You kids! Am I the only one who watched them first time around in 1966?
The rest of you missed something wonderful and magical because the world had changed by the 70s and 80s. The Monkees looked and sounded and felt like nothing that had ever been on television before. It beamed in from a distant planet where rock music was sparkling great fun instead of noise and evil long hair. They lived together in a house full of toys and games and nobody made them pick up their clothing. No earlier tv show starred young adults living on their own without an adult to ride herd on them.
They weren’t hippies but they created the counterculture; a world where they countered the expectations of adults and created their own culture. As a side effect, they created the music video, and we got a new one every single week like a candy-colored gift. (Except mine were in black and white because we were poor. We lived little differently from people during the Depression. The Monkees were a Now I’d hardly imagined.)
They kept getting wonderfuler. Like Pinocchio they became real boys. They told the adults behind-the-scenes to fuck off; they’d write they own songs and play their own instruments and play alone on stage in real concerts. Their third and fourth albums on their own were far better than the first two where they mostly just sang. Someone once said that was as amazing as if Leonard Nimoy became a real Vulcan.
I didn’t have a favorite Monkee. I had the Monkees, the group, the look, the magic. The magic remains, and will after Mike and Mickey go.
I thought I saw it in its first run but now I see that I was too young for that and watched it in either on repeat or in syndication. But who knows? it looks like the type of show I imagine my mother watched, so maybe I did see it first run.
Like Biggirl, I used to think that I remembered watching the show first-run as a little girl, but rewatching it on DVD as a grown-up, I made note of the original episode airdates and could see that that was impossible–I have some vague memories of being 2 or 3 years old, but nothing so detailed or accurate as TV-show plots. What I was remembering must have been later Monkees reruns, probably on Saturday mornings in the early '70s when I would have 6 - 8.
I was a Monkee (sort of) for about 5 seconds!
In the Early 70s Dolenz and Jones were touring with Boyce and Hart, the songwriters of their first season.
They were legally not allowed to use the name Monkees but they could play most of the songs since Boyce and Hart wrote them.
I was in a college area bar in St. Louis the night before the group was there to perform.
Mickey, Boyce and Hart showed up and when the local band took a break some guy got on stage and announced that they were in the room. A stage hand swung a spotlight to Mickey who smiled and waved and then as the announcer yelled “Bobby Hart” The spotlight swung around and centered on me.
I took a big step to the left to get out of the way.
The spotlight followed
I took a big step to the RIGHT to get out of the way
The spotlight followed
At that point I just smiled and waved taking a cue from Mickey.
My only guess is that the stage hand who could easily pick out the well known Mickey had no problem finding him but only had a vague description of Boyce/Hart to go by and I just happened to be wearing the right/wrong colored shirt.
Mike Nesmith’s mother actually invented Liquid Paper. She sold her company to the Gillette Corporation in 1979 for $48 million. When she died a few months later, Mike inherited her fortune.
Peter was my favourite Monkee too. My standout memory is of going with some school friends to see them perform at Wembley Stadium in London. Happy memories Peter.
I’m one too! Didn’t buy any of the albums until the 90’s when I ordered a Then and Now… best of the Monkees CD from one of those club scams (i wanna say Columbia House, but I’m not 100% sure it was them), but I watched the reruns almost religiously for a while in local syndication, then when Nick at Nite was showing it in prime time (it even got me to give up on first run network stuff like Cheers for a time). One of the broadcast sub channels (MeTV? I think it was them) was airing the show a lot for a while but then seemingly took it off, then last weekend, I saw it on there again :D.
d&r