# Obvious things about a creative work you realize after the millionth time (OPEN SPOILERS POSSIBLE) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 24, 2009, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117 "2009-07-24T13:20:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 6526
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2025, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/6526 "2025-08-16T16:12:06Z")
Remember that the Monkees didn’t begin as a group of musicians who met one day and decided to see what they would sound like as a band. It began as a television show created by Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider who had just seen _A Hard Day’s Night_ and decided to make a television show about a band. The name they first came up with was _The Monkeys_, apparently by thinking that monkeys were cuter animals than beetles. Later they decided that it was necessary to name them something that was not quite an animal name, so they changed the name to _The Monkees_. Rafelson and Schneider then hired lots of writers, directors, songwriters, musicians, and actors for the show. They chose the actors who played the four members of the band because they were good actors and reasonably good singers. They wanted them to be about the right age and to be able to play a variety of character types so that the band had various personality types. At first they didn’t play their instruments, but they learned how to as the show went on. They decided to have the show include various avant garde film techniques in its production. They rented (or maybe bought) a house on the beach of Hollywood, California to pose as the house that the Monkees lived in They then persuaded NBC to run the program and it was a hit for a while. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117)._