“Monkees
in the Ring” begins with Peter and Davy walking down the street and Peter
littering the sidewalk with every pistachio he eats. While he tries to clean up
the trail, Peter innocently bumps into a short-tempered man. Things nearly come
to blows until Davy intervenes and inadvertently knocks the pedestrian out. Joey
Sholto, a fight promoter, witnesses the whole exchange and approaches the duo
to say he’ll make Davy the next featherweight champion of the world. He agrees
to meet with Sholto to discuss boxing, because the band needs the money. Even
so, the others express concern for his safety, especially considering his lack
of knowledge and experience in the sport. Sholto makes a deal with them that if
Davy doesn’t win his first three fights by K.O. then they can “have him back”
and they agree. Davy begins training and goes on a boxing tour that he easily
dominates with “thunder in [his] left and dynamite in [his] right.”
Unfortunately, each of the fights have been rigged in order to build Davy’s
“dynamite” reputation and skew the odds for when he fights the episode’s
Totally Not Muhammad Ali known simply as the Champ.
“In the
Ring” is yet another episode (along with the next few) that for whatever reason
I missed out on whenever it aired when I watched the show years ago, so not
only am I not that familiar with it, it’s really practically new to me. I have
to admit, though, given that this (like a lot of season one) is Davy-centric I
wasn’t too excited going in. It pains me to say things like that, because I
love Davy and I totally understand why the show made him the focal point so
often. He was the main heartthrob in the group, after all. Still, as someone
who likes all of the Monkees, it sucks to see them short-changed. All that
said, I did enjoy the episode, it has a lot of little, hilarious moments (“He
don’t listen to his Papa no more!”) Plus, any episode with “I’ll Be Back Upon
My Feet” immediately gets big points from me. Though I find it odd how Davy
bought into his Roman Reigns-esque hype, all things considered. And while that bit
of Sitcom Logic is weird, the worst example of it might be the moment when Mike
finds out about the rigged fights and tells Davy while still in Sholto’s office
surrounded by press. Dude, come on! Just goes to show that Peter wasn’t always
the Dummy.
“The
Audition” (aka “Find the Monkees”) begins with the group’s pad being invaded by
Martians. And a trio of secret agents. And some apparently not copyright
infringing jolly green giants. The three gimmicky rival bands each tell the
boys they’d received invitations to audition for TV producer Hubbell Bensen,
who is looking for a singing group to star in a new show. Despite being “as bad
as any of other group in town” the Monkees are disappointed that they seem to
be the only group to not get an invitation. As they lay around the pad
depressed Davy suggests sending a tape recording they’d previously made to Mr.
Bensen. Unfortunately, before returning the rented tape recorder, Micky forgot
to take the recording with him, so instead the boys decide to visit Mr. Bensen
in person at NBC Studios. Meanwhile, Miss Chomsky, Bensen’s beleaguered
secretary, rented a tape recorder which just so happened to have the Monkees’
recording on it. Bensen’s immediately taken with the recording of “Mary. Mary,”
proclaiming, “That’s the group I’m looking for!” After searching through
booking agents, talents scouts, record companies, disc jockeys, and others with
no leads, Bensen eventually decides to tell the press his problem to gain
publicity and find the group.
One
thing I wanted to note about this episode is that, like “I Was A Teenage
Monster” before it, it has a sort of meta quality to it given that it’s about
the band getting a TV show where they will presumably play a band, who will “play my [Bensen’s] theme
song.” Granted, it doesn’t have quite the resonance or room for commentary of
Monster, this case of the band playing a band trying to get a gig to play a
band is just kinda funny to point out.
Speaking
of comparisons to earlier episodes, as briefly touched on, this episode goes by
two names, “The Audition” and “Find the Monkees.” As I said in my post on “Too
Many Girls,” the multiple names for some episodes confuses me and I wanted to
try to find some sort of possible explanation for it. The closest thing to a
concrete answer I could find was from the Anorak Zone, which says the alternate
titles resulted from “repeat episodes being billed with different names, or
early working titles being confused with the finalised ones.” I say closest
thing, because while the latter portion makes sense, I don’t get the former.
I’m not sure if that’s due to the phrasing or me overcomplicating things.
Though, to be honest, it probably is just me overcomplicating it, so I’ll try
to drop it.
On a
completely different note, this episode ends with an interview about long hair,
getting into fights, and then recent “riots” and vandalism on the Sunset Strip
involving teenagers protesting a curfew and laws that prevented people under
eighteen from attending clubs that serve alcohol even if the clubs specifically
cater to teenagers. Now, I don’t know enough about this particular situation to
have an opinion on it one way or another, but I did want to point out two
quotes from the interview that I find particularly interesting. The first being
the last statement before the credits roll, which is Davy saying, “The reason I
haven't spoken all this time is because that it doesn’t matter what I say
nobody’ll listen to me because I’m under twenty-one, so I’m just keeping my
mouth shut.” He smiles slightly as he says it, but wow, talk about a truth
bomb. It’s no wonder the episode ends there and pretty pointedly, I’d say. I
mean, his statement shows the paternalistic notions the protests were pushing
back against, notions acted on without any concern to what the people directly
affected by the laws know, want, or need. Or as Peter put it, “Nobody listens
to kids talking for kids because kids are only kids.” And while I’m on the subject of sentiments
expressed here that sadly remain very relevant to this day, I want to close with this
quote from Micky: “There haven’t really been riots. They’ve been in actuality,
since I, since I was there, they’ve been demonstrations. And uh, but I guess, a
lot of people and journalists don’t know how to spell ‘demonstration’ so they
use the word ‘riot’ ‘cause it only has four letters.”
“Monkees
in the Ring” begins with Peter and Davy walking down the street and Peter
littering the sidewalk with every pistachio he eats. While he tries to clean up
the trail, Peter innocently bumps into a short-tempered man. Things nearly come
to blows until Davy intervenes and inadvertently knocks the pedestrian out. Joey
Sholto, a fight promoter, witnesses the whole exchange and approaches the duo
to say he’ll make Davy the next featherweight champion of the world. He agrees
to meet with Sholto to discuss boxing, because the band needs the money. Even
so, the others express concern for his safety, especially considering his lack
of knowledge and experience in the sport. Sholto makes a deal with them that if
Davy doesn’t win his first three fights by K.O. then they can “have him back”
and they agree. Davy begins training and goes on a boxing tour that he easily
dominates with “thunder in [his] left and dynamite in [his] right.”
Unfortunately, each of the fights have been rigged in order to build Davy’s
“dynamite” reputation and skew the odds for when he fights the episode’s
Totally Not Muhammad Ali known simply as the Champ. 
“In the
Ring” is yet another episode (along with the next few) that for whatever reason
I missed out on whenever it aired when I watched the show years ago, so not
only am I not that familiar with it, it’s really practically new to me. I have
to admit, though, given that this (like a lot of season one) is Davy-centric I
wasn’t too excited going in. It pains me to say things like that, because I
love Davy and I totally understand why the show made him the focal point so
often. He was the main heartthrob in the group, after all. Still, as someone
who likes all of the Monkees, it sucks to see them short-changed. All that
said, I did enjoy the episode, it has a lot of little, hilarious moments (“He
don’t listen to his Papa no more!”) Plus, any episode with “I’ll Be Back Upon
My Feet” immediately gets big points from me. Though I find it odd how Davy
bought into his Roman Reigns-esque hype, all things considered. And while that bit
of Sitcom Logic is weird, the worst example of it might be the moment when Mike
finds out about the rigged fights and tells Davy while still in Sholto’s office
surrounded by press. Dude, come on! Just goes to show that Peter wasn’t always
the Dummy. 
