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omorkaIf the Powers That Be (I'm going to adopt Dolenz's own term for them here) had "cast" the four Monkees in a manner consistent with what they already knew musically, then - well, if they'd gone with "who can play this instrument best," they'd have had Tork play everything, but slotting him into what he was best at and going from there, the lineup would have been: Tork on lead guitar and occasional backing vocals; Nesmith on bass, second guitar, and lead or harmony vocals where appropriate; Jones on drums, lead vocals, and harmony vocals; and Dolenz on rhythm guitar and lead and harmony vocals. The only place I can think of where this lineup actually occurs in the show is in the "Words" video, although I'm given to understand that Jones and Dolenz did occasionally swap places in the live shows so Dolenz could show off in front of the audience.
I've not yet found a source that explains why the PTB put Tork on bass instead of lead guitar. It's not like there wasn't a very popular four-piece band around the same time where the bass player sang and wrote lots of songs for the band. However, there does seem to be a consensus why they put Dolenz on the kit instead of Jones; the PTB thought Jones would disappear behind the crash cymbals, and at the time they assigned the parts, they were thinking he'd be the lead singer for most of the songs. It wasn't until they bundled the boys into the studio and laid out "Clarksville" that they realized they'd stuck their best singer behind the kick drum.
Three more episodes :
Season 1 Disc 4 Episode 22: The Monkees At The Circus
An ensemble show with a Davy plot arc: the four boys sneak into a closed circus to poke around and accidentally intrude on a labor dispute between the performers and the cash-strapped owner. Davy falls for the owner's daughter, and the boys step in by impersonating the Mozzarella Brothers, a European high-wire act, and offering to join the show for a night to drum up business. The ruse works as far as advertising goes, but they're exposed by the knife-thrower; they put on a clown act to cheer up the owner's daughter, which also boosts employee morale enough for the show to go on, except for the knife-thrower - who is finally goaded into performing by Davy impersonating him instead.
Micky's first line is "I haven't been to the circus since I was a kid!" He then opens the next scene by singing "It's great, it's terrific, it's the best show on Earth . . .;" Mike asks him what that is, and he replies, "It's from an old TV show." Yeah, yeah, Corky, we get it. Incidentally, it was when he was doing publicity with the elephant that he learned to play guitar; in this episode, we get to see him show off a couple of other skills he learned back then as well, notably juggling (which he's also done in at least one previous romp).
The Mozzarella Brothers' outfits are the same red-leotard-and-gold-lame-tunic suits the Four Martians wore last episode, except without the head stockings. There's an Abbot-and-Costello-style running gag, usually delivered by Peter, based on the Bro's stage names: Amazing, Incredible, Colossal, and Stupendous.
At one point Micky and Mike impersonate a lion tamer and a lion, respectively; halfway through the routine, Mike steals the hoop and the whip and makes Micky leap through instead. Normally, I'm not much for singletails, but I'll take it.
The clown act that serves as the morale lifter for the circus performers starts off with all four Monkees, but shortly Mike and Peter bow out and join the owner's daughter on the stands, while Davy and Micky go through something that's really more of a silent movie comedy routine (or maybe vaudeville) than a clown act per se. It's a decent slapstick bit that ends up with Micky throwing a bucket of confetti (they're expecting water, since Davy just doused him) on everyone.
For something with the standard-Davy-ep-framework, this isn't bad. And I'm sure Micky was relieved not to have to deal with the elephant this time.
Season 1 Disc 4 Episode 23: Captain Crocodile
This is a variation on the breaking-in-to-show-biz plot: the Monkees have been invited by Junior Pinter, a minor TV exec, to perform a song on the Captain Crocodile show; instead, the Captain dresses them in silly costumes and pies them in the face. They meet with Junior and discover that he's a literal minor - the son of the station owner - but he promises them that they'll get to sing on the next episode. The Captain has other plans, cutting away from them every time they're about to get the chance to play. During a meeting of the station execs, Micky impersonates a market researcher, Mike an elderly janitor whose grandkids watch the show, and Davy and Peter typical kids. When the owner orders everyone out - including the Captain - he calls in his Crocodile Corps, a group of screeching kids who chase the Monkees all over the backlot. Finally arriving back in the studio, the kids spare the Monkees as they improvise a fairy tale from the dictionary; the Captain throws a hissy and gets fired, but his underling takes his place as host and proceeds to hose down the boys with seltzer water in a repeat of the opening gag.
The name is clearly a Captain Kangaroo reference, but the format of the kiddie show in this episode as we see it is closer to the Uncle Bucky-type afternoon kids' show . (If you don't know what I'm talking about, the Uncle Nutsy's Clubhouse sequences of UHF before Spadowski takes the show over are a reasonably good illustration. Also, get off my lawn.)
The silly costumes the Captain puts them in are the headpieces from the Jolly Green Giants (from two episodes ago; man, they're not letting those costumes go to waste, are they?) and army-fatigue-green ponchos (presumably to avoid staining the rest of the wardrobe). I think this is the first time we get an actual pie-in-the-face gag on the show, although several bad guys, two extras, and Micky have gotten cake in their faces in one way or another prior to this episode.
The kid who plays Junior Pinter is a cousin of Scott Baio. (Much later, Dolenz would direct the stage version of Bugsy Malone in London. Not sure if that counts as a small-world story or not.)
During one of the fantasy sequences, Peter and Davy appear in variations of the Monkeemen costumes as Frogman and Reuben the Tadpole - a Batman parody, DC again except that it's clearly the TV show they're riffing off of.
During the boardroom sequence, Micky and Mike both impersonate adults - Micky loudly using made-up statistics and neologisms, Mike more quietly making an emotional appeal - and Davy and Peter both impersonate children - Peter threatening to cry and Davy threatening to have a tantrum if they don't get what they want. Given what their stage personae already look like, this is just a wee bit on-the-nose for me. (The set for this scene is the office set that's been used several times already, although at least this time the axis of the room's furniture has been shifted to disguise it.)
The romp with the Crocodile Corps goes all over the studio backlot; the Monkees re-visit several of the locations from one of the dance sequences in Episode 14, often wearing the same costumes, which makes me wonder if both sets of shots were done on the same day or if they just happened to have the same costumes available.
In the improv fairy tale sequence, Micky starts off with "Once upon a time, in the land of Kirshner . . ." Not sure if that's a reference to how fictional the band is or not, but either way, again a bit on-the-nose.
Season 1 Disc 4 Episode 24: Monkees A La Mode
An original(ish) plot, first one in a while: the Monkees are selected by Chic magazine as their Young Americans of the Year based solely on their photographs. A lady reporter, Toby Willis, wants to actually do the story on them, but her editor Madame Quagmeyer and the head photographer Rob Roy Fingerhead reject this out of hand. After trying to gussy them up in the studio, Rob Roy simply makes up fake backgrounds for the boys; after reading the article, the Monkees' friends reject them for putting on airs. In revenge, the Monkees proceed to make a fool of Madame Q at the award dinner; she's demoted to a staff writer, and Toby takes her place - but refuses to run a retraction anyway. As a compromise, the boys play "You Just May Be The One" in nice suits to end the episode.
Valerie Kairys : The Monkees :: Carol Cleveland : Monty Python's Flying Circus. She appears in 13 episodes of the series, and most of her appearances are uncredited, or credited as "Blonde Girl With Davy." Only twice will her character have a name, and her role here as Toby is her most extensive speaking part. It's actually an unusual role for a young woman in a Monkees episode who interacts with the boys; she has motives that go well beyond them and she doesn't fall in love with or get pursued romantically by any of them. In fact, this is the closest an episode has come so far to passing Bechdel (fails on step 3 - all of the conversations between Toby and Madame Q are about either the Monkees or Rob Roy).
There are a lot of puns in this episode. Peter mentions Chic's serial/cereal of the month ("This month it's corn flakes" - the boys have been passing a recognizable box of Kellogg's Corn Flakes around the table, and they were one of the sponsors of the show). One of the candidates for Young American of the Year that Rob Roy mentions is a socialite named Vernon Equinox. And of course, there's Madame Q's name.
Every time Rob Roy Fingerhead's full name is given, Mike and Micky mouth it silently to each other in disbelief. It's a cute bit of business.
There's a fantasy sequence with Micky as a Paul Revere-type character warning of the British coming; the Brit in question is, of course, Davy.
Canon note: Micky mentioned in an offhand remark in the previous episode that he was born in the L.A. area; in this episode he specifically says Burbank. Mike is asked the same question, and only says "Texas." Mighty big area there, Mike. (Nesmith was born at St. Joseph's Hospital in Houston, but raised in Dallas; possibly he didn't want to piss one of us off by identifying the other as his hometown.)
During the photo sequence, Rob Roy has two sequences with Davy (learning to pose; he gets called away, leaving Davy in a precarious position) and Micky (learning to color match; Micky calls back everything he says out of order, getting faster and faster, ending up with the entire wardrobe on the floor) that are so Marx-brothers-esque that I wondered whether they were direct steals or not. Again, good physical comedy from both of them. (There's also a shot of Micky tapping out a rhythm on a table before Rob Roy insists that he stop and threatens to shoot him if he doesn't; according to Dolenz, that was a habit he picked up in RL while he was learning to play, and it did in fact annoy the crap out of everyone around him.)
At the awards ceremony, the boys are seated under four large posters of themselves; Mike and Micky are seated under the correct posters, but Peter and Davy are switched. It's not clear if this is a remnant of a gag that got cut or if they just decided not to sit in height order. Later in that sequence, Davy whips off a wig to display a gleaming bald pate; the makeup artists must have worked like hell on it, as it's not at all obvious from the front that it's a bald cap. Once again, the other three are left to cut up while Mike acts as if he's serious. When he announces that he wants to give the award to Rob Roy instead, the photographer tries to sneak off the stage and is neatly boxed in by Davy and Peter in a very simple but effective gag: Peter stands up immediately in front of him and smiles innocently, while Davy scoots his chair back to block him between Pete's chair and the back of the stage, before Micky drags him by the back of his coat to take the award from Mike. (The set for this sequence is the one that usually gets used as a restaurant or discotheque.)
Again, three decent episodes; the last one is pretty strong, although of the three it's the one I remember least well from my first watching of the shows. By this point, the writing staff have a good grasp of the characters and the feel of the show, and the guys have their comedic rhythm down. The next one is the second doppelganger episode, and the first Micky-centric episode (25 shows in, and he finally gets to headline!).
I've not yet found a source that explains why the PTB put Tork on bass instead of lead guitar. It's not like there wasn't a very popular four-piece band around the same time where the bass player sang and wrote lots of songs for the band. However, there does seem to be a consensus why they put Dolenz on the kit instead of Jones; the PTB thought Jones would disappear behind the crash cymbals, and at the time they assigned the parts, they were thinking he'd be the lead singer for most of the songs. It wasn't until they bundled the boys into the studio and laid out "Clarksville" that they realized they'd stuck their best singer behind the kick drum.
Three more episodes :
Season 1 Disc 4 Episode 22: The Monkees At The Circus
An ensemble show with a Davy plot arc: the four boys sneak into a closed circus to poke around and accidentally intrude on a labor dispute between the performers and the cash-strapped owner. Davy falls for the owner's daughter, and the boys step in by impersonating the Mozzarella Brothers, a European high-wire act, and offering to join the show for a night to drum up business. The ruse works as far as advertising goes, but they're exposed by the knife-thrower; they put on a clown act to cheer up the owner's daughter, which also boosts employee morale enough for the show to go on, except for the knife-thrower - who is finally goaded into performing by Davy impersonating him instead.
Micky's first line is "I haven't been to the circus since I was a kid!" He then opens the next scene by singing "It's great, it's terrific, it's the best show on Earth . . .;" Mike asks him what that is, and he replies, "It's from an old TV show." Yeah, yeah, Corky, we get it. Incidentally, it was when he was doing publicity with the elephant that he learned to play guitar; in this episode, we get to see him show off a couple of other skills he learned back then as well, notably juggling (which he's also done in at least one previous romp).
The Mozzarella Brothers' outfits are the same red-leotard-and-gold-lame-tunic suits the Four Martians wore last episode, except without the head stockings. There's an Abbot-and-Costello-style running gag, usually delivered by Peter, based on the Bro's stage names: Amazing, Incredible, Colossal, and Stupendous.
At one point Micky and Mike impersonate a lion tamer and a lion, respectively; halfway through the routine, Mike steals the hoop and the whip and makes Micky leap through instead. Normally, I'm not much for singletails, but I'll take it.
The clown act that serves as the morale lifter for the circus performers starts off with all four Monkees, but shortly Mike and Peter bow out and join the owner's daughter on the stands, while Davy and Micky go through something that's really more of a silent movie comedy routine (or maybe vaudeville) than a clown act per se. It's a decent slapstick bit that ends up with Micky throwing a bucket of confetti (they're expecting water, since Davy just doused him) on everyone.
For something with the standard-Davy-ep-framework, this isn't bad. And I'm sure Micky was relieved not to have to deal with the elephant this time.
Season 1 Disc 4 Episode 23: Captain Crocodile
This is a variation on the breaking-in-to-show-biz plot: the Monkees have been invited by Junior Pinter, a minor TV exec, to perform a song on the Captain Crocodile show; instead, the Captain dresses them in silly costumes and pies them in the face. They meet with Junior and discover that he's a literal minor - the son of the station owner - but he promises them that they'll get to sing on the next episode. The Captain has other plans, cutting away from them every time they're about to get the chance to play. During a meeting of the station execs, Micky impersonates a market researcher, Mike an elderly janitor whose grandkids watch the show, and Davy and Peter typical kids. When the owner orders everyone out - including the Captain - he calls in his Crocodile Corps, a group of screeching kids who chase the Monkees all over the backlot. Finally arriving back in the studio, the kids spare the Monkees as they improvise a fairy tale from the dictionary; the Captain throws a hissy and gets fired, but his underling takes his place as host and proceeds to hose down the boys with seltzer water in a repeat of the opening gag.
The name is clearly a Captain Kangaroo reference, but the format of the kiddie show in this episode as we see it is closer to the Uncle Bucky-type afternoon kids' show . (If you don't know what I'm talking about, the Uncle Nutsy's Clubhouse sequences of UHF before Spadowski takes the show over are a reasonably good illustration. Also, get off my lawn.)
The silly costumes the Captain puts them in are the headpieces from the Jolly Green Giants (from two episodes ago; man, they're not letting those costumes go to waste, are they?) and army-fatigue-green ponchos (presumably to avoid staining the rest of the wardrobe). I think this is the first time we get an actual pie-in-the-face gag on the show, although several bad guys, two extras, and Micky have gotten cake in their faces in one way or another prior to this episode.
The kid who plays Junior Pinter is a cousin of Scott Baio. (Much later, Dolenz would direct the stage version of Bugsy Malone in London. Not sure if that counts as a small-world story or not.)
During one of the fantasy sequences, Peter and Davy appear in variations of the Monkeemen costumes as Frogman and Reuben the Tadpole - a Batman parody, DC again except that it's clearly the TV show they're riffing off of.
During the boardroom sequence, Micky and Mike both impersonate adults - Micky loudly using made-up statistics and neologisms, Mike more quietly making an emotional appeal - and Davy and Peter both impersonate children - Peter threatening to cry and Davy threatening to have a tantrum if they don't get what they want. Given what their stage personae already look like, this is just a wee bit on-the-nose for me. (The set for this scene is the office set that's been used several times already, although at least this time the axis of the room's furniture has been shifted to disguise it.)
The romp with the Crocodile Corps goes all over the studio backlot; the Monkees re-visit several of the locations from one of the dance sequences in Episode 14, often wearing the same costumes, which makes me wonder if both sets of shots were done on the same day or if they just happened to have the same costumes available.
In the improv fairy tale sequence, Micky starts off with "Once upon a time, in the land of Kirshner . . ." Not sure if that's a reference to how fictional the band is or not, but either way, again a bit on-the-nose.
Season 1 Disc 4 Episode 24: Monkees A La Mode
An original(ish) plot, first one in a while: the Monkees are selected by Chic magazine as their Young Americans of the Year based solely on their photographs. A lady reporter, Toby Willis, wants to actually do the story on them, but her editor Madame Quagmeyer and the head photographer Rob Roy Fingerhead reject this out of hand. After trying to gussy them up in the studio, Rob Roy simply makes up fake backgrounds for the boys; after reading the article, the Monkees' friends reject them for putting on airs. In revenge, the Monkees proceed to make a fool of Madame Q at the award dinner; she's demoted to a staff writer, and Toby takes her place - but refuses to run a retraction anyway. As a compromise, the boys play "You Just May Be The One" in nice suits to end the episode.
Valerie Kairys : The Monkees :: Carol Cleveland : Monty Python's Flying Circus. She appears in 13 episodes of the series, and most of her appearances are uncredited, or credited as "Blonde Girl With Davy." Only twice will her character have a name, and her role here as Toby is her most extensive speaking part. It's actually an unusual role for a young woman in a Monkees episode who interacts with the boys; she has motives that go well beyond them and she doesn't fall in love with or get pursued romantically by any of them. In fact, this is the closest an episode has come so far to passing Bechdel (fails on step 3 - all of the conversations between Toby and Madame Q are about either the Monkees or Rob Roy).
There are a lot of puns in this episode. Peter mentions Chic's serial/cereal of the month ("This month it's corn flakes" - the boys have been passing a recognizable box of Kellogg's Corn Flakes around the table, and they were one of the sponsors of the show). One of the candidates for Young American of the Year that Rob Roy mentions is a socialite named Vernon Equinox. And of course, there's Madame Q's name.
Every time Rob Roy Fingerhead's full name is given, Mike and Micky mouth it silently to each other in disbelief. It's a cute bit of business.
There's a fantasy sequence with Micky as a Paul Revere-type character warning of the British coming; the Brit in question is, of course, Davy.
Canon note: Micky mentioned in an offhand remark in the previous episode that he was born in the L.A. area; in this episode he specifically says Burbank. Mike is asked the same question, and only says "Texas." Mighty big area there, Mike. (Nesmith was born at St. Joseph's Hospital in Houston, but raised in Dallas; possibly he didn't want to piss one of us off by identifying the other as his hometown.)
During the photo sequence, Rob Roy has two sequences with Davy (learning to pose; he gets called away, leaving Davy in a precarious position) and Micky (learning to color match; Micky calls back everything he says out of order, getting faster and faster, ending up with the entire wardrobe on the floor) that are so Marx-brothers-esque that I wondered whether they were direct steals or not. Again, good physical comedy from both of them. (There's also a shot of Micky tapping out a rhythm on a table before Rob Roy insists that he stop and threatens to shoot him if he doesn't; according to Dolenz, that was a habit he picked up in RL while he was learning to play, and it did in fact annoy the crap out of everyone around him.)
At the awards ceremony, the boys are seated under four large posters of themselves; Mike and Micky are seated under the correct posters, but Peter and Davy are switched. It's not clear if this is a remnant of a gag that got cut or if they just decided not to sit in height order. Later in that sequence, Davy whips off a wig to display a gleaming bald pate; the makeup artists must have worked like hell on it, as it's not at all obvious from the front that it's a bald cap. Once again, the other three are left to cut up while Mike acts as if he's serious. When he announces that he wants to give the award to Rob Roy instead, the photographer tries to sneak off the stage and is neatly boxed in by Davy and Peter in a very simple but effective gag: Peter stands up immediately in front of him and smiles innocently, while Davy scoots his chair back to block him between Pete's chair and the back of the stage, before Micky drags him by the back of his coat to take the award from Mike. (The set for this sequence is the one that usually gets used as a restaurant or discotheque.)
Again, three decent episodes; the last one is pretty strong, although of the three it's the one I remember least well from my first watching of the shows. By this point, the writing staff have a good grasp of the characters and the feel of the show, and the guys have their comedic rhythm down. The next one is the second doppelganger episode, and the first Micky-centric episode (25 shows in, and he finally gets to headline!).
