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omorkaNot much to say for this one.
Season 2 Disc 3 Episode 45: The Monkees In Texas
Synopsis: Mike and the other Monkees have taken a three-day trip (in a golf cart, rather than either the Monkeemobile or the jeep/dune buggy, for reasons which are never explained) to see Mike's Aunt Kate in Texas. Almost immediately after their arrival, three masked men in black begin shooting at Aunt Kate's house; the Monkees run inside and are immediately pressed into rifle service by Aunt Kate (Peter refuses, shouting "bang bang" at the bad guys instead). The outlaws send over a flaming kitchen sink to set the ranch house on fire, but Davy uses the butt of his rifle to turn on the faucet and put the fire out. Davy and Mike stay with Aunt Kate and Mike's cousin Lucy (after Mike vetoes just splitting, partly out of family loyalty and partly because the outlaws shot up the golf cart). Micky and Peter dress up as cheap knockoffs of the Lone Ranger and Tonto in order to try to fit in better, and go into town looking for help. The marshall brushes them off (he's shooting his own TV show; he can't be in theirs!) but suggests they go to the saloon to recruit a posse. Two members of Black Bart's crew see them and Micky accidentally signs on with them instead of hiring them. Meanwhile, Ben Cartwheel, the richest guy in the valley, comes by to sympathize with Aunt Kate over her outlaw troubles and offers to buy the ranch; she refuses. Aunt Kate shows Mike a patch of muck that's appeared on her ranch and made the cattle sick; Mike scoops up a jar and takes it in to town to be analyzed. The outlaws notice that only Davy remains to guard the ranch and agree to attack as soon as Black Bart gets back; Micky sends Peter to warn the ranch, and is told that if Peter's not back in 10 minutes, they'll kill them both. Peter arrives at the ranch (riding through the front door, since no one was at the barn) to warn Aunt Kate and then leaves again to save Micky; Aunt Kate sends Davy to fetch the Cartwheels, which he does, albeit having accidentally mounted the horse backwards. Michael finds that the saloon's bartender is also the assayer, and is told that the muck on the ranch is crude oil. Black Bart arrives at the outlaw hideout and demands to know who told Aunt Kate they were coming; the outlaws tell Micky to shoot Peter, which he flat-out refuses to do, and they are tied up, then dressed as if they were outlaws, and brought along on the raid. Micky and Peter make a break for it; Black Bart lets them go, since he's figured out that they're city slickers and no good in a fight anyway. Peter and Micky arrive at the ranch to let them know that Black Bart is Ben Cartwheel, just before the outlaws arrive, triggering a romp to "Words" that ends with the bad guys riding away. Cousin Lucy warns everyone that they'll be back, but the plot seems to end there. [Unrelated music video for "Goin' Down"]
This feels like it was cut for time. Not only does the main plot not actually resolve (the outlaws ride away, and now Aunt Kate knows who's trying to drive her off the ranch and why, but the threat's not really dealt with), but Cousin Lucy only gets one line, which gets repeated twice; it feels like there was supposed to be some business between either her and Mike or (more likely) her and Davy.
There's a bit of slapstick when Micky and Peter arrive at the bar, when the swinging door catches Peter in the chest and throws him into a post; he uses this as an opportunity to do a death scene, which Micky plays through with him and then tells him to get up. A showgirl approaches them as soon as they walk into the saloon, to which Micky responds, "Not now; this is a family show!" in a Getting Crap Past the Censors moment.
There's an awful lot of Micky and Peter in this one for what is ostensibly a Mike episode. Partly that's because they split the party three ways - Mike with Aunt Kate and Cousin Lucy, Micky with Peter, and Davy on his own for a chunk. After him being barely present in the last episode, though, it just seems like we're missing opportunities for him to make up lost time. We certainly don't learn anything new about Mike other than that he has a fourth aunt and two female cousins.
The moment where Micky flat refuses to shoot Peter rather than doing his usual dithering excuses schtick is interesting. It would make sense for Micky to use that for a gag, but the gag comes after Micky realizes he's given himself away, so the moment itself comes off as kind of touching, honestly (and possibly even Peter/Micky fodder, given how grateful Peter looks). Micky even uses "He's my best friend" as part of the refusal; it feels like either their friendship has matured since last season or Micky has.
It feels weird to see the boys with guns. There's no particular reason for that; it certainly makes sense for Mike to know how to shoot, and no obvious reason Micky and Davy shouldn't - but it feels strange all the same.
When the outlaws take them out of the hideout, both Micky and Peter have their hands tied. When they arrive at Aunt Kate's ranch, Micky's hands are free but Peter's are still tied. When they run up the the house, both their hands are free. It would make sense for Micky to have wriggled free and then untied Peter, but we never see either one happen, nor do they mention it in dialogue. Also, in the second shoot-em-up sequence, Micky has something rolled up in his back pocket when he runs into the ranch house (his script, maybe?).
The end of this episode isn't well preserved - the "Goin' Down" we saw in place of the teaser a few episodes back is a lot clearer, and the end titles are kind of a fady, scratchy mess.
Most of the business in this episode is parodying various Westerns. It's funny enough, but as we drift farther and father from the heyday of the Western as a genre, the less immediately amusing this becomes. And the lack of an ending is bugging me more than it did on first watching, I think. (May have to write an episode tag.)
Season 2 Disc 3 Episode 46: The Monkees On The Wheel
The Monkees have gone to Las Vegas to play a gig, and the boys are each chasing girls. A mobster sends his man, Biggy, in to the casino at 7:54; the roulette wheel has been rigged to 16 Red, and will activate from 7:54 to 7:59. Micky has been handing quarters to Zelda, a girl with a relationship with the one-armed bandit; when he runs out of quarters she tells him to buzz off, and he slams the handle on the machine in anger, triggering three cherries and a jackpot. Zelda comes back, squealing that he has "magic fingers" and scooping up the quarters. Micky finds Mike by the roulette wheel, and sets his bag of quarters down on the table - on 16 Red, just as Biggy is about to play his bet. It wins, and between several interruptions Micky never removes his original bet, breaking the bank and driving the casino manager to a nervous breakdown. The Monkees lug a stretcher full of coins up to their hotel room, while the manager disassembles the wheel and finds the rigged wire. Biggy sneaks in dressed as a maintenance man, accompanied by a moll in a French maid outfit; she distracts the boys while Biggy hides all the coins in the shop-vac and leaves. The boys discover their money is gone and call for the police, who burst in and arrest them on suspicion of rigging the wheel to begin with. The boys explain to the cops and the manager; the cops don't believe them, but the manager does, and he gives them 24 hours to get the money back. The Monkees dress up as mobsters, except for Peter, who is wearing love beads over his suit and carrying a slide rule. They pretend to have a foolproof method to predict the wheel and get an audience with the mob boss. The boss and Micky have a Cagney-off, then Peter explains his "system" with the help of several glasses of whiskey, ending with Biggy and the Boss on the floor, drunk. The boys search for the money and trip an alarm, but the Boss decides to go with their system anyway. Back at the casino, all of Peter's predictions end up paying off accidentally (including an impossible one), causing the Manager to lose his shit again, and Zelda reappears, trying to place Micky despite the disguise. Finally, she realizes he's Magic Fingers, the Boss realizes he's been had but accidentally confesses to the original job, and the boys trigger a romp to "Door Into Summer." By the end, the mobsters are exhausted and collapse on the table. Mike deconstructs the tag sequence. [Unrelated second video for "Cuddly Toy"] [Outtakes from "That's a groovy button"]
The cop here in Vegas must be the twin brother of the Inspector/Sergeant from Episodes 12 and 31 (same actor again). The Manager is being played as a cross between a Nervous Nellie and a Sissy, camping the place up; his actor will return as Wizard Glick in the final episode. (Mike's stand-in accosts Mike by that name at one point in the second casino sequence, suggesting that he's mistaken the wrong guy for Glick!)
The dialogue suggests that Micky has a bit of a gambling bug and that the other three Monkees know that, but it's never been suggested in the show prior to now.
There's a brief "what will we do with all this money?" fantasy sequence that has Mike, Micky, and Davy each taking a girl on a date; Peter appears with a large stuffed tiger. (This despite him chasing girls with the others in the opener!)
The guys wear white carnations as their gangster incarnations again (they did that back in Episode 11).
The Cagney-off is - impressive, but stupid. Micky also does a more generic gangster voice (not Babyface's, though) and a Bela Lugosi when he's trying to brush off Zelda at the roulette table.
Peter is handing out yellow roses during the romp. They make everyone sneeze except for Mike, presumably because he's Texan; he eats one of the flower petals instead.
The tag is a simple here-we-go-again, where Mike, Peter, and Davy do the "well, now Micky's learned his lesson, and he'll never do that again - Micky?" and then we see Micky going down a line of one-armed bandits and getting a payout from each one, but not only does Mike explain each shot of the joke, every time Micky's name is mentioned there's a brief flashback of him on the screen, and at the end, where Mike announces that they're supposed to give a pained look at the camera, only he and Peter do. Davy's expression remains frozen and he looks like he's about to do Mike's usual freeze-and-fall-over bit (which Mike already did in the romp).
This episode is even more fourth-wall-breaky than usual; the Manager talks to the camera when he starts to lose it, in addition to the Monkees' usual bits (including Davy telling Micky to stop talking so the moll can say her line).
This is a different video for "Cuddly Toy" from the one that appeared in Episode 35; the female dancer is missing, and Mike, Peter, and Micky are playing instruments (guitar, piano, and drums) while Davy dances alone. They're in the same quasi-vaudevillian outfits, though.
The blooper reel is for a moment that won't occur in the show until Episode 50, although I'll admit, watching Micky and Mike crack each other up and blow their lines four times is actually pretty funny.
Season 2 Disc 3 Episode 47: The Monkees Christmas Show
I hadn't seen this one either!
There's really very little point to giving a synopsis on this one, as there's very little story. The boys arrive at a mansion, thinking that they're playing for a holiday party; instead, the lady of the plays pays them each $100 to take care of her nephew for a week. Melvin, the nephew, is a preadolescent Scrooge who resists all their attempts to drag him into the holiday spirit, even when said attempts end up with Peter crashing a motorcycle into a department store Christmas tree, Micky getting poison ivy when they head into the woods to cut one down, and Davy falling off a ladder trying to place the star on the top. Their money exhausted by the doctors' bills, the Monkees let him leave when he says he'd rather go home. Back at the mansion, Melvin cries because he's lonely; in a last-ditch attempt to cheer him up, Micky and Davy slide down the chimney as Santa and an elf while Peter and Mike sneak in the back with the Christmas tree - and Melvin's aunt. The guys sing a comedic version of "Deck the Halls," and Melvin and his aunt reunite just in time for Christmas. Back at the Pad, the guys sing a not-at-all-comedic arrangement of "Riu Chiu," then break character completely and drag all their cameramen, prop wranglers, makeup artists, stand-ins, etc. in front of the camera to say hi to their families.
Davy consistently says "Father Christmas" instead of "Santa Claus," which is awesome. He's also wearing Mike's hat and one of the Jolly Green Giants' shirts (on him it's a knee-length tunic) in his elf disguise.
The theme of machine-replacing-human appears here again (we last saw it in Episode 3), in a brief fantasy bit where Melvin is replaced by a card-spitting computer.
Continuity stuff: at least one bedroom is back downstairs behind the kitchen (we see the door ajar between the bedroom and the kitchen during one of the doctor's sequences, which is fairly rare). Micky is enough of a city slicker that he doesn't know the difference between holly and poison ivy; Mike recognizes it right away.
There's a queer theme running through this one. The butler doesn't want to let them into the mansion, claiming he was expecting "four gentlemen;" Mike offers "Will you accept four ladies who shave?" (Although I don't think Davy did!) In the "Deck The Halls" sequence, Davy and Micky camp it up on "Don we now our gay apparel" (note to self: next time some fundie argues that 'gay = homosexual' only dates to the '80s, offer video evidence that they're at least 15 years off), and when one of the stand-ins walks on in the credits sequence holding a flower," Davy introduces him as a 'poof.' All of this probably counts as Getting Crap Past The Censors.
Micky yells something like "Frodis friends!" just as the sound fades on the credits - a reference to the final episode, and possibly another GCPtC, as 'frodis' was apparently a shared Monkee euphemism for pot.
There's an earlier, interrupted version of "Deck the Halls" just before the tree sequence where Mike sings the Pogo lyrics. <3
There is no romp. As near as I can tell, the "Riu Chiu" was done live on the set. Peter and Mike are singing the same line; I'm guessing someone didn't trust Peter to take his own line a cappella. Davy and Micky each have lines of their own, and Micky sings the verses solo. Micky and Peter have their eyes closed through most of it; Davy is staring slightly above eyeline (probably 'looking' for the lyrics); Mike is looking down with his eyes open. I have no earthly idea what Davy's religious beliefs are (Church of England?); Peter and Micky would probably both have identified as 'spiritual but not religious' around this point, although Peter might have claimed Buddhism; Mike is a Christian Scientist, and at the time was at least somewhat observant. Given that "Riu Chiu" is a hymn, Mike's posture makes sense, and Micky and Peter at least look reverent, but Davy's is a little confusing. Oh, and remember my musings on Micky's "soft voice" a couple of posts ago? He sings all the verses in his soft voice. Micky, singing in the soft voice, unaccompanied - and the all four of them on the chorus in tight harmony. *swoon* I can forgive it being a hymn (that it's in slightly archaic Spanish doesn't hurt).
The credits for the four mains are in alphabetical order instead of youngest-to-oldest, which means that Micky is listed first for once. (Peter's still last.)
Edited to add: Actually, there's a cute note early on where Mike remembers Peter's Xmas gifts from the previous year - a sportscoat for Davy that he practically disappears in, a pair of skis for Mike (that, after seeing the other two, he didn't open until July), and two more interesting bits of business. One is what Peter bought for all four of them, an intelligence tester, but he tries it on himself first - and it goes berzerk oscillating between "genius" and "total stupidity." That makes Peter's sort of doofus savant nature canonically explicit, and makes me feel better about writing him as WIS 16, INT 8 with occasional flashes of 18. The last gift, Micky's, is a chemistry set, and the flashback we see is Micky clutching a steaming beaker, taking a sip, and going into either his werewolf impersonation again or a Jekyll-&-Hyde transformation (the dialogue, including Micky's report of "still having occasional spells," could support either). The ficcers make a great deal of hay out of this one flashback sequence, but at a minimum it's more fodder for the theory that character!Micky is a Spark.
One episode that would have been good if they'd actually finished the plot, one good-but-not-great one, and the holiday special, which suffers from an excess of schmaltz but still feels like a Monkees episode (and Mike's musings on love as the spirit of Christmas might foreshadow his later, better speech on the topic five episodes from now). The next one is a fan favorite and has commentary from Nesmith and Tork (I think it's Tork; it might be Jones again). Eleven episodes to go.
Season 2 Disc 3 Episode 45: The Monkees In Texas
Synopsis: Mike and the other Monkees have taken a three-day trip (in a golf cart, rather than either the Monkeemobile or the jeep/dune buggy, for reasons which are never explained) to see Mike's Aunt Kate in Texas. Almost immediately after their arrival, three masked men in black begin shooting at Aunt Kate's house; the Monkees run inside and are immediately pressed into rifle service by Aunt Kate (Peter refuses, shouting "bang bang" at the bad guys instead). The outlaws send over a flaming kitchen sink to set the ranch house on fire, but Davy uses the butt of his rifle to turn on the faucet and put the fire out. Davy and Mike stay with Aunt Kate and Mike's cousin Lucy (after Mike vetoes just splitting, partly out of family loyalty and partly because the outlaws shot up the golf cart). Micky and Peter dress up as cheap knockoffs of the Lone Ranger and Tonto in order to try to fit in better, and go into town looking for help. The marshall brushes them off (he's shooting his own TV show; he can't be in theirs!) but suggests they go to the saloon to recruit a posse. Two members of Black Bart's crew see them and Micky accidentally signs on with them instead of hiring them. Meanwhile, Ben Cartwheel, the richest guy in the valley, comes by to sympathize with Aunt Kate over her outlaw troubles and offers to buy the ranch; she refuses. Aunt Kate shows Mike a patch of muck that's appeared on her ranch and made the cattle sick; Mike scoops up a jar and takes it in to town to be analyzed. The outlaws notice that only Davy remains to guard the ranch and agree to attack as soon as Black Bart gets back; Micky sends Peter to warn the ranch, and is told that if Peter's not back in 10 minutes, they'll kill them both. Peter arrives at the ranch (riding through the front door, since no one was at the barn) to warn Aunt Kate and then leaves again to save Micky; Aunt Kate sends Davy to fetch the Cartwheels, which he does, albeit having accidentally mounted the horse backwards. Michael finds that the saloon's bartender is also the assayer, and is told that the muck on the ranch is crude oil. Black Bart arrives at the outlaw hideout and demands to know who told Aunt Kate they were coming; the outlaws tell Micky to shoot Peter, which he flat-out refuses to do, and they are tied up, then dressed as if they were outlaws, and brought along on the raid. Micky and Peter make a break for it; Black Bart lets them go, since he's figured out that they're city slickers and no good in a fight anyway. Peter and Micky arrive at the ranch to let them know that Black Bart is Ben Cartwheel, just before the outlaws arrive, triggering a romp to "Words" that ends with the bad guys riding away. Cousin Lucy warns everyone that they'll be back, but the plot seems to end there. [Unrelated music video for "Goin' Down"]
This feels like it was cut for time. Not only does the main plot not actually resolve (the outlaws ride away, and now Aunt Kate knows who's trying to drive her off the ranch and why, but the threat's not really dealt with), but Cousin Lucy only gets one line, which gets repeated twice; it feels like there was supposed to be some business between either her and Mike or (more likely) her and Davy.
There's a bit of slapstick when Micky and Peter arrive at the bar, when the swinging door catches Peter in the chest and throws him into a post; he uses this as an opportunity to do a death scene, which Micky plays through with him and then tells him to get up. A showgirl approaches them as soon as they walk into the saloon, to which Micky responds, "Not now; this is a family show!" in a Getting Crap Past the Censors moment.
There's an awful lot of Micky and Peter in this one for what is ostensibly a Mike episode. Partly that's because they split the party three ways - Mike with Aunt Kate and Cousin Lucy, Micky with Peter, and Davy on his own for a chunk. After him being barely present in the last episode, though, it just seems like we're missing opportunities for him to make up lost time. We certainly don't learn anything new about Mike other than that he has a fourth aunt and two female cousins.
The moment where Micky flat refuses to shoot Peter rather than doing his usual dithering excuses schtick is interesting. It would make sense for Micky to use that for a gag, but the gag comes after Micky realizes he's given himself away, so the moment itself comes off as kind of touching, honestly (and possibly even Peter/Micky fodder, given how grateful Peter looks). Micky even uses "He's my best friend" as part of the refusal; it feels like either their friendship has matured since last season or Micky has.
It feels weird to see the boys with guns. There's no particular reason for that; it certainly makes sense for Mike to know how to shoot, and no obvious reason Micky and Davy shouldn't - but it feels strange all the same.
When the outlaws take them out of the hideout, both Micky and Peter have their hands tied. When they arrive at Aunt Kate's ranch, Micky's hands are free but Peter's are still tied. When they run up the the house, both their hands are free. It would make sense for Micky to have wriggled free and then untied Peter, but we never see either one happen, nor do they mention it in dialogue. Also, in the second shoot-em-up sequence, Micky has something rolled up in his back pocket when he runs into the ranch house (his script, maybe?).
The end of this episode isn't well preserved - the "Goin' Down" we saw in place of the teaser a few episodes back is a lot clearer, and the end titles are kind of a fady, scratchy mess.
Most of the business in this episode is parodying various Westerns. It's funny enough, but as we drift farther and father from the heyday of the Western as a genre, the less immediately amusing this becomes. And the lack of an ending is bugging me more than it did on first watching, I think. (May have to write an episode tag.)
Season 2 Disc 3 Episode 46: The Monkees On The Wheel
The Monkees have gone to Las Vegas to play a gig, and the boys are each chasing girls. A mobster sends his man, Biggy, in to the casino at 7:54; the roulette wheel has been rigged to 16 Red, and will activate from 7:54 to 7:59. Micky has been handing quarters to Zelda, a girl with a relationship with the one-armed bandit; when he runs out of quarters she tells him to buzz off, and he slams the handle on the machine in anger, triggering three cherries and a jackpot. Zelda comes back, squealing that he has "magic fingers" and scooping up the quarters. Micky finds Mike by the roulette wheel, and sets his bag of quarters down on the table - on 16 Red, just as Biggy is about to play his bet. It wins, and between several interruptions Micky never removes his original bet, breaking the bank and driving the casino manager to a nervous breakdown. The Monkees lug a stretcher full of coins up to their hotel room, while the manager disassembles the wheel and finds the rigged wire. Biggy sneaks in dressed as a maintenance man, accompanied by a moll in a French maid outfit; she distracts the boys while Biggy hides all the coins in the shop-vac and leaves. The boys discover their money is gone and call for the police, who burst in and arrest them on suspicion of rigging the wheel to begin with. The boys explain to the cops and the manager; the cops don't believe them, but the manager does, and he gives them 24 hours to get the money back. The Monkees dress up as mobsters, except for Peter, who is wearing love beads over his suit and carrying a slide rule. They pretend to have a foolproof method to predict the wheel and get an audience with the mob boss. The boss and Micky have a Cagney-off, then Peter explains his "system" with the help of several glasses of whiskey, ending with Biggy and the Boss on the floor, drunk. The boys search for the money and trip an alarm, but the Boss decides to go with their system anyway. Back at the casino, all of Peter's predictions end up paying off accidentally (including an impossible one), causing the Manager to lose his shit again, and Zelda reappears, trying to place Micky despite the disguise. Finally, she realizes he's Magic Fingers, the Boss realizes he's been had but accidentally confesses to the original job, and the boys trigger a romp to "Door Into Summer." By the end, the mobsters are exhausted and collapse on the table. Mike deconstructs the tag sequence. [Unrelated second video for "Cuddly Toy"] [Outtakes from "That's a groovy button"]
The cop here in Vegas must be the twin brother of the Inspector/Sergeant from Episodes 12 and 31 (same actor again). The Manager is being played as a cross between a Nervous Nellie and a Sissy, camping the place up; his actor will return as Wizard Glick in the final episode. (Mike's stand-in accosts Mike by that name at one point in the second casino sequence, suggesting that he's mistaken the wrong guy for Glick!)
The dialogue suggests that Micky has a bit of a gambling bug and that the other three Monkees know that, but it's never been suggested in the show prior to now.
There's a brief "what will we do with all this money?" fantasy sequence that has Mike, Micky, and Davy each taking a girl on a date; Peter appears with a large stuffed tiger. (This despite him chasing girls with the others in the opener!)
The guys wear white carnations as their gangster incarnations again (they did that back in Episode 11).
The Cagney-off is - impressive, but stupid. Micky also does a more generic gangster voice (not Babyface's, though) and a Bela Lugosi when he's trying to brush off Zelda at the roulette table.
Peter is handing out yellow roses during the romp. They make everyone sneeze except for Mike, presumably because he's Texan; he eats one of the flower petals instead.
The tag is a simple here-we-go-again, where Mike, Peter, and Davy do the "well, now Micky's learned his lesson, and he'll never do that again - Micky?" and then we see Micky going down a line of one-armed bandits and getting a payout from each one, but not only does Mike explain each shot of the joke, every time Micky's name is mentioned there's a brief flashback of him on the screen, and at the end, where Mike announces that they're supposed to give a pained look at the camera, only he and Peter do. Davy's expression remains frozen and he looks like he's about to do Mike's usual freeze-and-fall-over bit (which Mike already did in the romp).
This episode is even more fourth-wall-breaky than usual; the Manager talks to the camera when he starts to lose it, in addition to the Monkees' usual bits (including Davy telling Micky to stop talking so the moll can say her line).
This is a different video for "Cuddly Toy" from the one that appeared in Episode 35; the female dancer is missing, and Mike, Peter, and Micky are playing instruments (guitar, piano, and drums) while Davy dances alone. They're in the same quasi-vaudevillian outfits, though.
The blooper reel is for a moment that won't occur in the show until Episode 50, although I'll admit, watching Micky and Mike crack each other up and blow their lines four times is actually pretty funny.
Season 2 Disc 3 Episode 47: The Monkees Christmas Show
I hadn't seen this one either!
There's really very little point to giving a synopsis on this one, as there's very little story. The boys arrive at a mansion, thinking that they're playing for a holiday party; instead, the lady of the plays pays them each $100 to take care of her nephew for a week. Melvin, the nephew, is a preadolescent Scrooge who resists all their attempts to drag him into the holiday spirit, even when said attempts end up with Peter crashing a motorcycle into a department store Christmas tree, Micky getting poison ivy when they head into the woods to cut one down, and Davy falling off a ladder trying to place the star on the top. Their money exhausted by the doctors' bills, the Monkees let him leave when he says he'd rather go home. Back at the mansion, Melvin cries because he's lonely; in a last-ditch attempt to cheer him up, Micky and Davy slide down the chimney as Santa and an elf while Peter and Mike sneak in the back with the Christmas tree - and Melvin's aunt. The guys sing a comedic version of "Deck the Halls," and Melvin and his aunt reunite just in time for Christmas. Back at the Pad, the guys sing a not-at-all-comedic arrangement of "Riu Chiu," then break character completely and drag all their cameramen, prop wranglers, makeup artists, stand-ins, etc. in front of the camera to say hi to their families.
Davy consistently says "Father Christmas" instead of "Santa Claus," which is awesome. He's also wearing Mike's hat and one of the Jolly Green Giants' shirts (on him it's a knee-length tunic) in his elf disguise.
The theme of machine-replacing-human appears here again (we last saw it in Episode 3), in a brief fantasy bit where Melvin is replaced by a card-spitting computer.
Continuity stuff: at least one bedroom is back downstairs behind the kitchen (we see the door ajar between the bedroom and the kitchen during one of the doctor's sequences, which is fairly rare). Micky is enough of a city slicker that he doesn't know the difference between holly and poison ivy; Mike recognizes it right away.
There's a queer theme running through this one. The butler doesn't want to let them into the mansion, claiming he was expecting "four gentlemen;" Mike offers "Will you accept four ladies who shave?" (Although I don't think Davy did!) In the "Deck The Halls" sequence, Davy and Micky camp it up on "Don we now our gay apparel" (note to self: next time some fundie argues that 'gay = homosexual' only dates to the '80s, offer video evidence that they're at least 15 years off), and when one of the stand-ins walks on in the credits sequence holding a flower," Davy introduces him as a 'poof.' All of this probably counts as Getting Crap Past The Censors.
Micky yells something like "Frodis friends!" just as the sound fades on the credits - a reference to the final episode, and possibly another GCPtC, as 'frodis' was apparently a shared Monkee euphemism for pot.
There's an earlier, interrupted version of "Deck the Halls" just before the tree sequence where Mike sings the Pogo lyrics. <3
There is no romp. As near as I can tell, the "Riu Chiu" was done live on the set. Peter and Mike are singing the same line; I'm guessing someone didn't trust Peter to take his own line a cappella. Davy and Micky each have lines of their own, and Micky sings the verses solo. Micky and Peter have their eyes closed through most of it; Davy is staring slightly above eyeline (probably 'looking' for the lyrics); Mike is looking down with his eyes open. I have no earthly idea what Davy's religious beliefs are (Church of England?); Peter and Micky would probably both have identified as 'spiritual but not religious' around this point, although Peter might have claimed Buddhism; Mike is a Christian Scientist, and at the time was at least somewhat observant. Given that "Riu Chiu" is a hymn, Mike's posture makes sense, and Micky and Peter at least look reverent, but Davy's is a little confusing. Oh, and remember my musings on Micky's "soft voice" a couple of posts ago? He sings all the verses in his soft voice. Micky, singing in the soft voice, unaccompanied - and the all four of them on the chorus in tight harmony. *swoon* I can forgive it being a hymn (that it's in slightly archaic Spanish doesn't hurt).
The credits for the four mains are in alphabetical order instead of youngest-to-oldest, which means that Micky is listed first for once. (Peter's still last.)
Edited to add: Actually, there's a cute note early on where Mike remembers Peter's Xmas gifts from the previous year - a sportscoat for Davy that he practically disappears in, a pair of skis for Mike (that, after seeing the other two, he didn't open until July), and two more interesting bits of business. One is what Peter bought for all four of them, an intelligence tester, but he tries it on himself first - and it goes berzerk oscillating between "genius" and "total stupidity." That makes Peter's sort of doofus savant nature canonically explicit, and makes me feel better about writing him as WIS 16, INT 8 with occasional flashes of 18. The last gift, Micky's, is a chemistry set, and the flashback we see is Micky clutching a steaming beaker, taking a sip, and going into either his werewolf impersonation again or a Jekyll-&-Hyde transformation (the dialogue, including Micky's report of "still having occasional spells," could support either). The ficcers make a great deal of hay out of this one flashback sequence, but at a minimum it's more fodder for the theory that character!Micky is a Spark.
One episode that would have been good if they'd actually finished the plot, one good-but-not-great one, and the holiday special, which suffers from an excess of schmaltz but still feels like a Monkees episode (and Mike's musings on love as the spirit of Christmas might foreshadow his later, better speech on the topic five episodes from now). The next one is a fan favorite and has commentary from Nesmith and Tork (I think it's Tork; it might be Jones again). Eleven episodes to go.
