Project Rewatch: Season 2 Disc 4 Episodes 51-53
I kind of stopped doing these for a few days because (a) Tumblr and a couple of fics ate my brain, and (b) I was sort of terrified of getting to Episode 52 and finding out I didn't like it as much as I remembered right before seeing the boys live. Going from the concert last night back to the show tonight was an interesting gear shift, although I was sort of amused to note that Tork's and Dolenz's body language has barely changed in 45 years.
Anyway, onward
Season 2 Disc 4 Episode 52: The Monkee's Paw
Synopsis: The boys are hired by a club manager to play for the next few days, in a slightly unusual format - they auditioned with "Goin' Down," with Micky as the frontman and Davy behind the drums. They replace Mendrek the Magician, an elderly veteran of the vaudeville stage, whom the manager not only fires but throws out of the club. As he's packing his props, Micky and Mike notice a monkey's paw among his effects; he tells them how he was given it by the Regular Lama in Tibet, and offers to sell it to them for a quarter. Intrigued, Mickey buys it. Back at the Pad, Micky takes a call from their union, who state they can't play until they pay their union dues; Micky wishes aloud that they could get the money. The manager arrives and states that he'll pay the dues for them - at 143% interest. To prove to the others that the paw was the cause, Micky wishes for a spaghetti dinner to feed the four of them; it falls from the ceiling directly onto his head. The next day, he's fretting about what to use his third wish on, while the others tell him to put the paw away and stop talking about it, and he idly agrees that he wishes he could stop talking about it - at which point his voice disappears. The manager tells them that is he doesn't get his voice back by the next day, they're fired. First, they go to Mendrek, but he's suddenly become wealthy and is no help to them at all. A psychiatrist is no help at all. The others refuse to believe that Micky's truly lost his voice and attempt to scare him back into speaking; when that doesn't work, they try to teach him to talk again. This fails, and the manager fires them. Having exhausted all their options, they return to Mendrek and ask if there's any way to un-do the wish. Davy and Mendrek's daughter go to the library and look up the solution in the Great Book of Mysteries; after Davy gets distracted by her eyes and she corrects his spelling of "monkey's paw," they find the answer - Micky has only to sell the paw to someone else. While they try to think of someone who deserves this fate, the manager arrives and tries to re-hire Mendrek. Mendrek refuses, but suggests that the manager could learn his repertoire; he and the boys demonstrate, in a romp set to "Words." He agrees, buys the paw from Micky, and wishes for a million dollars, which fall from the ceiling like the spaghetti did; an IRS agent immediately arrives and arrests him for tax evasion. [Blooper tag] [Interview segment in which Peter proclaims the death and rebirth of the hippie movement]
This episode is weak on plot and strong on acting. Micky spends more than half the episode voiceless, but Dolenz communicates everything perfectly anyway. The others are exactly the right combination of concerned and frustrated with him. Peter does more talking than usual, to fill Micky's silence, and his timing is impeccable. Moreover, Micky's becoming more and more emotionally attached to the paw over the course of the episode (he starts out finding it disgusting, and ends using it as if it were his own hand) is subtle for the show and very well done.
I think the opening scene is the first time we see Davy behind the drum kit as part of the narrative (as opposed to a video/performance sequence). At any rate, it establishes that character!Davy can, in fact, play drums. Of course, the question then comes up - if Micky's lost his voice and can't sing, why don't he and Davy just switch back? The curse doesn't seem to have affected his hands, and the boys have enough songs that Davy and Mike sing instead of Micky to put together at least a set.
Just before he sells them the paw, Mendrek tells the story of how he journeyed to Tibet to meet the High Lama, but he was sleeping it off, and he got the paw from the Regular Lama instead. First of all, Getting Crap Past The Censors there (although when I saw this the first time, I got the joke but thought 'high' was being used as a euphemism for 'drunk' because upbringing). Secondly, the story is dramatized by Mike (dressed in a plain brown robe) as the Lama and Micky (in white tie and tails with a top hat) as Young Mendrek, which is cute. Later, in an attempt to get the manager to not fire them, Mike, Micky, and Peter dress up as Groucho, Harpo, and Zeppo and do a comedy routine. It's sort of awesome.
Peter has a startlingly coherent (for Peter) and serious aside to the camera about unions right before Micky makes his first wish. It sort of makes me want to write a Monkees/Wizard of Speed and Time crossover.
When the Monkees visit Mendrek the first time, he asks them to help him answer an enormous bank of phones, mostly people asking him for business deals now that he's rich as a result of ridding himself of the paw's curse. Micky, of course, can't actually say anything, but what he's miming is having a fairly romantic conversation with someone, and he keeps it up through the background of the whole scene.
There is one scene where Davy, Mike, and Peter are discussing what to do with Micky which Davy is giggling all the way through. Either Dolenz is doing something hysterical just off-camera to break him up, or Jones has been hitting the frodis a little hard. (Or both. Actually, probably both, given where Jones's eyeline is and how sleepy-eyed he looks.)
Just before Davy and Mendrek's daughter find the solution, Mendrek attempts a few more prosaic cures. In one of them, he beats a gong until Micky pleads for mercy; unfortunately, Peter breaks first (Tork chews the scenery gloriously here). He also has Mike and Peter tickle Micky with feathers, which sends him into paroxysms of silent laughter, and - ahem - comes across as a wee bit kinky.
During the romp, Micky is back in the white tie and tails, attempting several magic tricks and getting the wrong results. I admit my bias here, but he looks startlingly good dressed up like that.
After the romp, Micky is explaining how good it is to have his voice back. In the same way that Mendrek seems to have stored up all his good luck until he got rid of the paw, Micky seems to have stored up all his words; he's babbling a mile a minute until Mike yells his name in his ear. I probably wouldn't have seen that as a D/s thing if it weren't for the feathers a few scenes before.
This episode makes fairly clear (as if Monstrous Monkee Mash hadn't) that magick flat-out works in the Monkeeverse. Moreover, at least one grimoire exists. It's not clear whether Mendrek is a wizard as well as a stage magician, or if he only has the Book of Mystery as a prop; he doesn't seem to actually believe in the curse until he sees the effects of it being lifted.
The blooper is the guest star playing Mendrek waiting for the Monkees to find their marks (which takes forever) and then growling to the director, "[cuckoo], I hate these kids." I *think* that what got bleeped was "damn."
Zero doesn't appear here, but the presence of a curse and the vaguely religious implications of the Regular Lama do at least make a space for his influence in the episode. (Speaking of Zero, and crossovers, Severn Darden reappears as the psychiatrist in this episode, and I hadn't realized before, but Monte Landis, Monkee villain extraordinare, also has a small part in Real Genius.)
This is the last interview segment. Peter actually seems to be fairly passionate about what he's saying, complaining that the hippie movement has been co-opted by people selling stuff. There is also an apparent in-joke about not hitting Davy with a stick. Not unusually for the interviews, but oddly given how the episode ended, Micky barely says a word. (They appear to be in the same clothes as the last interview segment shown, and he was acting a little baked in that one, so that might be the case here, too.)
Season 2 Disc 4 Episode 52: The Devil And Peter Tork
Spoiler: It's as good as I remembered.
Synopsis: Peter wanders into Mr. Zero's Pawn Shop and falls in love with a concert harp, but doesn't have the money to pay for it. Mr. Zero offers him a "play now, pay later" contract, which Peter signs without reading. He takes the harp back to the Pad, where Mike reminds him he doesn't know how to play; Mr. Zero appears in a puff of smoke and informs Peter that he can. Peter tries it, finds he can, and asks his impressed bandmates if they can incorporate it into the act. There's a montage (not quite a romp) of concert footage with Peter's harp playing superimposed, to the tune of a harp version of "Pleasant Valley Sunday," after which we see Peter practicing and the other answering a huge upsurge in fan mail. Mr. Zero reappears and announces that Peter's time is up and he's come for his payment; Mike reads the contract and realizes it's for Peter's soul. Peter objects that he doesn't believe in devils, but Zero points out that his innocence is part of what makes him attractive. Mike points out that it's not yet midnight, and Peter would like his remaining time; Zero agrees and disappears. Peter confesses that he's frightened, and an imagination romp set to "Salesman" shows what Hell in the Monkeeverse is like (it includes devil-girls). Mike and Davy agree that "[cuckoo]" is a pretty scary place, and Micky retorts that it's even scarier that they're not allowed to say "[cuckoo]" on television. A few hours later, Zero reappears and collects Peter; Davy tries to bargain, offering his own soul in exchange, but Zero turns him down; Micky tries to keep Peter by force. Mike tells them that they can't keep him if the contract is valid, and challenges Zero to defend it in court. Zero agrees, and convenes a court of a hanging judge, with slain convicts as the jury. He summons Billy the Kid, Blackbeard the Pirate, and Atilla the Hun as witnesses to his previous contracts; Mike, Davy, and Micky attempt to cross-examine but are either intimidated or argued into submission. Mike calls Zero to the stand and examines the terms of the contract, arguing that if he can prove that Zero didn't fulfill the portion of the contract that gave Peter the ability to play the harp, then Peter has to go free - and it was Peter's love for the harp and its music that gave him that ability, not Zero. Zero responds by removing the ability he gave Peter, and presenting the harp. Peter tells Mike that he doesn't know how to play anymore, but Mike sends Peter over to it anyway - and after a moment of thought, Peter plays "I Wanna Be Free," to the surprise and delight of the jury and judge, and Zero's apparent surprise. Zero disappears in a cloud of smoke, and the Monkees rejoice. [Unrelated Rainbow Room video for "No Time" follows.]
If the Rainbow Room video wasn't a good enough giveaway, this is shaggy!Micky instead of 'fro!Micky - this must have been filmed much earlier in the season. This episode was delayed in production for quite a while; the excuse was that there's a drug reference in "Salesman" (which is probably true, but it's not in favor of drug use and it's pretty obliqued), but the real problem was the sequence where the Monkees complain about not being able to say "Hell" on television. (That may be why Peter's not asked to sign the contract in blood - one more thing for S&P to freak out about.)
This is Monte Landis at his best; we'll see him once more before the end, but he is completely convincing as a devil here (except in the "Salesman" romp, which is camp for camp's sake). There is a genuine sense of tension over Peter's fate that is almost entirely due to Landis's ability to project menace and Tork and Nesmith's ability to display fear both large and subtle. Landis also steals Davy's line; when Zero is called to the witness stand, Davy offers him a Bible to swear on, to which he responds "You must be joking."
Davy then proceeds to suggest that the jury read it; it's been on the best-seller lists. Jones was a choir kid growing up, and was probably the only one of the Monkees who would have identified as a mainstream Christian (Anglican, presumably), so it makes sense for him to be the one to have the Bible. Nesmith was a Christian Scientist, and fairly serious about it at the time (less so now, especially after having cataract surgery, but his response to Tork's cancer diagnosis was still to offer to pray for him), so the speech about Love being all-powerful over Evil is also perfect for him; there's an earnestness to the delivery that I'm not convinced is all acting there. And it's true that Tork never believed in devils; he has a commentary track on this episode, and he points out both that he's "not Jewish enough for Israel but Jewish enough for Hitler" (one grandfather) and that, by the time he became a Monkee, he was immersed in the Westernized versions of Hinduism and Buddhism that had started to become trendy in the '60s (and that eventually merged with the remnants of spiritualism and became the New Age movement; the comment sounds like that's what he still identifies with, if anything at all). Micky, on the other hand, heads right for the fourth wall every time the religious themes come up; he's the one who complains about the censorship, and when the judge turns down Davy's offer, claiming they can't read, he suggests they watch the movie instead. Dolenz was raised Catholic, but ditched the faith rather dramatically (he burned every Bible in the house) when his father died in '63; at the time of the filming, he probably would have identified as either agnostic or "spiritual but not religious" (the views he expresses in his autobiography fall under panentheistic process theology, although he only gives them half a page).
The second time Zero appears at the Pad, the lights outside the bay windows turn from blue to red. It's subtle, but it's a nice touch. (It also inspired a whole fanfic, which is pretty good.)
The innocence and suggestibility of character!Peter are on full display here, and Tork plays them beautifully. There are two moments that make him so vulnerable he's almost subby. The first is during the romp, when he's been beckoned forwards by the devil-girls; Zero dramatically gestures downwards, and he starts to sink to his knees as commanded, before the others grab him by the elbows and haul him away. In the courtroom, just after Zero claims to take away his ability to play the harp, Mike very quickly flips his hand and points upward, and Peter jumps instantly to his feet. In both cases, Peter seems a little out of it - dazed in the first place, and stunned by whatever Zero just did to him in the second. The two moments echo each other very nicely, and play to my particular kinks to boot. On top of all that, Tork does a very good job of fingersynching the harp parts (he can't actually play; it's one of the few instruments he doesn't know, although he argues in the commentary that if they'd given him an afternoon to practice, he could have at least done a few runs).
Davy has two moments that stand out quite a bit; one is the bit with the Bible that we've already covered - it's a gag, but it's a ha-ha-only-serious. The other is the moment where he offers himself instead of Peter. Now, let me go over that again: Davy offers himself to Zero, to go in his place. Yikes. It's entirely in character, in a way that, say, it wouldn't be for Micky; Mike might do that, but only as a last resort.
Mike's delivery on the "love is power" speech is simple and sincere. I'd say it was Nesmith's best piece of acting on the whole show if I thought he was acting. I think that's mostly him, even if Gardner and Caruso wrote the lines; he's made the odd post on Facebook that sounds remarkably similar, if couched in more obfuscatory language. (While the episode doesn't go out of its way to point it out, it's clear from the looks exchanged that it's not just Peter's love for the music that frees him, although it is that; it's also the Monkees' love for each other. Whether this is brother-love, smarm, or slash is irrelevant. Love is power, and that's where it's at.)
Totally aside from all the character awesome, there's an odd bit of staging; at one point, before Peter plays the harp the first time, Davy and Micky exit into the downstairs bedroom. Now, the last time that was a bedroom for two, it was Davy's and Peter's, and the last time everyone shared a bedroom, it was the upstairs one. I'm about ready to throw my hands up and say there are four beds in both bedrooms and they sleep wherever the cleanest sheets are on a given evening.
There's one Problematic '60s Crap moment, when Micky is cross-examining Ghengis Khan and they're doing it in mock-Mongolian (which actually sounds more like mock-Japanese than anything). Given the presence of a very, very similar mock-French gag in Elephant Parts, I'm going to chalk this up for tone-deaf ethnocentrism rather than racism this time.
Anyway. The video is the last Rainbow Room one, and it's basically three minutes of them cutting up. Micky doesn't even have a full kit to mime on, just a snare and the ride cymbal. Nevertheless, watch his feet; during the sequences where they're at least pretending to fingersync, he's working two imaginary pedals for the bass and high-hat at least part of the time. Pinocchio has become a real drummer!
This episode was nominated for an Emmy, but it lost to a "Get Smart" episode. Tragic, that. This deserved it, low budget and all.
Season 2 Disc 4 Episode 53: The Monkees Race Again (a.k.a. Leave The Driving To Us)
Synopsis: Mike, Davy, and Peter are working on the Monkeemobile when Davy gets a call; fortunately, the phone is in the engine this time. T. N. Crumpets, a friend of Davy's grandfather and a race car driver, needs their help with his vehicle. They go to his garage, where they open the engine to find that it's sabotaged and explodes - just as Micky arrives. Baron Von Klutz and his henchman Wolfgang, rival racers, are responsible; they use a periscope to spy on the Monkees attempting to put the engine back together again. They come over to see if they're making any progress, and to taunt Crumpets on his non-working car; Davy, Mike, and Peter remove parts from the engine, saying it's to remove weight. After they leave, Micky gets it back to almost working condition - then thumps it with the flat of his hand, and the engine roars to life. Crumpets calls for tea to celebrate, but Klutz and Wolfgang fill the garage with knockout gas and kidnap Crumpets and Micky. They tie them both up and gag Crumpets when he tells them Micky's not really a mechanic. Micky refuses to help them, declaring that he can withstand brainwashing and starvation, but relents when Klutz threatens physical torture. Klutz makes him work on the Klutzmobile; he manages to start a non-existent radio rather than the engine. Davy, Mike, and Peter awake from the knockout gas and come looking for Micky and Crumpets; they find Micky's tuning fork, and complain that s & P won't like it when Wolfgang pulls a gun, but leave when Klutz arrives. Davy volunteers to drive Crumpets's car in the meantime; the Klutzes put the kibosh on that by stealing Crumpets's car and transferring tis engine into the Klutzmobile (since Micky has made rather a mess of Klutz's). The Baron heads to the race, leaving instructions for Wolfgang to shoot one of their captives at the starting gun and one during the commotion at the end of the race. The officials tell Davy he can't race without a car, so he suggests that they use the Monkeemobile instead. All the other contestants have been sabotaged, so there's a long chase scene in which Klutz finally gets his comeuppance from his own dirty tricks. Meanwhile, Mike and Peter arrive just in time to stop Wolfgang from shooting Micky. As Davy receives the trophy and a wreath of flowers from several girls, Mike and Peter chase down the Klutzes and free Micky and Crumpets in a romp to "What Am I Doing Hangin' Round," finally subduing them by removing their military medals and helmets and replacing them with love beads and flowers.
The current fandom largely considers this one of the weakest episodes. I'd say several of the early stinkers from Season 1 are worse, but this is weak overall and has a few really ridiculous plot holes. No one seems all that worried about Micky's absence, the race really ought to have been a romp (there's no tension there whatsoever), and there are a couple of somewhat offensive sight gags (the worst of which is a race official casually ripping a checkered skirt off of a girl to use as the flag). Several people have called out the bad German stereotyping; I'm less concerned with that (lots of the villains are stock characters) than that the story can't make up its mind whether they're Nazis or Prussians. It does have tied-up Micky, which is one thing in its favor, and there are a few cute moments between Peter and Mike, but this feels like a leftover Season 1 script and no one really gave it their all.
Micky's absence from the opening tag is strange, given that in previous episodes he's been the one working on the Monkeemobile. The idea that he's the mechanic goes along with his mad-science motif; he essentially quits pretending and Sparks the car to life at one point. So why are the others messing around with it without him there? (Several other people interpret his making a mess of the Klutzmobile's engine as evidence of incompetence on his part; I think it's obvious he's doing it deliberately, especially since he Sparked a radio into existence from nothing.) When he's kidnapped, Crumpets is gagged but, except for one scene, he isn't; it would have made sense for him to cry for help when the others arrive, even if he has been hidden in a stack of tires, and mouthy Micky really shouldn't hesitate unless he thinks they'll hurt him immediately if he tries.
The Monkees have never been shy about asking the authorities for help when one of them is kidnapped before (although said authorities are almost never helpful). Why do they not report it this time?
The business with the tuning fork is a cute gag, but it goes on for too long (and they get the note wrong, which I bet bugged Tork to no end). Similarly, the race sequence goes on for forever (including having Davy change gears as if the Monkeemobile were a manual transmission; it's an automatic). It really should have, by rights, either been a romp of its own or incorporated into the existing romp; I'm guessing the episode was short again.
We haven't seen the Monkeemobile in a while, and I think this is the last time it's important to the plot, although not its last appearance altogether.
There's a gag involving Crumpet's butler spritzing the air to create the impression of a light London fog just as the Klutzes start spraying their knockout gas. Davy comments that it smells more like Liverpool; Crumpets says it's more like Manchester, and Mike identifies it as L.A. smog before they all start coughing and go limp. No one drops their teacups. The gag has potential, but it's rushed; given how much time they spent on the race, surely they could have spared a half a minute to get the timing right here?
A much funnier sight gag involves Mike tearing pages out of a phone book to get Davy to the right height to drive Crumpets's car. It's not one of their best, but it's well-delivered. Similarly, at the end of the tag, Davy tries to start the Monkeemobile and the phone drives itself into the Pad instead. Very cute, and very much in the "no one but Micky can get the target right, and not always him" class of gags.
Once Crumpet is gagged, Micky fourthwalls every time he speaks to him for the rest of the episode, mostly stuff like "You flew out to Hollywood for this part?"
Eh, I don't hate this one, but the writing is lazy (everyone not a Monkee is a stock character) and the boys were already looking forward to Head at this point - this one was one of the last episodes produced. I think they were a little checked-out, and possibly Frawley, their director, was as well. I'd forgive it more of its flaws if the boys had shown a little more concern for Micky's disappearance compared to making sure someone wins the race.
A good one, the best episode in the series, and a clunker. Next we have one I really didn't get on first watching, another 'shouldn't this have been in the first season?' goofy plot, and a Comedic Drag episode. Joy. (There are two more after that, both of them involving mind-controlled Peter, which means I'm looking forward to them even if they're not the best scripts.)
Anyway, onward
Season 2 Disc 4 Episode 52: The Monkee's Paw
Synopsis: The boys are hired by a club manager to play for the next few days, in a slightly unusual format - they auditioned with "Goin' Down," with Micky as the frontman and Davy behind the drums. They replace Mendrek the Magician, an elderly veteran of the vaudeville stage, whom the manager not only fires but throws out of the club. As he's packing his props, Micky and Mike notice a monkey's paw among his effects; he tells them how he was given it by the Regular Lama in Tibet, and offers to sell it to them for a quarter. Intrigued, Mickey buys it. Back at the Pad, Micky takes a call from their union, who state they can't play until they pay their union dues; Micky wishes aloud that they could get the money. The manager arrives and states that he'll pay the dues for them - at 143% interest. To prove to the others that the paw was the cause, Micky wishes for a spaghetti dinner to feed the four of them; it falls from the ceiling directly onto his head. The next day, he's fretting about what to use his third wish on, while the others tell him to put the paw away and stop talking about it, and he idly agrees that he wishes he could stop talking about it - at which point his voice disappears. The manager tells them that is he doesn't get his voice back by the next day, they're fired. First, they go to Mendrek, but he's suddenly become wealthy and is no help to them at all. A psychiatrist is no help at all. The others refuse to believe that Micky's truly lost his voice and attempt to scare him back into speaking; when that doesn't work, they try to teach him to talk again. This fails, and the manager fires them. Having exhausted all their options, they return to Mendrek and ask if there's any way to un-do the wish. Davy and Mendrek's daughter go to the library and look up the solution in the Great Book of Mysteries; after Davy gets distracted by her eyes and she corrects his spelling of "monkey's paw," they find the answer - Micky has only to sell the paw to someone else. While they try to think of someone who deserves this fate, the manager arrives and tries to re-hire Mendrek. Mendrek refuses, but suggests that the manager could learn his repertoire; he and the boys demonstrate, in a romp set to "Words." He agrees, buys the paw from Micky, and wishes for a million dollars, which fall from the ceiling like the spaghetti did; an IRS agent immediately arrives and arrests him for tax evasion. [Blooper tag] [Interview segment in which Peter proclaims the death and rebirth of the hippie movement]
This episode is weak on plot and strong on acting. Micky spends more than half the episode voiceless, but Dolenz communicates everything perfectly anyway. The others are exactly the right combination of concerned and frustrated with him. Peter does more talking than usual, to fill Micky's silence, and his timing is impeccable. Moreover, Micky's becoming more and more emotionally attached to the paw over the course of the episode (he starts out finding it disgusting, and ends using it as if it were his own hand) is subtle for the show and very well done.
I think the opening scene is the first time we see Davy behind the drum kit as part of the narrative (as opposed to a video/performance sequence). At any rate, it establishes that character!Davy can, in fact, play drums. Of course, the question then comes up - if Micky's lost his voice and can't sing, why don't he and Davy just switch back? The curse doesn't seem to have affected his hands, and the boys have enough songs that Davy and Mike sing instead of Micky to put together at least a set.
Just before he sells them the paw, Mendrek tells the story of how he journeyed to Tibet to meet the High Lama, but he was sleeping it off, and he got the paw from the Regular Lama instead. First of all, Getting Crap Past The Censors there (although when I saw this the first time, I got the joke but thought 'high' was being used as a euphemism for 'drunk' because upbringing). Secondly, the story is dramatized by Mike (dressed in a plain brown robe) as the Lama and Micky (in white tie and tails with a top hat) as Young Mendrek, which is cute. Later, in an attempt to get the manager to not fire them, Mike, Micky, and Peter dress up as Groucho, Harpo, and Zeppo and do a comedy routine. It's sort of awesome.
Peter has a startlingly coherent (for Peter) and serious aside to the camera about unions right before Micky makes his first wish. It sort of makes me want to write a Monkees/Wizard of Speed and Time crossover.
When the Monkees visit Mendrek the first time, he asks them to help him answer an enormous bank of phones, mostly people asking him for business deals now that he's rich as a result of ridding himself of the paw's curse. Micky, of course, can't actually say anything, but what he's miming is having a fairly romantic conversation with someone, and he keeps it up through the background of the whole scene.
There is one scene where Davy, Mike, and Peter are discussing what to do with Micky which Davy is giggling all the way through. Either Dolenz is doing something hysterical just off-camera to break him up, or Jones has been hitting the frodis a little hard. (Or both. Actually, probably both, given where Jones's eyeline is and how sleepy-eyed he looks.)
Just before Davy and Mendrek's daughter find the solution, Mendrek attempts a few more prosaic cures. In one of them, he beats a gong until Micky pleads for mercy; unfortunately, Peter breaks first (Tork chews the scenery gloriously here). He also has Mike and Peter tickle Micky with feathers, which sends him into paroxysms of silent laughter, and - ahem - comes across as a wee bit kinky.
During the romp, Micky is back in the white tie and tails, attempting several magic tricks and getting the wrong results. I admit my bias here, but he looks startlingly good dressed up like that.
After the romp, Micky is explaining how good it is to have his voice back. In the same way that Mendrek seems to have stored up all his good luck until he got rid of the paw, Micky seems to have stored up all his words; he's babbling a mile a minute until Mike yells his name in his ear. I probably wouldn't have seen that as a D/s thing if it weren't for the feathers a few scenes before.
This episode makes fairly clear (as if Monstrous Monkee Mash hadn't) that magick flat-out works in the Monkeeverse. Moreover, at least one grimoire exists. It's not clear whether Mendrek is a wizard as well as a stage magician, or if he only has the Book of Mystery as a prop; he doesn't seem to actually believe in the curse until he sees the effects of it being lifted.
The blooper is the guest star playing Mendrek waiting for the Monkees to find their marks (which takes forever) and then growling to the director, "[cuckoo], I hate these kids." I *think* that what got bleeped was "damn."
Zero doesn't appear here, but the presence of a curse and the vaguely religious implications of the Regular Lama do at least make a space for his influence in the episode. (Speaking of Zero, and crossovers, Severn Darden reappears as the psychiatrist in this episode, and I hadn't realized before, but Monte Landis, Monkee villain extraordinare, also has a small part in Real Genius.)
This is the last interview segment. Peter actually seems to be fairly passionate about what he's saying, complaining that the hippie movement has been co-opted by people selling stuff. There is also an apparent in-joke about not hitting Davy with a stick. Not unusually for the interviews, but oddly given how the episode ended, Micky barely says a word. (They appear to be in the same clothes as the last interview segment shown, and he was acting a little baked in that one, so that might be the case here, too.)
Season 2 Disc 4 Episode 52: The Devil And Peter Tork
Spoiler: It's as good as I remembered.
Synopsis: Peter wanders into Mr. Zero's Pawn Shop and falls in love with a concert harp, but doesn't have the money to pay for it. Mr. Zero offers him a "play now, pay later" contract, which Peter signs without reading. He takes the harp back to the Pad, where Mike reminds him he doesn't know how to play; Mr. Zero appears in a puff of smoke and informs Peter that he can. Peter tries it, finds he can, and asks his impressed bandmates if they can incorporate it into the act. There's a montage (not quite a romp) of concert footage with Peter's harp playing superimposed, to the tune of a harp version of "Pleasant Valley Sunday," after which we see Peter practicing and the other answering a huge upsurge in fan mail. Mr. Zero reappears and announces that Peter's time is up and he's come for his payment; Mike reads the contract and realizes it's for Peter's soul. Peter objects that he doesn't believe in devils, but Zero points out that his innocence is part of what makes him attractive. Mike points out that it's not yet midnight, and Peter would like his remaining time; Zero agrees and disappears. Peter confesses that he's frightened, and an imagination romp set to "Salesman" shows what Hell in the Monkeeverse is like (it includes devil-girls). Mike and Davy agree that "[cuckoo]" is a pretty scary place, and Micky retorts that it's even scarier that they're not allowed to say "[cuckoo]" on television. A few hours later, Zero reappears and collects Peter; Davy tries to bargain, offering his own soul in exchange, but Zero turns him down; Micky tries to keep Peter by force. Mike tells them that they can't keep him if the contract is valid, and challenges Zero to defend it in court. Zero agrees, and convenes a court of a hanging judge, with slain convicts as the jury. He summons Billy the Kid, Blackbeard the Pirate, and Atilla the Hun as witnesses to his previous contracts; Mike, Davy, and Micky attempt to cross-examine but are either intimidated or argued into submission. Mike calls Zero to the stand and examines the terms of the contract, arguing that if he can prove that Zero didn't fulfill the portion of the contract that gave Peter the ability to play the harp, then Peter has to go free - and it was Peter's love for the harp and its music that gave him that ability, not Zero. Zero responds by removing the ability he gave Peter, and presenting the harp. Peter tells Mike that he doesn't know how to play anymore, but Mike sends Peter over to it anyway - and after a moment of thought, Peter plays "I Wanna Be Free," to the surprise and delight of the jury and judge, and Zero's apparent surprise. Zero disappears in a cloud of smoke, and the Monkees rejoice. [Unrelated Rainbow Room video for "No Time" follows.]
If the Rainbow Room video wasn't a good enough giveaway, this is shaggy!Micky instead of 'fro!Micky - this must have been filmed much earlier in the season. This episode was delayed in production for quite a while; the excuse was that there's a drug reference in "Salesman" (which is probably true, but it's not in favor of drug use and it's pretty obliqued), but the real problem was the sequence where the Monkees complain about not being able to say "Hell" on television. (That may be why Peter's not asked to sign the contract in blood - one more thing for S&P to freak out about.)
This is Monte Landis at his best; we'll see him once more before the end, but he is completely convincing as a devil here (except in the "Salesman" romp, which is camp for camp's sake). There is a genuine sense of tension over Peter's fate that is almost entirely due to Landis's ability to project menace and Tork and Nesmith's ability to display fear both large and subtle. Landis also steals Davy's line; when Zero is called to the witness stand, Davy offers him a Bible to swear on, to which he responds "You must be joking."
Davy then proceeds to suggest that the jury read it; it's been on the best-seller lists. Jones was a choir kid growing up, and was probably the only one of the Monkees who would have identified as a mainstream Christian (Anglican, presumably), so it makes sense for him to be the one to have the Bible. Nesmith was a Christian Scientist, and fairly serious about it at the time (less so now, especially after having cataract surgery, but his response to Tork's cancer diagnosis was still to offer to pray for him), so the speech about Love being all-powerful over Evil is also perfect for him; there's an earnestness to the delivery that I'm not convinced is all acting there. And it's true that Tork never believed in devils; he has a commentary track on this episode, and he points out both that he's "not Jewish enough for Israel but Jewish enough for Hitler" (one grandfather) and that, by the time he became a Monkee, he was immersed in the Westernized versions of Hinduism and Buddhism that had started to become trendy in the '60s (and that eventually merged with the remnants of spiritualism and became the New Age movement; the comment sounds like that's what he still identifies with, if anything at all). Micky, on the other hand, heads right for the fourth wall every time the religious themes come up; he's the one who complains about the censorship, and when the judge turns down Davy's offer, claiming they can't read, he suggests they watch the movie instead. Dolenz was raised Catholic, but ditched the faith rather dramatically (he burned every Bible in the house) when his father died in '63; at the time of the filming, he probably would have identified as either agnostic or "spiritual but not religious" (the views he expresses in his autobiography fall under panentheistic process theology, although he only gives them half a page).
The second time Zero appears at the Pad, the lights outside the bay windows turn from blue to red. It's subtle, but it's a nice touch. (It also inspired a whole fanfic, which is pretty good.)
The innocence and suggestibility of character!Peter are on full display here, and Tork plays them beautifully. There are two moments that make him so vulnerable he's almost subby. The first is during the romp, when he's been beckoned forwards by the devil-girls; Zero dramatically gestures downwards, and he starts to sink to his knees as commanded, before the others grab him by the elbows and haul him away. In the courtroom, just after Zero claims to take away his ability to play the harp, Mike very quickly flips his hand and points upward, and Peter jumps instantly to his feet. In both cases, Peter seems a little out of it - dazed in the first place, and stunned by whatever Zero just did to him in the second. The two moments echo each other very nicely, and play to my particular kinks to boot. On top of all that, Tork does a very good job of fingersynching the harp parts (he can't actually play; it's one of the few instruments he doesn't know, although he argues in the commentary that if they'd given him an afternoon to practice, he could have at least done a few runs).
Davy has two moments that stand out quite a bit; one is the bit with the Bible that we've already covered - it's a gag, but it's a ha-ha-only-serious. The other is the moment where he offers himself instead of Peter. Now, let me go over that again: Davy offers himself to Zero, to go in his place. Yikes. It's entirely in character, in a way that, say, it wouldn't be for Micky; Mike might do that, but only as a last resort.
Mike's delivery on the "love is power" speech is simple and sincere. I'd say it was Nesmith's best piece of acting on the whole show if I thought he was acting. I think that's mostly him, even if Gardner and Caruso wrote the lines; he's made the odd post on Facebook that sounds remarkably similar, if couched in more obfuscatory language. (While the episode doesn't go out of its way to point it out, it's clear from the looks exchanged that it's not just Peter's love for the music that frees him, although it is that; it's also the Monkees' love for each other. Whether this is brother-love, smarm, or slash is irrelevant. Love is power, and that's where it's at.)
Totally aside from all the character awesome, there's an odd bit of staging; at one point, before Peter plays the harp the first time, Davy and Micky exit into the downstairs bedroom. Now, the last time that was a bedroom for two, it was Davy's and Peter's, and the last time everyone shared a bedroom, it was the upstairs one. I'm about ready to throw my hands up and say there are four beds in both bedrooms and they sleep wherever the cleanest sheets are on a given evening.
There's one Problematic '60s Crap moment, when Micky is cross-examining Ghengis Khan and they're doing it in mock-Mongolian (which actually sounds more like mock-Japanese than anything). Given the presence of a very, very similar mock-French gag in Elephant Parts, I'm going to chalk this up for tone-deaf ethnocentrism rather than racism this time.
Anyway. The video is the last Rainbow Room one, and it's basically three minutes of them cutting up. Micky doesn't even have a full kit to mime on, just a snare and the ride cymbal. Nevertheless, watch his feet; during the sequences where they're at least pretending to fingersync, he's working two imaginary pedals for the bass and high-hat at least part of the time. Pinocchio has become a real drummer!
This episode was nominated for an Emmy, but it lost to a "Get Smart" episode. Tragic, that. This deserved it, low budget and all.
Season 2 Disc 4 Episode 53: The Monkees Race Again (a.k.a. Leave The Driving To Us)
Synopsis: Mike, Davy, and Peter are working on the Monkeemobile when Davy gets a call; fortunately, the phone is in the engine this time. T. N. Crumpets, a friend of Davy's grandfather and a race car driver, needs their help with his vehicle. They go to his garage, where they open the engine to find that it's sabotaged and explodes - just as Micky arrives. Baron Von Klutz and his henchman Wolfgang, rival racers, are responsible; they use a periscope to spy on the Monkees attempting to put the engine back together again. They come over to see if they're making any progress, and to taunt Crumpets on his non-working car; Davy, Mike, and Peter remove parts from the engine, saying it's to remove weight. After they leave, Micky gets it back to almost working condition - then thumps it with the flat of his hand, and the engine roars to life. Crumpets calls for tea to celebrate, but Klutz and Wolfgang fill the garage with knockout gas and kidnap Crumpets and Micky. They tie them both up and gag Crumpets when he tells them Micky's not really a mechanic. Micky refuses to help them, declaring that he can withstand brainwashing and starvation, but relents when Klutz threatens physical torture. Klutz makes him work on the Klutzmobile; he manages to start a non-existent radio rather than the engine. Davy, Mike, and Peter awake from the knockout gas and come looking for Micky and Crumpets; they find Micky's tuning fork, and complain that s & P won't like it when Wolfgang pulls a gun, but leave when Klutz arrives. Davy volunteers to drive Crumpets's car in the meantime; the Klutzes put the kibosh on that by stealing Crumpets's car and transferring tis engine into the Klutzmobile (since Micky has made rather a mess of Klutz's). The Baron heads to the race, leaving instructions for Wolfgang to shoot one of their captives at the starting gun and one during the commotion at the end of the race. The officials tell Davy he can't race without a car, so he suggests that they use the Monkeemobile instead. All the other contestants have been sabotaged, so there's a long chase scene in which Klutz finally gets his comeuppance from his own dirty tricks. Meanwhile, Mike and Peter arrive just in time to stop Wolfgang from shooting Micky. As Davy receives the trophy and a wreath of flowers from several girls, Mike and Peter chase down the Klutzes and free Micky and Crumpets in a romp to "What Am I Doing Hangin' Round," finally subduing them by removing their military medals and helmets and replacing them with love beads and flowers.
The current fandom largely considers this one of the weakest episodes. I'd say several of the early stinkers from Season 1 are worse, but this is weak overall and has a few really ridiculous plot holes. No one seems all that worried about Micky's absence, the race really ought to have been a romp (there's no tension there whatsoever), and there are a couple of somewhat offensive sight gags (the worst of which is a race official casually ripping a checkered skirt off of a girl to use as the flag). Several people have called out the bad German stereotyping; I'm less concerned with that (lots of the villains are stock characters) than that the story can't make up its mind whether they're Nazis or Prussians. It does have tied-up Micky, which is one thing in its favor, and there are a few cute moments between Peter and Mike, but this feels like a leftover Season 1 script and no one really gave it their all.
Micky's absence from the opening tag is strange, given that in previous episodes he's been the one working on the Monkeemobile. The idea that he's the mechanic goes along with his mad-science motif; he essentially quits pretending and Sparks the car to life at one point. So why are the others messing around with it without him there? (Several other people interpret his making a mess of the Klutzmobile's engine as evidence of incompetence on his part; I think it's obvious he's doing it deliberately, especially since he Sparked a radio into existence from nothing.) When he's kidnapped, Crumpets is gagged but, except for one scene, he isn't; it would have made sense for him to cry for help when the others arrive, even if he has been hidden in a stack of tires, and mouthy Micky really shouldn't hesitate unless he thinks they'll hurt him immediately if he tries.
The Monkees have never been shy about asking the authorities for help when one of them is kidnapped before (although said authorities are almost never helpful). Why do they not report it this time?
The business with the tuning fork is a cute gag, but it goes on for too long (and they get the note wrong, which I bet bugged Tork to no end). Similarly, the race sequence goes on for forever (including having Davy change gears as if the Monkeemobile were a manual transmission; it's an automatic). It really should have, by rights, either been a romp of its own or incorporated into the existing romp; I'm guessing the episode was short again.
We haven't seen the Monkeemobile in a while, and I think this is the last time it's important to the plot, although not its last appearance altogether.
There's a gag involving Crumpet's butler spritzing the air to create the impression of a light London fog just as the Klutzes start spraying their knockout gas. Davy comments that it smells more like Liverpool; Crumpets says it's more like Manchester, and Mike identifies it as L.A. smog before they all start coughing and go limp. No one drops their teacups. The gag has potential, but it's rushed; given how much time they spent on the race, surely they could have spared a half a minute to get the timing right here?
A much funnier sight gag involves Mike tearing pages out of a phone book to get Davy to the right height to drive Crumpets's car. It's not one of their best, but it's well-delivered. Similarly, at the end of the tag, Davy tries to start the Monkeemobile and the phone drives itself into the Pad instead. Very cute, and very much in the "no one but Micky can get the target right, and not always him" class of gags.
Once Crumpet is gagged, Micky fourthwalls every time he speaks to him for the rest of the episode, mostly stuff like "You flew out to Hollywood for this part?"
Eh, I don't hate this one, but the writing is lazy (everyone not a Monkee is a stock character) and the boys were already looking forward to Head at this point - this one was one of the last episodes produced. I think they were a little checked-out, and possibly Frawley, their director, was as well. I'd forgive it more of its flaws if the boys had shown a little more concern for Micky's disappearance compared to making sure someone wins the race.
A good one, the best episode in the series, and a clunker. Next we have one I really didn't get on first watching, another 'shouldn't this have been in the first season?' goofy plot, and a Comedic Drag episode. Joy. (There are two more after that, both of them involving mind-controlled Peter, which means I'm looking forward to them even if they're not the best scripts.)