"The Monkees" Rewatch: Monkees in the Ring
“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.
“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. 
No comments:
Post a Comment