"The Monkees" Rewatch: Son of a Gypsy

“Son of a Gypsy” starts with the Monkees waiting to find out if they’ll be chosen to play Madame Rantha’s ball. They wait along with Maria and her sons, Marco, Rocco, Zeppo, Kiko, a group (and possible Marx Brothers reference) who plays “gypsy music” and want the gig in order to steal the Maltese Vulture. When the Monkees get the gig Maria invites the band to their camp “to show that there are no hard feelings” and to blackmail them into stealing the vulture. After some dancing, good luck charms, tea leaves, and knife throwing, Maria gives them the choice between torture and stealing the vulture, the latter which they initially refuse. Once they acquiesce to the scheme, Maria and her sons take Peter hostage while the rest of the band plays the gig and attempts to locate the vulture before it hits midnight and “then it’s curtains for Peter.”

Last time, when discussing “Too Many Girls,” part of me wanted to make an ironic, facetious “that’s racist!” joke at the line, “He’s English, he likes tea,” but hohohohohoooooh, man, this episode makes me legitimately uncomfortable. Way back at the start of The Monkees Rewatch I mentioned that there were some episodes in season two that I hadn’t watched much or at all and looking back, I really should’ve just said of the series as a whole. For whatever reason the latter half of season one also has a bunch of holes for me, which includes this episode. So basically “Son of Gypsy” is new to me and I went into it hoping (perhaps naively) it wouldn’t be riddled with horrible stereotypes, but I was wrong and since it doesn’t have any kind of nostalgia factor for me, I have difficulty looking beyond my discomfort. Admittedly, I’m not Romani, so I’m not about to be presumptuous and tell anyone how they should or should not feel about it. All I’m trying to say is that it made me feel icky. And yes, given the show’s age it is by no means the only episode hinged on stereotypes. Age doesn’t excuse such things, obviously, but I also don’t think a few problematic elements render an older work utterly worthless. Still, yikes, man. I don’t know… I feel like I’m just rambling at this point.

I don’t have much else to say about it, honestly, though I will admit the second half of the episode with distracting the guards and stealing the vulture is funny. I mean, it has Micky Dolenz doing a silly voice and Mike Nesmith being goofy, so it kinda goes with the territory. Also, I don’t remember if I mentioned this in another post, but the performance footage for “I’m a Believer” moves oddly slow on shots of Peter and Davy. It’s very strange and quite distracting. I don’t get it. If anyone can offer any explanation for it, I’m all ears.