musical <em>Oliver!<\/em> in 1962. (With that production, he had appeared on the same 1964 <em>Ed Sullivan Show<\/em> as the Beatles, had seen the girls going hysterical, and said to himself, \u201cI want a bit of this.\u201d) Jones was under contract with Screen Gems and was urged to audition\u2014he could sing, was good-looking, and had a British accent\u2014in other words, he was Beatles-esque. He was hired as the \u201cofficial\u201d lead singer.<\/li>\n<li>Stephen Stills of the band Buffalo Fish (later Buffalo Springfield) was cast, but he backed out when he learned that Screen Gems would own the rights to any songs he wrote. He suggested an ex-bandmate named Peter Tork, 24. By the time Rafelson tracked him down, Tork was working as a dishwasher. He was primarily a guitarist; in this band, he\u2019d be the bassist.<\/li>\n<li>Mike Nesmith, 21, was playing in a band called the Survivors. Already a successful songwriter\u2014he\u2019d written Frankie Laine\u2019s \u201cPretty Little Princess\u201d\u2014he was on his way to a successful music career when he auditioned for the show. Wearing his trademark wool cap and carrying a sack of laundry, Nesmith announced in his slight Texas drawl, \u201cI hope this ain\u2019t gonna take too long, fellas, \u2019cause I\u2019m in a hurry.\u201d He was named lead guitarist.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>HEY, HEY, WE\u2019RE THE CREEPS!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Raybert had their four musicians, but they were lacking one important detail\u2014a name for the band. Some possibilities tossed around: the Creeps, the Turtles, and the Inevitables. Then Schneider suggested taking a cue from how the Beatles had misspelled \u201cbeetles,\u201d and he turned \u201cmonkeys\u201d into Monkees.<\/p>\n<p>Rafelson and Schneider now needed money to film a pilot. Former child star Jackie Cooper, then a Screen Gems executive, offered $250,000 before he even saw the script. It helped that Schneider\u2019s father was the president of Columbia Pictures, parent company of Screen Gems.<\/p>\n<p>In early 1966, Rafelson and Schneider hired character actor James Frawley to conduct acting classes and direct the pilot. It would be his first directing job. They told him to relax and to \u201cdare to be wrong.\u201d So Frawley had the band members, who were quite stiff at first, watch Marx Brothers movies and perform improv exercises: \u201cSwim around in slow motion! Now roll around on the floor! Now you\u2019re a crab! Now you\u2019re giraffes! Run around and talk like a giraffe would talk!\u201d By the time they filmed the pilot in the spring, the Monkees\u2019 personas were in place and, perhaps more importantly, they\u2019d become friends.<\/p>\n<p><strong>TEST PILOT<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The plot of the pilot: The band\u2019s upcoming gig at a fancy country club is in jeopardy when the sweet-16 birthday girl falls for Davy, and her stuffed shirt of a father doesn\u2019t approve. The four stars\u2014even Dolenz and Jones, who\u2019d done some TV\u2014were overwhelmed by the complexities of the shoot. Raybert wanted a fast show, so they brought in TV commercial production teams, who filmed the stars riding on motorized skateboards, running amok through hotels, and doing other silly things. The Monkees themselves were quite lost; the show, they were told, would be crafted later in the editing booth. \u201cThe narrative of the shows was never that important,\u201d recalls Nesmith. \u201cWhat was important was a kind of kinetic energy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rafelson and Schneider loved the pilot, but test audiences hated it. Tork explained why: \u201cWhen the audience didn\u2019t know who these kids were, the obnoxiousness was overpowering. They were like, \u2018What are these brats doing?\u2019\u201d But instead of making the Monkees more polite, Raybert simply showed the pilot again\u2014this time with early screen tests from Jones and Nesmith tacked on at the end. That did the trick: \u201cIt gave the next audience enough identification with the kids that they forgave them for being obnoxious.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Raybert showed the pilot to NBC\u2019s programming chief Mort Werner. \u201cI don\u2019t know what the hell we\u2019ve just seen,\u201d he exclaimed, \u201cbut I think we should put it on the air.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>MONDAY NIGHT MADNESS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>The Monkees<\/em> premiered on Monday, September 12, 1966, at 7:30 p.m. The show was an instant hit and ruled that time slot for two seasons. At the time, it seemed revolutionary.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the cutting-edge aspects:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Quick takes. Most shows at the time had about 15 scenes per episode. <em>The Monkees<\/em> averaged about 60.<\/li>\n<li>Surrealism. <em>The Monkees<\/em> regularly featured dream sequences, visual gags (such as \u201cstars\u201d in Davy\u2019s eyes), wacky sound effects, rapid-fire scene transitions, and action that was sped up and slowed down.<\/li>\n<li>Breaking the \u201cfourth wall.\u201d For example, when the boys find themselves in a tough situation, Micky looks at the camera and says, \u201cWho wrote this?\u201d The camera follows him as he leaves the set and walks into a smoke-filled room with old Asian men crouched around typewriters.<\/li>\n<li>Music videos. Elvis and the Beatles had done it on film, but until <em>The Monkees<\/em>, no TV sitcom routinely stopped telling its story\u2014twice per episode\u2014to feature a music video of the band\u2019s latest song. <em>The Monkees<\/em>\u2019 musical interludes proved that television could sell records.<\/li>\n<li>Counterculture presented in a good light. <em>The Monkees<\/em> had long hair and lived in a groovy beach house, but compared to real hippies (or the Beatles), they were square: on-screen, they didn\u2019t do drugs, didn\u2019t talk politics, and didn\u2019t disrespect young ladies. Ironically, that lack of an edge may have boosted the counterculture movement. \u201cKids could show their parents that there were long-haired people who weren\u2019t deviant,\u201d said Tork later.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>The Monkees<\/em> became overnight sensations\u2026but they\u2019d soon suffer the scorn of the music industry.<\/p>\n<p><strong>MONKEE FACTORY<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>On the set of <em>The Monkees<\/em>, the on-screen action was wacky and loose. But behind the scenes, NBC and Screen Gems had put so much into promoting the show that nothing was left to chance. During filming, any cast members who weren\u2019t in the scene being shot were kept in a room with black walls and a meat-locker door. They could be loud, smoke pot, and even entertain women without being seen. Each Monkee had a corner, and in each corner a light was installed. When a Monkee\u2019s light started blinking, that Monkee or Monkees would report to the set and perform. Then it was back to the black box.<\/p>\n<p>During press interviews, they were given a list of topics they could not talk about, including politics, Vietnam, and drugs. \u201cWe were hired actors,\u201d said Nesmith. \u201cWe came in at seven in the morning and did what we were told until seven at night. We had almost no part in the creative process.\u201d And they often had to add vocals to their songs in recording sessions that went long after midnight.<\/p>\n<p><strong>DAYDREAM DECEIVERS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Screen Gems\u2019 head of music, Don Kirshner, was hired to develop the band\u2019s sound into something catchy and marketable. Kirshner tapped top songwriters of the day, including Neil Diamond, Tommy Boyce, Bobby Hart, and Carole King, who contributed to the band\u2019s hits, such as \u201cLast Train to Clarksville,\u201d \u201cI\u2019m a Believer,\u201d and \u201cDaydream Believer.\u201d Although Tork and Nesmith were both skilled guitarists and Jones was a decent drummer, the \u201cband\u201d wasn\u2019t allowed to play instruments on their first two albums, <em>The Monkees<\/em> and <em>More of the Monkees<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>As the first season came to a close, word had leaked out that the Monkees were a fabricated band, but their popularity had already skyrocketed\u2014especially that of Davy Jones, who became a teen heartthrob. To capitalize on their fame, NBC sent them on a concert tour in early 1967 to perform their hits\u2014which they hadn\u2019t even played in the first place. TV\u2019s first manufactured band was about to become a real band, and the task was daunting. \u201cPutting us on tour was like making the cast of <em>Star Trek<\/em> fight real aliens,\u201d said Dolenz.<\/p>\n<p><strong>STEPPING STONES<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Monkees\u2019 early concerts didn\u2019t go well musically, but few noticed because their teenage fans didn\u2019t stop screaming long enough to even hear them. Jimi Hendrix got the job of being their opening act, against his wishes (his manager made him do it). \u201cJimi would amble out onto the stage,\u201d recalled Dolenz, \u201cfire up the amps, and break into \u2018Purple Haze,\u2019 and the kids would drown him out with \u2018We want Daaavy!\u2019 God, was it embarrassing.\u201d Hendrix quit after seven shows.<\/p>\n<p>The Monkees soon learned to actually play together, and got a big boost on the European leg of their \u201867 tour when the Beatles threw them a lavish party. John Lennon didn\u2019t see them as competitors or imitators, but contemporaries. He called the Monkees \u201cthe Marx Brothers of rock.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, back in the States, tension mounted between the Monkees and Kirshner, especially after he rejected songs Nesmith had written\u2026because they weren\u2019t \u201cMonkee enough.\u201d The final straw came when Kirshner released a Monkees song\u2014the Neil Diamond-penned \u201cA Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You\u201d\u2014without Screen Gems\u2019 or the Monkees\u2019 approval. Nesmith was so angry that he punched a hole in the wall of Rafelson\u2019s office. Kirshner was fired, which gave the group more control over their music but not over their image\u2026or even their lives.<\/p>\n<p><strong>OF MONKEES AND MEN<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>By this time, the Monkees were widely resented by musicians who\u2019d paid their dues for years, only to be upstaged by a fabricated band. Not even the 1967 album <em>Headquarters<\/em>, which the Monkees wrote and performed themselves, could save their reputations. Even when the Monkees were honored, they were dissed. After season one, the show won an Emmy for Outstanding Comedy and another for Jim Frawley\u2019s directing. In his acceptance speech, Frawley said, \u201cI couldn\u2019t have done this without four very special guys\u2014Harpo, Chico, Groucho, and Zeppo.\u201d The band took his remarks as a snub, not a compliment.<\/p>\n<p>As the second season dragged on, the Monkees spent most of their waking hours working, and grew increasingly tired and jaded. How many episodes could be written about country clubs or haunted mansions the band gets lost in? The band agreed to come back for a third season only if the show switched formats to a variety program. (They got a taste of that toward the end of the second season when Frank Zappa, dressed up like Mike Nesmith, interviewed Mike Nesmith, who was dressed up like Frank Zappa.) NBC didn\u2019t want to change the format, so they canceled <em>The Monkees<\/em> in 1968 but signed a deal with them to make three specials a year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HEADING TO THE BIG SCREEN<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Monkees as a band, however, remained intact. In the summer of 1968, Raybert began filming a Monkees feature film conceived of by their friend Jack Nicholson while he was tripping on LSD. Head was a stream-of-consciousness, psychedelic diatribe against Hollywood\u2014TV in particular. It began with the Monkees chanting, not singing, a parody of their theme song: \u201cHey, hey, we are the Monkees, you know we love to please \/ A manufactured image, with no philosophies.\u201d It only got weirder from there\u2014and it confused its teeny-bopper audience. The film was panned and made only a fraction of its budget, squashing any plans for a sequel.<\/p>\n<p>The band then made a few guest appearances on TV variety shows in 1969. Their last hurrah was a bizarre NBC special, <em>33 1\/3 Revolutions Per Monkee<\/em>. In one scene, the guys were placed inside giant test tubes, a reference to being \u201cgrown in a lab.\u201d Later, Little Richard, Fats Domino, and Jerry Lee Lewis all played pianos stacked on top of each other. The program got such poor ratings (it had run opposite the Academy Awards) that NBC canceled the remaining contracted Monkees specials. Then, citing exhaustion, Tork quit the band. The special was the last time all four Monkees would appear together for 16 years.<\/p>\n<p><strong>THE SECOND COMING\u2026AND GOING<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Throughout the 1970s, Micky Dolenz, Mike Nesmith, and Davy Jones continued performing together occasionally while also pursuing solo careers. However, the money they had made from their TV series and album sales was poorly handled, so Jones and Tork ended up deep in debt. Nesmith never had to worry about money thanks to his mother\u2019s invention\u2014Liquid Paper. In 1979 he inherited $25 million (about $82 million today).<\/p>\n<p>While the Monkees\u2019 success on vinyl faded, the popularity of their old TV show stayed strong. From 1969 to 1972, CBS aired reruns on Saturday mornings, and local stations aired it here and there. Then in 1986, MTV began airing the show, and it was a huge hit all over again. Now in their 40s, the Monkees reunited and recorded a new album, <em>Justus<\/em>, and followed it with a successful world tour.<\/p>\n<p>Everything was rosy until the Monkees failed to show up at an MTV-thrown Super Bowl party in 1987. Though the band had missed the date because of a scheduling snafu by their manager, MTV execs saw it as an ungrateful snub and retaliated by banning the band\u2019s videos and reruns. Monkeemania 2.0 quickly died.<\/p>\n<p><strong>THE REFAB PREFAB FOUR<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>While the band was still selling out stadiums around the world back in 1986, Screen Gems producer Steve Blauner thought that the Monkees revival could give way to a totally new incarnation of the band, with new members, and to reflect the music and sensibilities of the 1980s.<\/p>\n<p>Following a casting process like the one conducted 20 years earlier, Blauner found four young musicians and cast them in <em>The New Monkees<\/em>, which began airing in fall 1987.<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t remember it? That\u2019s because it lasted only 12 episodes, it generated no hit songs, and the four guys never went on to much else.<\/p>\n<p>Another New Monkees attempt was made in 2003 by <em>American Idol<\/em> creator and Spice Girls mastermind Simon Fuller. He hired Simpsons writers Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein to write scripts. NBC passed.<\/p>\n<div class=\"highlighter\">\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1607101815\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1607101815&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=vicastingcom-20&amp;linkId=KZAL6NWHF5ZJYCAH\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-41659 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/uncle-johns-tunes.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"232\" height=\"345\" \/><\/a>This article is reprinted with permission from <em><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1607101815\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1607101815&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=vicastingcom-20&amp;linkId=KZAL6NWHF5ZJYCAH\" target=\"_blank\">Uncle John&#8217;s Bathroom Reader Tunes Into TV<\/a><\/em>. Here comes your wacky neighbor Uncle John to present TV the way only he can. From test patterns to <em>Top Chef<\/em>, from <em>My Three Sons<\/em> to <em>Mad Men<\/em>, as well as TV news, advertising, scandals, sitcoms, dramas, reality shows, and yadda yadda yadda, <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1607101815\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1607101815&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=vicastingcom-20&amp;linkId=LNSYFHQCVEJUXTVI\" target=\"_blank\">Uncle John&#8217;s Bathroom Reader Tunes into TV<\/a> is \u201cdy-no-mite!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Since 1987, the <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bathroomreader.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Bathroom Readers\u2019 Institute<\/a> has led the movement to stand up for those who sit down and read in the bathroom (and everywhere else for that matter). With more than 15 million books in print, the Uncle John\u2019s Bathroom Reader series is the longest-running, most popular series of its kind in the world.<\/p>\n<p>If you like <a href='http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com' title='Interesting Facts'>Today I Found Out<\/a>, I guarantee you&#8217;ll love the <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bathroomreader.com\/interesting-articles-and-trivia\" target=\"_blank\">Bathroom Reader Institute&#8217;s books, so check them out<\/a>!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The following is an article from Uncle John\u2019s Bathroom Reader In 1966 the best-selling rock band in the United States wasn\u2019t the Beatles\u2014it was the Monkees. And they weren\u2019t even a \u201creal\u201d band (at least at first); they were a Hollywood creation. THE PRE-FAB FOUR In 1953 a TV producer named Bob Rafelson was traveling through Mexico with a group [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":179,"featured_media":47155,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-i-found-out","category-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/179"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47148"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47156,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47148\/revisions\/47156"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}