Project Rewatch: Season 1 Disc 5 Episodes 25-27
The sound on this video isn't great, especially with the whole freaking audience singing along, but damn, Dolenz sounds pretty good here. Still got pipes.
It's odd - here are these three guys and a ghost, touring 47 years after that song hit the airwaves for the first time. They're still around, and they still draw audiences - but they don't seem to take anything away from the hot, hip, young artists that get radio airplay now. There are radio stations that only air what's on the top 40 now, now, now, and there are radio stations that don't play any songs that couldn't drink, and everyone who makes it to the corporate level seems to make their dime all right, piracy be damned. So why is it that the movie and video game industries have so much trouble making money off of new stuff? Is it just the price of entry, that making a 3:30 pop song is that much cheaper than a 90-minute movie? I guess a 45" single or a song off of iTunes is an easier sell than an $8 movie ticket or a $60 video game - and hell, at least you get to keep the song and the video game; maybe I should be comparing the $20 DVD instead of the movie ticket. (And I suppose concert tickets are more expensive, and the experience just as ephemeral.) Still, the balance of old and new stuff for movies and video games seems off, compared to music.
Not that I mind. I'm spending my birthday check from my folks on a ticket to the Houston show (and probably some concert swag). I don't think they'll mind at all.
On the next-to-last disc now. Three more episodes :
Season 1 Disc 5 Episode 22: Alias Micky Dolenz
So the reason this is finally a Micky-centric episode is that Davy was out of the country for his sister's wedding; he's completely absent from the episode.
The basic plot: Micky is assaulted by a random hoodlum. When he reports the assault, the police mistake him for "Babyface" Morales, a small-time career mobster; they persuade him to impersonate Morales in order to recover the loot from his last robbery. After visiting Morales in jail (claiming to be a cousin from Ohio) to learn his mannerisms, Micky meets up with the hoods and, after a bar-fight, makes arrangements to pick up the gems. The hoods tail him back to the Pad; meanwhile, the real Babyface breaks out of jail. When the hoods pick Micky up and insist on recovering the gems right then, Mike and Peter impersonate a pair of demolition specialists and tag along. Morales appears just as the hoods retrieve the gems, and everyone except Peter gets confused - but he gives the game away, leading to the usual merry chase. Afterwards, the gangsters are apprehended, but now the cops can't tell which is the real Micky! (Fortunately, Morales can't drum or sing.)
The episode leans very heavily on Dolenz being believably someone other than Micky without anything other than a change of clothes - and believably Micky trying only semi-successfully to impersonate the same person. It's a tall order and his performance isn't flawless, but it's a stretch of his acting chops and he pulls it off credibly. The split-screen scenes are slightly better than the ones in Episode 21; the dividing line for the only long one is along the edge of a door.
One of the hoodlums has "Sherry Fingerhead" as an alias. A relative of Rob Roy's? Micky has a similar reaction to the name, but alas, Mike doesn't appear for him to mouth it back to.
The local hangout for the underworld hoodlums is the Purple Pelican. It shows up in fanfic with remarkable frequency, as does Morales (far more often than Prince Ludlow, or Peter's doppelganger Alexi, who will appear in Season 2). I confess, I'm not sure why; I don't find Morales to be that compelling a character. I do note that so far, every time we've seen wine or liquor bottles, it's been in a location where there are gangsters.
The bar-fight is effectively a romp (it's set to music), but it's significantly more violent than the show normally swings; there are several broken bottles and at least two people get thrown over the bar. Micky-as-Babyface effectively "wins" the fight by hiding for most of it and coming out after everyone still standing is too tired to keep fighting.
Once again, someone other than Micky sets an explosive charge (this time it's Mike, trying to play the part of a demo specialist) and the wrong thing explodes (this time it's a piano).
It's Peter who slips up and reveals the real Micky, but he then does something clever - he turns out the lights, so that when they come back on, Micky and Babyface will be mixed up again.
There's a smash cut from Babyface and Micky both protesting that they're Micky to the band playing "Mary, Mary." We are left to assume that this is Micky successfully proving who he is.
Season 1 Disc 5 Episode 23: Monkee Chow Mein
Oh, boy. Yellowface. Problematic '60s Crap is Problematic.
The Plot: Red Chinese agents are using a Chinese restaurant as cover for their spy ring. Peter grabs an extra fortune cookie to take home; unbeknownst to him, it contains part of the formula for a biological weapon, the Superbug. The CIS (who have worked with the boys before, back when the spies were vaguely Eastern European in Episode 5) pick them up for questioning, then release them with a warning that the spies may come looking for them again. The head agent's henchmen arrive at the Pad, but they steal Mr. Schneider, the talking dummy, instead. On their next trip, they grab Micky instead of Peter. Finally, Peter leaves a posterboard-sized note and returns to the restaurant alone, intending to trade himself for Micky; instead, he is captured too, and they are threatened with torture. Davy and Mike attempt to sneak in using various costumes, and are turned away by the henchmen; they finally change into the Monkeemen as a last resort. They subdue one of the henchmen using psychological warfare and untie Micky and Peter, starting a romp/chase scene that also involves someone in a gorilla costume, three live chickens, and a group of screaming teenage fangirls. Finally the Monkees find a roll of cotton wadding and a five-foot gong; they subdue the spies and henchmen by banging on the gong loud enough to stun them. The CIS arrives just in time to round everyone up. The boys decide to help themselves to another meal while they're there, but when Peter discovers another spy message in his fortune cookie, they lift him by the arms and skedaddle.
The head spy/mastermind is called the Dragonman, and he's the same actor who played Captain Crocodile. He's in egregious yellowface here, as is his henchman #1; henchman #2 is played by a Japanese actor, and all of the non-speaking spy and restaurant roles appear to be played by actual Asian extras. The two yellowface roles speak in awful fake accents, of course. Apparently the Dragonman's actor (Joey Forman) played a Chinese spy/detective (also in yellowface) on Get Smart as well. Ugh.
When Peter grabs the wrong fortune cookie, he's immediately surrounded by the spies for whom it was intended. His response is to specifically call to Mike for help. They're then chased out of the restaurant by the spies; they escape by all hiding behind one newspaper, from which three of the boys peer over the top to see if the coast is clear - Davy has to hop. Davy wonders why they were chasing them; Mike responds with a casually racist comment along the lines of "The Orientals are a mysterious people." They're then immediately picked up by the CIS guys with guns; Davy wonders why they're after them, and Mike responds with the exact same line, except swapping "Occidentals" for "Orientals." At least they're parodying the racism?
The main CIS agent is played by Mike Farrell, later of M*A*S*H.
Prior to now, any time a Monkee has been tied up, it's been with simple loops. This time, Micky's in something closer to a rope harness; his hands are secured separately from his trunk, but still with the same piece of rope.
The romp is funny, there's a bit of character development for Peter (his self-sacrificing nature in particular), and this is the first (and possibly the only? I'm not sure) time we see Mike in the Monkeeman costume. Other than that, this episode is fairly disposable, even aside from the casual racism. (It doesn't help that I don't think Forman is turning in a very good performance here; he was better as Captain Crocodile.)
Season 1 Disc 5 Episode 24: Monkee Mother
Synopsis: Babbit is tired of the boys not paying rent on time, and tells them to get out - he has a new tenant coming in an hour. The new tenant, a widow by the name of Millie Rudnik, tells them they don't need to leave, that she has no problem keeping them as boarders - but she has them move in all her furniture, with the help of Larry the moving man. She then has them doing household chores, and shares a maternal moment with each of them. After she tells them that rock'n'roll isn't really music, they play "Sometime In The Morning" for her, which prompts a "romp" in which a de-aged version of Millie dances with each of the boys in period clothes. The next day, she brings home a girl from the grocery store as a match for Davy (it doesn't work out) and invites over an old friend and her family, including four rambunctious kids with olive-drab fatigues and loud toy guns. Mr. Babbit shows up, followed by Larry and a snack vendor, and chaos breaks out until the Monkees are tied up (again) and everyone else runs down to the beach. The boys realize Millie's just lonely, so they play matchmaker between her and Larry, and, after a false start, succeed; they play at the wedding reception, and Babbit realizes that he'd rather deal with the Monkees than Millie. The boys help her move out; she announces that she's moving just down the street, so she'll be back to visit - maybe that very evening.
This is the second time that Rose Marie has guest starred on the show; the first was as the Big Man (or, more accurately, his wife) back in Episode 7. In both cases, she's playing a woman significantly older than her actual age; if we're to believe that the costumes the boys and the younger version of her are wearing during the "Sometime In The Morning" sequence are appropriate to her youth, Millie must have been born at the turn of the century or earlier - they're Gibson-girl era. The actress is too young to have been a flapper, much less a Gibson girl.
Her motherly moment with Mike implies that Mike grew up relatively poor, with multiple mouths to feed in the house. I think that latter part contradicts something Mike says in a later episode, which implies that it was just him and his mother (closer to Nesmith's actual background).
Micky is working on the Monkeemobile when Millie asks him to go take care of a leaky faucet. Apparently not only is he a mad scientist, he's good at fixing things - or at least she thinks he is.
Babbit has grown a mustache since we saw him last. He also usually wears more casual clothing than the suit he appears in here.
There are two anti-war jabs here; the rambunctious kids with the army toys, and a sequence where the Monkees are playing with dominoes (someone asks what this formation is called, and Peter responds "Southeast Asia"). Speaking of the kids, they use the more complex ties that we saw on Micky last episode when they tie up their 'prisoners' - the Monkees in the crowd scene, Babbit at the wedding. New prop man responsible for those, perhaps?
Peter and Mike both play acoustic guitar for Millie and Larry's candlelight dinner. Not that there was any doubt Peter could play guitar, but we have proof positive here.
One problematic dud flanked by two pretty decent episodes with some character development. We've got five more episodes to go in the season.
It's odd - here are these three guys and a ghost, touring 47 years after that song hit the airwaves for the first time. They're still around, and they still draw audiences - but they don't seem to take anything away from the hot, hip, young artists that get radio airplay now. There are radio stations that only air what's on the top 40 now, now, now, and there are radio stations that don't play any songs that couldn't drink, and everyone who makes it to the corporate level seems to make their dime all right, piracy be damned. So why is it that the movie and video game industries have so much trouble making money off of new stuff? Is it just the price of entry, that making a 3:30 pop song is that much cheaper than a 90-minute movie? I guess a 45" single or a song off of iTunes is an easier sell than an $8 movie ticket or a $60 video game - and hell, at least you get to keep the song and the video game; maybe I should be comparing the $20 DVD instead of the movie ticket. (And I suppose concert tickets are more expensive, and the experience just as ephemeral.) Still, the balance of old and new stuff for movies and video games seems off, compared to music.
Not that I mind. I'm spending my birthday check from my folks on a ticket to the Houston show (and probably some concert swag). I don't think they'll mind at all.
On the next-to-last disc now. Three more episodes :
Season 1 Disc 5 Episode 22: Alias Micky Dolenz
So the reason this is finally a Micky-centric episode is that Davy was out of the country for his sister's wedding; he's completely absent from the episode.
The basic plot: Micky is assaulted by a random hoodlum. When he reports the assault, the police mistake him for "Babyface" Morales, a small-time career mobster; they persuade him to impersonate Morales in order to recover the loot from his last robbery. After visiting Morales in jail (claiming to be a cousin from Ohio) to learn his mannerisms, Micky meets up with the hoods and, after a bar-fight, makes arrangements to pick up the gems. The hoods tail him back to the Pad; meanwhile, the real Babyface breaks out of jail. When the hoods pick Micky up and insist on recovering the gems right then, Mike and Peter impersonate a pair of demolition specialists and tag along. Morales appears just as the hoods retrieve the gems, and everyone except Peter gets confused - but he gives the game away, leading to the usual merry chase. Afterwards, the gangsters are apprehended, but now the cops can't tell which is the real Micky! (Fortunately, Morales can't drum or sing.)
The episode leans very heavily on Dolenz being believably someone other than Micky without anything other than a change of clothes - and believably Micky trying only semi-successfully to impersonate the same person. It's a tall order and his performance isn't flawless, but it's a stretch of his acting chops and he pulls it off credibly. The split-screen scenes are slightly better than the ones in Episode 21; the dividing line for the only long one is along the edge of a door.
One of the hoodlums has "Sherry Fingerhead" as an alias. A relative of Rob Roy's? Micky has a similar reaction to the name, but alas, Mike doesn't appear for him to mouth it back to.
The local hangout for the underworld hoodlums is the Purple Pelican. It shows up in fanfic with remarkable frequency, as does Morales (far more often than Prince Ludlow, or Peter's doppelganger Alexi, who will appear in Season 2). I confess, I'm not sure why; I don't find Morales to be that compelling a character. I do note that so far, every time we've seen wine or liquor bottles, it's been in a location where there are gangsters.
The bar-fight is effectively a romp (it's set to music), but it's significantly more violent than the show normally swings; there are several broken bottles and at least two people get thrown over the bar. Micky-as-Babyface effectively "wins" the fight by hiding for most of it and coming out after everyone still standing is too tired to keep fighting.
Once again, someone other than Micky sets an explosive charge (this time it's Mike, trying to play the part of a demo specialist) and the wrong thing explodes (this time it's a piano).
It's Peter who slips up and reveals the real Micky, but he then does something clever - he turns out the lights, so that when they come back on, Micky and Babyface will be mixed up again.
There's a smash cut from Babyface and Micky both protesting that they're Micky to the band playing "Mary, Mary." We are left to assume that this is Micky successfully proving who he is.
Season 1 Disc 5 Episode 23: Monkee Chow Mein
Oh, boy. Yellowface. Problematic '60s Crap is Problematic.
The Plot: Red Chinese agents are using a Chinese restaurant as cover for their spy ring. Peter grabs an extra fortune cookie to take home; unbeknownst to him, it contains part of the formula for a biological weapon, the Superbug. The CIS (who have worked with the boys before, back when the spies were vaguely Eastern European in Episode 5) pick them up for questioning, then release them with a warning that the spies may come looking for them again. The head agent's henchmen arrive at the Pad, but they steal Mr. Schneider, the talking dummy, instead. On their next trip, they grab Micky instead of Peter. Finally, Peter leaves a posterboard-sized note and returns to the restaurant alone, intending to trade himself for Micky; instead, he is captured too, and they are threatened with torture. Davy and Mike attempt to sneak in using various costumes, and are turned away by the henchmen; they finally change into the Monkeemen as a last resort. They subdue one of the henchmen using psychological warfare and untie Micky and Peter, starting a romp/chase scene that also involves someone in a gorilla costume, three live chickens, and a group of screaming teenage fangirls. Finally the Monkees find a roll of cotton wadding and a five-foot gong; they subdue the spies and henchmen by banging on the gong loud enough to stun them. The CIS arrives just in time to round everyone up. The boys decide to help themselves to another meal while they're there, but when Peter discovers another spy message in his fortune cookie, they lift him by the arms and skedaddle.
The head spy/mastermind is called the Dragonman, and he's the same actor who played Captain Crocodile. He's in egregious yellowface here, as is his henchman #1; henchman #2 is played by a Japanese actor, and all of the non-speaking spy and restaurant roles appear to be played by actual Asian extras. The two yellowface roles speak in awful fake accents, of course. Apparently the Dragonman's actor (Joey Forman) played a Chinese spy/detective (also in yellowface) on Get Smart as well. Ugh.
When Peter grabs the wrong fortune cookie, he's immediately surrounded by the spies for whom it was intended. His response is to specifically call to Mike for help. They're then chased out of the restaurant by the spies; they escape by all hiding behind one newspaper, from which three of the boys peer over the top to see if the coast is clear - Davy has to hop. Davy wonders why they were chasing them; Mike responds with a casually racist comment along the lines of "The Orientals are a mysterious people." They're then immediately picked up by the CIS guys with guns; Davy wonders why they're after them, and Mike responds with the exact same line, except swapping "Occidentals" for "Orientals." At least they're parodying the racism?
The main CIS agent is played by Mike Farrell, later of M*A*S*H.
Prior to now, any time a Monkee has been tied up, it's been with simple loops. This time, Micky's in something closer to a rope harness; his hands are secured separately from his trunk, but still with the same piece of rope.
The romp is funny, there's a bit of character development for Peter (his self-sacrificing nature in particular), and this is the first (and possibly the only? I'm not sure) time we see Mike in the Monkeeman costume. Other than that, this episode is fairly disposable, even aside from the casual racism. (It doesn't help that I don't think Forman is turning in a very good performance here; he was better as Captain Crocodile.)
Season 1 Disc 5 Episode 24: Monkee Mother
Synopsis: Babbit is tired of the boys not paying rent on time, and tells them to get out - he has a new tenant coming in an hour. The new tenant, a widow by the name of Millie Rudnik, tells them they don't need to leave, that she has no problem keeping them as boarders - but she has them move in all her furniture, with the help of Larry the moving man. She then has them doing household chores, and shares a maternal moment with each of them. After she tells them that rock'n'roll isn't really music, they play "Sometime In The Morning" for her, which prompts a "romp" in which a de-aged version of Millie dances with each of the boys in period clothes. The next day, she brings home a girl from the grocery store as a match for Davy (it doesn't work out) and invites over an old friend and her family, including four rambunctious kids with olive-drab fatigues and loud toy guns. Mr. Babbit shows up, followed by Larry and a snack vendor, and chaos breaks out until the Monkees are tied up (again) and everyone else runs down to the beach. The boys realize Millie's just lonely, so they play matchmaker between her and Larry, and, after a false start, succeed; they play at the wedding reception, and Babbit realizes that he'd rather deal with the Monkees than Millie. The boys help her move out; she announces that she's moving just down the street, so she'll be back to visit - maybe that very evening.
This is the second time that Rose Marie has guest starred on the show; the first was as the Big Man (or, more accurately, his wife) back in Episode 7. In both cases, she's playing a woman significantly older than her actual age; if we're to believe that the costumes the boys and the younger version of her are wearing during the "Sometime In The Morning" sequence are appropriate to her youth, Millie must have been born at the turn of the century or earlier - they're Gibson-girl era. The actress is too young to have been a flapper, much less a Gibson girl.
Her motherly moment with Mike implies that Mike grew up relatively poor, with multiple mouths to feed in the house. I think that latter part contradicts something Mike says in a later episode, which implies that it was just him and his mother (closer to Nesmith's actual background).
Micky is working on the Monkeemobile when Millie asks him to go take care of a leaky faucet. Apparently not only is he a mad scientist, he's good at fixing things - or at least she thinks he is.
Babbit has grown a mustache since we saw him last. He also usually wears more casual clothing than the suit he appears in here.
There are two anti-war jabs here; the rambunctious kids with the army toys, and a sequence where the Monkees are playing with dominoes (someone asks what this formation is called, and Peter responds "Southeast Asia"). Speaking of the kids, they use the more complex ties that we saw on Micky last episode when they tie up their 'prisoners' - the Monkees in the crowd scene, Babbit at the wedding. New prop man responsible for those, perhaps?
Peter and Mike both play acoustic guitar for Millie and Larry's candlelight dinner. Not that there was any doubt Peter could play guitar, but we have proof positive here.
One problematic dud flanked by two pretty decent episodes with some character development. We've got five more episodes to go in the season.