By CHAD TAYLOR
The Monkees are considered as a benchmark of fun nowadays but they began as a purely business proposition.
The year was 1966. The Beatles were winding down their final tour and preparing to retreat into the studio for the remainder of their careers. They were changing into a new
Beatles at a time when a market still existed for the old sort.
A lot of money could be made if someone could find a replacement for the original-style Fab Four.
Although several people claim to have invented the Monkees, their beginning is generally marked from the day when director Bob Rafelson walked into a studio boardroom meeting and said "I want to make A Hard Day's Night as a TV show."
He shares the credit with producer Bert Schneider, a nerdy New Yorker who, like Rafelson, was searching for a project that would start his Hollywood career.
Mass auditions were held and four young musicians were picked to form the band: David Jones, Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork.
Instead of touring, the Monkees' performances would be confined to a cartoonish TV series.
They weren't even allowed to play on their own records. Critics dubbed them the "Prefab Four": the Spice Girls of their day.
A joke went that if white bread could sing, it would sound like the Monkees. Maybe so, but the same could be said of a lot of Beatles-inspired bands who were taken far more seriously at the time.
Besides, the Monkees didn't care about being serious. The series remains outstandingly funny. The storylines read like entries in a competition for the dumbest set-ups in the world.
Take the one where the band is tricked into a lifetime contract for dancing lessons. Or when Peter sells his soul to the Devil. Or when they get jobs in a computerised toy factory.
The Monkees' songs were composed by some of the leading songwriters of the time: Boyce & Hart (who wrote the main theme), Mann & Weil, Goffin & King.
The script credits include directors Robert Kaufman and Paul Mazursky.
The quick-change costume routines included cavemen, sheikhs, Little Red Riding Hood and Tarzan.
Today not many people realise what Paul Mazursky did for the Monkees. Nearly everyone, however, remembers the sped-up sequence where the band runs up and down sand dunes carrying surfboards, and everyone knows the chorus to Daydream Believer.
The Monkees themselves, as it turned out, were cool. They became the hosts of a party where everyone was invited: high-brow or low, sober or not.
The party came to an end two years later when Michael Nesmith led a rebellion against the band's creators. Later came patchy reunions and even live tours, but the fun was over.
Recently NBC announced plans for a new version of the Monkees which would incorporate elements of The Real World and American Idol.
A lot of money could be made, you see, if someone could find a replacement for the originals.
* The Monkees, Prime, 5pm
By CHAD TAYLOR
The Monkees are considered as a benchmark of fun nowadays but they began as a purely business proposition.
The year was 1966. The Beatles were winding down their final tour and preparing to retreat into the studio for the remainder of their careers. They were changing into a new
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