"The Monkees" Rewatch: One Man Shy (Peter & the Debutante)

“One Man Shy” opens with the Monkees auditioning for a debutante’s party and landing the gig. Peter is immediately smitten with Valerie, but his shyness causes him to only stare longingly and steal her portrait instead of speaking to her. One day Valerie and her, in heavy airquotes, "boyfriend" Ronnie unexpectedly drop by the boys’ pad and discover the portrait. While snooty Ronnie threatens to call the cops, Valerie quickly forgives Peter when he admits to taking it. After Ronnie leaves the pad in a huff, the boys decide to go on the attack and sabotage a date between him and Valerie. Ronnie doesn’t take it well and decides to embarrass Peter and the boys with a round of lawn games. Only his plan “to show you what they were” backfires when Valerie asks Peter to be her escort for the party and it’s up to the others to teach him how to behave with a lady.

Oh, this is a good one. Seriously, I love this episode so much; Peter is adorable (“A beggar can look at a queen”), Valerie is awesome, Ronnie is punchable, and the writing is quotable and on point. Like:

Peter: I’m no good even by proxy.

And:

Davy: Hey, Peter, didn’t you ever have a crush on anybody?

Peter: Yeah, once.

Davy: So what did you do about it?

Peter: I took her to a Cub Scout meeting.

Micky: Didn’t anybody ever have a crush on you or nothin’?

Peter: I once got some threatening Valentines.

Mike: You told me you use to play spin the bottle.

Peter: Yeah, but I always lost.

“One Man Shy” also continues the thread I mentioned in my post about “I’ve Got a Little Song Here,” in that the episode centers on the boys banding together to help one of their own, while the show generally has antagonism come from some criminal activity or sticking it to some stuffy adult. Although in a way, this episode it’s a little bit of both, because they help Peter and stick it to the stuffy and awful Ronnie along the way. Speaking of which…

I’ve been looking forward to writing about this episode, because I find the whole Valerie/Ronnie relationship thing very curious and this finally gives me a reason to talk about it. I think the audience is supposed to read them as boyfriend and girlfriend (and certainly whoever wrote the episode guide on Wikipedia thinks so), but that reading never sat well with me. To me, it always felt like he was trying to be her boyfriend, and way too hard, at that. Take for instance, the scene with them looking at art in a park, the dude is a pretentious show off and Valerie is just not having it. Of course, a lot of his characterization is meant to make him look bad, so the audience will be even more likely to root for Peter. Still, even at the very beginning of the episode Valerie doesn’t seem like she cares for him very much. I always got the impression that maybe Valerie’s parents are friends with Ronnie’s folks and they want them to get together, but she’s not interested at all. Plus, she does seem rather taken with Peter and who can blame her? Though I will say one good thing about Ronnie, which is he one of the few people (if not the only one) to not buy the Monkees in disguises.

Back when I talked about “Success Story” I mentioned how some songs had been changed at various points once The Monkees went into syndication.  The song change in that particular episode I don’t think hurt the overall feel of the romp, but that does not hold true for “One Man Shy.” The first romp of the episode is a montage of the other Monkees showing Peter how to behave with a high class lady like Valerie. In between moments of Peter and Valerie talking, dancing, and playing ring around the rosy, the others try to teach him how to open doors for her, take her coat, pull out her chair, that kind of thing. When set to “I’m A Believer,” as it was originally, it’s all very adorable. In syndication, however, the romp was set to “Forget That Girl.” Don’t get me wrong, “Forget That Girl” is a great song, but it’s too sad and discouraging to not work in this context. A song with a line like “But now she's thrown herself above you” would only work if Valerie were as much of a snob as Ronnie, but she’s not. The entire point of the episode (and that scene in particular) is to give Peter confidence to go after this girl who quite clearly digs him, too. I guess it just goes to show that while the show existed as a vehicle to promote the music, the romp choices weren’t necessarily done haphazardly during the original run. Sure, “I’m A Believer” was their big single at the time “One Man Shy” originally aired and that certainly contributed to its use, but it’s also a much better fit thematically.