"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. 

"The Monkees" Rewatch: Too Many Girls (Davy & Fern)

“Too Many Girls” opens as the title implies; too many girls lurk around the Monkees’ pad in the middle of band practice and distract Davy. After the others manage to (briefly) shoo them all out Davy vows he’ll “never look at another girl, ever.” Despite the boys’ “best” efforts (like surrounding him when they walk in public) the vow is, of course, immediately put in jeopardy. Their troubles deepen when they visit a tea room operated by pushy, conniving stage mother Mrs. Badderly desperate to nab Davy as partner for her daughter Fern’s amateur hour act. Part of her plan involves using tea leaves to persuade them that Peter will get a virus, Mike will get a flat tire, and within twenty-four hours Davy will meet a girl and fall in love so hard he will leave home, because “the tea leaves never lie!” With some extra help from a nail and pepper, the boys are convinced and keep Davy locked up in the pad until a telegram sends him dragging a chair to judge a beauty pageant where a blurry Fern is the only contestant. After some batted eyelashes and more tea leaves, Davy decides to help Fern with her performance and it’s up to Billy Roy Hodstetter, Locksley Mendoza, and the Astonishing Pietro to bring him back to some sense.

While it’s hilarious to watch Locksley Mendoza that out-hack Mr. Hack, I gotta be honest here: this episode rests on probably the stupidest piece of Sitcom Logic in the series. I think I’ve used the term before and I should probably explain exactly what I mean by it. Basically, Sitcom Logic refers to the often stupid characteristics and behaviors exhibited by sitcom characters that no rational human would take part in it, but the comedy hinges upon their existence. It’s basically a specific brand of plot contrivance. Incidentally, I find it interesting that “contrived” is often used as a criticism when analyzing narrative media. I mean, technically speaking, most if not all art is contrived on some level, but a good craftsman of their art can keep you from seeing those strings (unless, of course, seeing those strings is the entire point.) Now, The Monkees series calls attention to its strings plenty and does well at making the audience ignore them when it wants. Neither of which happens in the case of “Too Many Girls,” because I find it impossible to overlook Davy’s total stupidity. Like, dude would’ve been completely safe from the consequences of so-called prophetic tea leaves if he had stayed in the pad for just that one measly day. One! Like, come on! I can begrudgingly forgive and understand superstition, but not that.  And yeah, yeah, I know this is pretty much a “why didn’t the eagles take the Ring to Mordor?” situation where doing the “sensible” thing would result in no story at all (and no Billy Roy Hodstetter would indeed be a loss), but… man, there had to have been a better way to go about it.

I also wanted to touch on the fact that this is one of a few episodes in the series to have an alternate or subtitle. I’ve already discusses a few, like “One Man Shy” and “Here Come the Monkees.” It’s an aspect of the series that always kind of confused me in that I don’t know why they just couldn’t settle on a title for the episodes in question. Of course, as someone who often has a difficult time settling on one word to describe things (hell, I’ve done it a few times in this very post), I know I have no room to judge. I’m just curious. I know these posts are meant to mostly be off the cuff and loose, but maybe this is one thing I should try to look into, see what I can find, and report back on when the next dual title wielding episode comes up.