Having read a little bit about them, they seem like they were the Mili Vanilli of the 1960s, except that they were up-front about being fake from the beginning; it seems they were the creation of advertisers, basically, middle age ad people’s conception of a rock band…So why were they so popular with the kids in 1966-1967? I have read that in 1967 they were outselling both The Stones AND The Beatles…
I can’t give an in depth explanation other than sometimes “manufactured” musical acts work, sometimes they don’t. Plus, they(or their manufacturers) were making some effing wonderfully catchy pop tunes! The Monkees produced some tunes, that for simple fun, were as good as anything of the period.
As a fan at the time, it was partly what Fuzzy_wuzzy said. Neil Diamond wrote the catchy ‘I’m a Believer’ and ‘Last train to Clarksville’ was pretty popular too.
But they also had a hit TV show (which won two Emmys.)
There was great synergy between these two with the songs regularly featuring on the show.
I remember being 12-14 at the time I and a female classmate took some schoolbooks and assignments to another female classmete who showed up occasionally (she had cystic fibrosis and died at age 30). Both these girls started to talk about how great the Monkees were and which was the cutest (Mickey Dolenz). At the time a lot of appeal to female fans was the cuteness factor of band members (or even the ugliness of Ringo Starr appealed to some).
But today you can find all kinds of middle age men who swear they were great and even the stuff they did after they declared themselves a real band iare masterpieces. I don't think of them quite like that. Some of the early manufactured stuff is good and they weren't without talent. But still, talk about people getting an exalted opinion of themselves.
The tv show isn't bad. Pretty quick on going from scene to scene. Plus it was one of the early tv shows which, except for a few early ones where they have a manager, has the young people out on their own.It was a TV show, a soap about a bunch of crazy boys in a band getting up to all kinds of silly antics. It was advertiser and parent friendly childrens entertainment. They had a few catchy tunes written by professionals and a lot of exposure when TV had few channels and huge audiences.
It was a TV show. It was actors acting. The cast of The Monkees (who weren’t a real band) was no different than the cast of 30 Rock (who weren’t producing a real TV show) or NYPD Blue (who weren’t real police officers). Judge it as a TV show not a band.
Milli Vanilli was fake because they were pretending to be a real band. They weren’t a TV show about a band.
For what it’s worth, the actors on The Monkees did the actual singing. But I guess the “singers” in Milli Vanilli were actually acting. So maybe that one’s a tie.
Mike Nesmith’s mother had invented white-out liquid paper. The nation eagerly showered her son with appreciation.
N Sync was a prefab boy band girls loved…and guys secretly acknowledged had a decent song to two and that Justin Timberlake needed to deal with his hair but could dance and sing like a house on fire. Justin broke out and wrote his own songs and crossed over to full on celebrity talent. After a haircut.
The Monkees were a earlier version of that, which kinda succeeded - they established an identity outside their HUGELY successful prefab roots - but not with the artistic and commercial success that JT has continued with.
Now get off my lawn 
The Spice Girls were a manufactured band, and that didn’t stop them being wildly popular.
You could argue too that all the winners of <insert your country here> Idol are also pretty much manufactured, and some of them have done very well for themselves
Knowing almost nothing of the real story, here’s how I’ve always thought it went down:
The Beatles made two movies that were largely very silly, Help and Hard Day’s Night. So the enterprising TV execs of the time thought they would emulate this idea with a TV series of equal silliness, and thus The Monkees were born. I don’t know how fake they were, but they quickly subsequently proved themselves more than competent musicians, Mike Nesmith especially.
What was the point of The Monkees?
Make money.
They also played the instruments and got some control over what they played, as of their second album. They were a manufactured band, but they were not a fake band.
I’m not sure that asking what “the point of the Monkees” is really useful. Individual people who are trying to communicate have “points,” but unless you are deeply religious, nothing else does.
If we ask instead, what the phenomena were, which drove the Monkees seeming popularity long ago, maybe we can say some valid things.
Although I was born in 1953, and so was aware of a certain amount of the world before the Monkees was created, as most of us do, I had to learn second hand, after the fact, by study, what actually led to what I did witness. That is the nature of all of what we think we perceive, after all. We know that we witness events, but until we delve into the hidden parts that caused those events, we wont know why they happened, or even what their real importance was.
One of the elements that went into the creation of the Monkees, and the “adventures” they presented, is the existing nature of the American Entertainment Industry at that time, in particular. The general perception of American entertainment, in the 1950’s especially (with deep roots before that), was that it was an ARTIFICIAL CREATION, performed by craftspeople, for fun and profit. Nothing more or less.
The reason why there is confusion about the "point of " Monkees nowadays, is that a very big transition took place during the 1960’s, wherein some entertainers took on the roles of something approaching religious leadership. Art shifted from being something to make us have a good time for a moment and then go back to our jobs and our homes, to being something that we ourselves put to use, to define and understand the course of our, and each others lives.
I suspect that a host of the many other rapid changes which were occurring then, that might not seem obvious, were what caused this overall shift. They included things such as the very rapid advance both in entertainment technology’s capabilities, but also the rapid increase in the ability of the bulk of the American population to be able to own the means to BE entertained.
Comparing JUST the Monkees and the Beatles, while the Monkees was ENTIRELY manufactured by older people in what really was an entertainment factory, the Beatles came into existence as musicians on their own, and were TAKEN UP by the entertainment industry. That didn’t matter so much to the American public in the beginning. Even the Beatles themselves, didn’t mind that the Industry decided to package them and “adjust” them to make them easier to sell to the American market.
But somewhere in the early sixties, I’m not sure exactly where or how, the various movements and technologies and events of those days came together in a way (almost like a rogue wave in the ocean), such that the American public as a whole, shifted from accepting canned Industry entertainers who acted on behalf of the owners of the Industry’s facilities, to calling for artists who directly represented their own thoughts and goals.
It was that great shift that the Beatles (and a number of other groups) managed to transition to easily, but which the Monkees were prevented from doing, by the people who had created them to begin with. That’s what caused the members of the Monkees to APPEAR to be egotists carried away with their own fame, putting on undeserved airs, and demanding to be taken seriously as artists. Had that great shift in perception of the purpose of artists by the public not taken place, the Monkees could have gone on being guided and crafted throughout a longer career, and no one today would ask what the point of them was. After all, no one asks what the point of most film stars is, because very few people even now, expect movie stars to be philosophical leaders of any kind.
The thing about the Monkees was, even though they all had to audition for their parts, they were all professional musicians and actors before they were cast in the Monkees. Nesmith had a band and had written a couple of successful singles, “Mary, Mary,” which was recorded by the Butterfield Blues Band, and “Different Drum,” which would eventually be recorded by Linda Ronstadt.
Davy Jones had played the Artful Dodger in the musical Oliver! He was nominated for a Tony Award and had also appeared on the Ed Sullivan show, coincidentally on the same night as the Beatles made their first appearance. He also had a single in the Billboard Hot 100 in 1965.
Micky Dolenz had starred in a television series called Circus Boy as a child (as Mickey Braddock). He also had a rock group in the mid-60s called Micky and the One-Nighters.
Peter Tork was proficient on several instruments and was part of the folk scene in Greenwich Village. He was a friend of Stephen Stills, who had auditioned for the Monkees and was turned down. Stills suggested that Tork audition and he was cast.
The Monkees weren’t a bunch of no-talent hacks like Milli Vanilli. Even though they were cast because the producers were looking for four nice looking kids, they eventually were allowed to do their own singing and play their own instruments on their albums.
The “point” of the Monkees was to cash in on the contemporary pop music/mop top scene. Similarly, the “point” of Peter, Paul and Mary (another manufactured group) was to cash in on the contemporary folk music scene. Both succeeded quite well
This. They were not fake, they just didn’t form by accident. The Beatles didn’t form naturally with Ringo, he was chosen for them by music producers because they needed a good drummer. Unlike other bands the Monkees developed their popularity initially from a TV show, later it turned out their music was decent enough to stand on it’s own. But the Monkees as a real band instead of TV roles was something they did themselves, not even part of the television producer’s plan.
Also Carole King and Gerry Goffin wrote Pleasant Vally Sunday.
I was too young to be a fan at the time but a few days later I loved the show on reruns. I think that was the point.
What’s the point of The Partridge Family?
What was the point of Lucy or plate spinning? The same could be asked of any random form of entertainment.
If anyone has teenagers now, especially girls, a more recent example would be Big Time Rush. It ran a few years ago for a few seasons. It was a boy band getting into silly antics. My daughter, 15, loved it. It was actually a good show and they had some good songs. I enjoyed the Monkees back in the day and somewhere around here I know I have a cd of them.