"The Monkees" Rewatch: Dance, Monkee, Dance

“Dance, Monkee, Dance” kicks off with a phone call concerning an “opportunity of a lifetime” in the form of a free lesson from “the world’s foremost dance emporium, Renaldo’s Dance Au Go Go.” After some, er, difficulty Peter wins the lesson and enrolls for classes, but quickly learns his “opportunity of a lifetime” included a lifetime contract. Micky and Mike each try to find ways to get Peter out of the contract, but smartassery and hormones, respectively, land them in the same boat. Thinking their way out is to have someone on the inside, Davy goes to work for Renaldo as an instructor and they use his position to sabotage a day of new applicants.

I know I’ve been saying stuff like this a lot in recent entries, but I love this episode! It’s definitely one of my favorites and a big reason for that is “I’ll Be Back Up On My Feet,” which is great song and great romp. I also really love Miss Buntwell, Renaldo’s secretary. She’s a total riot, but of course, as a thirteen year old that love was tempered somewhat by fangirl jealousy and envy. Make no mistake, part of me still thinks “luckyyyyyyyy” when she kisses Mike, but luckily now it takes a backseat to how hilarious both her character and their scenes are.

That said, this is another Monkees episode that’s a bit difficult for me to write about. I’ve talked before about my concerns with spoilers, but in this instance it’s more about comedy being unfit for analysis. Then again, maybe I’m just inept at it and it actually is possible, but in a way it sometimes feels like it’s taking the fun out of it. Or, more accurately, talking the fun out of it. This feels particularly true of visual jokes, fourth wall breaks, and dream sequences like the trial in “Dance”:

“Dance, Monkee, Dance” also comes with a Monkees urban fandom legend, of sorts. See, toward the end of the episode Renaldo tries to hustle a room full of older ladies into more lifetime contracts and the boys try to scare them off. For a long time one of the women was said to be Bette Nesmith Graham, Mike’s mother. However, a recent Facebook post from Christian (Mike’s son) dispelled this myth. Luckily, said post came up not long after I watched the episode for this project and I didn’t end up making a fool of myself by babbling about that little piece of so-called trivia. I mention it anyhow because I think it’s funny and interesting how certain fandom headcanons proliferate even if no one quite knows how they started. (Or bothers to ever fact check.)

Related, I just love when Davy walks into the room full of ladies and in the midst of their chatter you can hear variations of “Isn’t he cute?” I like to think that wasn’t scripted or planned, mostly because I can totally see such comments following Davy wherever he went. And why wouldn’t they? Dude’s adorable!