"Monkees In Manhattan” begins as the band arrives at an NYC hotel in order to meet with McKinley Baker, an unknown Broadway producer who wants the band to star in his new musical. They spent all their money on the bus trip, so Baker offers to let them stay in his suite until he receives money from his financial backer. The boys accept, but soon the hotel manager, Mr. Weatherwax, threatens to throw Baker out for lack of payment. The manager refuses Baker’s promise for payment once he meets with his backer and gives them an hour to leave, so the boys must stall for the three hours until Baker’s backer meeting. Unfortunately, once the backer backs out, the boys then have to find a new one to save the show and find a way to pay the hotel. Oh, boy, what a load of nothing. I don’t even know what to say here, because this does feel like mostly filler. Even the romps are kinda boring and contain mostly clips from other, better episodes. And yeah, it’s not rare for the show to recycle, but in this case, it’s difficult to ignore when the results don’t amount to much and the rest of the story doesn’t amount to much either. Like the plot itself, the show is just stretching for time until something better comes along. The only redeemable and not recycled (and not rabbit related) aspect of “Manhattan” is the interview section at the end. All of the clips are endearing in their own ways, but the most adorable is likely the one that shows Davy and Peter goofing around with their makeup artist, Keeva, But y’know what? Here, just watch it:
“Monkees Get Out More Dirt” should be subtitled “Laundry Day Is A Very Romantic Day,” because when the boys stop by the laundromat and go looking for soap, all four quickly fall for the owner, April Conquest. Upon returning home, they each concoct a reason (from sick aunts to dog food) to immediately go back and visit her at work where they find her working on her doctor’s thesis in laundry science. They return home again only to pace around the pad for a bit being snippy at each other before watching Dr. Sisters advice show in which she claims to win the girl you want through her mind and learning “the kind of man she likes and then be that man.” This leads each of the boys to call April and other people in her life to find out her interests and hobbies, including pop art, ballet, chamber music, and motorcycles, and taking them on in order to impress her. Unfortunately, the plan works a little too well with April proclaiming, “Oh, I love you all” and pushing her close to a nervous collapse. Her nerves lead her to close her laundromat one day and the boys worry it could cost her the business, so they decide to choose one of them for her while the others let her down easy. I’ll say, for an episode based on a love pentagon it’s lighthearted. I mean, at no point did I ever think the band was in danger, unlike “Success Story” which had an ominous cloud hanging over it during that first watch. “Dirt” does put them, ostensibly, into competition with each other, but they don't really lose sight of their friendship (as shown by Peter’s letter to Dr. Sisters) nor do they allow it to hurt April and her business. They do snip at each other a bit and split the pad into quarters for a brief moment, so any beef between them is relatively minor and short-lived. It’s a nice change of pace from other love triangles-rectangles-tetradecagons where people damn near want to slit each other’s throats, no matter how good of friends they were. Then again, this particular pentagon centers on the try-to-describe-her-and-not-use-the-word-statuesque Julie Newmar, so who could really blame them if they did become so blinded by infatuation they threw it all away? I mean, if a chick were to come between the band it might as well be the only Catwoman. My other prompt for this episode says, “Wait, how old are they supposed to all be again? (thirty year old teenagers.)” If April’s working on her doctor’s thesis, she’s gotta be about twenty-three, twenty-four, at least, right? Meanwhile, Mike’s twenty-one and Davy’s young enough to still have a legal guardian. Hell, forget age differences, April apparently has multiple degrees and her own business, why is she even giving a bunch of broke “teenagers” a second glance? Especially when they lied to her from the start. Yeah, let’s be honest, they didn’t really deserve her anyway.
In “Monkees On The Line” Mike decides the band should hire an answering service, since not being home or answering the phone when they are around could cost them gigs. When they try to negotiate a lower rate at the Urgent Answering Service, the lone operator offers them a job with service included on top of the regular pay. They accept and she goes to Jamaica, but not before she establishes the main rule: “Don’t get involved with the clients.” It takes all of one phone call before that rule is thrown right out the window, because Mike encounters a client, Ellen Farnsby, he believes is suicidal. (*jazz hands* Comedy! But fear not, she’s simply an actress using the service to rehearse and “live [her] part” for a play.) While Mike and Micky run to check on her, Davy and Peter take over the phones, only for Davy to leave in search of the recipient of an urgent message from “Zelda-baby” and get caught in a circular chase sequence with a cop and his angry wife. Left to his own devices, Peter schedules what he thinks is a gig for a band and ends up hidden in the wall after pushing a red button. Eventually the misunderstandings come to a head in another chase around a giant telephone.
Like I said last time, perhaps on paper this seems too weird or silly, but it’s all in the execution and the execution here is brilliant. In fact, if I had to pick this might be my favorite episode of season one. It’s simply hilarious and the writing and performances are on point, though it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that to me Mike is the absolute star of this episode. He frequently has great facial expressions (see "Monkee Chow Mein"), but “On The Line” is loaded with absurd Mike faces. Given that he’s generally the level-headed straight man of season one (to the extent that it even has one), it’s fun to watch him go off the wall and over the top with his performance. And while I love the bonkers stuff, I gotta say that one of my favorite moments is Mike’s relatively dry delivery of “No, I’m sorry, you must have the wrong number we don’t have a telephone.” My only real complaint would be Davy’s assertion that Mike got involved with Ellen’s situation because he was “kinda hooked on” her. Right, because there is no other reason why someone might be concerned when another person claims they’re so lonely they “can’t go on” and want “to end it all.” Yeah, nope, no. No other possible reason. Empathy for a fellow person in distress? Basic decency and compassion? Nah! He just wanted on her because hysterical phone calls are so damn hot. Jeez. Though he says, “How could I not?” in response to Davy and babbles about masculinity, most of Mike’s reaction makes it seem like maybe he did it to be the hero, so to speak, or at least wants to look that way to the others. An idea not nearly as out of character for him considering much of the show characterizes him as someone who helps people, be they his friends or others, such as in “Monkees Vs Machine,” “Don’t Look A Gift Horse In The Mouth,” and even the ending of “I’ve Got A Little Song Here.” Could it be that I’m just blind, since he’s favorite? Maybe, but for now I’m sticking to my guns and my dislike. Finally, given that the very concept of an answering service was something of an anachronism by the time I got into the Monkees, I must echo Mike’s confusion, how do you tell which one is ringing?
“Monkee Mother” begins with Mr. Babbitt, armed with a list of complaints, kicking the Monkees out of the pad. He claims the new tenant will be there any minute, said tenant is Milly, a widow with a stuffed parrot (Lewis) and dog (Martin.) As Milly begins to settle in and arrange her belongings the boys confront her about how they were living there first. She responds with “So live!” that she’s had boarders before, a label the boys don’t take too kindly toward. Despite some heartwarming bonding moments with her, they decide the arrangement still isn’t working out once Milly brings over visitors in the form of her noisy relatives and an English girl she met at the store. Micky suggests that she really wants is a new husband and they decide to set her up with Larry, the mover who helped her into the pad and seemed to take a liking to her. The pair quickly marries and during the wedding Mr. Babbitt apologizes for inconveniencing the boys, because he wasn’t too fond of Milly’s visitors either. After the wedding, Milly says goodbye her “darling boys” with some advice and a promise to visit them “soon,” that is, that night. This one’s a heart-squeezer, folks, and I love it so much. In the words of Miss Truvy Jones, “Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion.” “Monkee Mother” certainly fits that bill if you’re a big ol’ sap like me. As I said, there are some bonding moments between the boys and Milly and they all happen one right after the other and it just leaves me in pieces. The worst (best?) is the moment when Mike looks at her so, so sincerely and says, “Make me a success.” Ugh! I’m tearing up right now writing about it! Cap off the sequence with “Sometime in the Morning” and forget it, I’m destroyed. I love the comedy of The Monkees, that much should be obvious by now, I hope, but I love the rare, little moments of emotion and drama as well, so much so that they tend to define their respective episodes in my mind. Like, I can’t think of “Success Story” without thinking of “Shades of Gray” and Davy saying goodbye. Likewise, as hilarious as this episode is, for me it will always be about those times when Milly and the boys find a connection and learn to like each other despite all their differences and the fact that living in the same house didn’t work for them. And the episode is hilarious. Rose Marie, in her second Monkees role after the Big Man, and the guys play off each other really well in both the comedic and dramatic scenes. I think my favorite line comes from Davy, “Listen, don’t worry, man, she’ll find somethin’ to do with yeh,” which may not seem all that funny on paper, but it’s all in the delivery, trust me. The songs included in this episode are fantastic, too. I already mentioned “Sometime in the Morning,” probably one of the best Monkees ballads. It’s one of those songs that’s so sweet and so beautiful it makes my chest ache. The episode also features “Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow,” which I love and is made even better by Peter and Mike being utterly adorable during the performance. Lastly, I’m once again left confused by notes Past Me made regarding one of these recaps. The note in question this time says, “’I don’t care’ about ‘cupcakes in sour cream.’” …’Kay. Obviously, this is a reference to the only words Clarisse seems to know and Davy’s advice to Larry, respectively, but I don’t remember what exactly this was meant to prompt me to talk about. Only answer I can come up with is that it was about the humor and quotable lines, but surely, there had to be a more direct way doing that. Eh. Hopefully as I get into a routine where my note-taking and post-writing happen more closely together I won’t run into this issue as much.
“Monkee Chow Mein” begins with Mike, Davy, and Micky eating in a Chinese restaurant while Peter fills a giant doggie bag with food. While leaving he dumps a plate of fortune cookies into his bag and grabs another off a waiter’s plate. This seemingly innocent action leads the waiter to shout “He has the cookie, stop him!” as the other restaurant patrons and spies gather around him. Mike yanks Peter out of the crowd and the band flees the restaurant before they can be caught, only to then run into agents from the Central Intelligent Service who take them to headquarters for questioning. After some attempts to explain that Peter likes to feed cookies “to a dog we don’t have,” the agents eventually realize the band’s innocence and non-involvement in the goings-on of the restaurant. They explain to the boys that the cookie contained information about a chemical weapon they’d developed called the Doomsday Bug, which had been stolen by a spy ring with a second-in-command called the Dragonman. Despite the inspector’s warnings, the boys nervously head home with Micky certain they’re being followed. After multiple kidnapping attempts, threats of torture, “bad food and drugs,” and costume changes, it’s up to the Monkeemen to bring down Dragonman and, his boss, Mr. Big. Right. So, this is gonna be another one of those awkward episodes to talk about, because it is quite racist against Asians and Chinese folks, in particular. Like I’ve said before, I don’t think problematic elements automatically make a work worthless, but I also wouldn’t blame someone for skipping over it due to them. It’s a complicated issue. Part of me finds the old “It’s from the 60s, what do you expect” line, while true to an extent, riddled with its own problems. Racism is alive and well, folks. You can’t really get away with “well, that’s how it was then” when stuff like yellowface and stereotyping in fiction goes on to this day. Then again, I do think it’s slightly unfair to place our current standards onto older media, especially when comedy in particular often ages quickly and badly. For me, talking about these issues isn’t about ripping something to shreds, but about acknowledging the problems so that we can do and expect better going forward. In the case, the problematic elements are made all the more frustrating by the moments are good and kinda subversive. Early in the episode, after the band’s been chased out of the restaurant, Mike says, “Well, you never can tell, Orientals [cringe] are a curious people,” which is soon followed up with “I don’t know, occidentals [westerners] are a curious people” when the C.I.S. agents pick them up. But the best moment comes when Toto accidentally kidnaps Micky and says, “Forgive me, master, but all American look alike to me,” a play on the racist notion that all Asians look alike. Of course, the episode still hinges on stereotypes and yellowface, so I could understand the little moments of subversion not really making up for it. And yet, I can’t deny that I have affection for this episode. When I was young and first getting into the show, it was a big favorite. Peter’s “Miiiiike!” and the Monkeemen scene always did me in. Honestly, those and all the other bits that always made me laugh and made me love it then, still make me laugh, even though it also makes me cringe hard at times. As I said before, this stuff is complicated. Luckily, the coming string of episodes are some of my favorites and hopefully won’t as a cringe-inducing and awkward to talk about. Oh, wait… Miss Farnsby is coming up. Shit!
"Monkees In Manhattan” begins as the band arrives at an NYC hotel in order to meet with McKinley Baker, an unknown Broadway producer who wants the band to star in his new musical. They spent all their money on the bus trip, so Baker offers to let them stay in his suite until he receives money from his financial backer. The boys accept, but soon the hotel manager, Mr. Weatherwax, threatens to throw Baker out for lack of payment. The manager refuses Baker’s promise for payment once he meets with his backer and gives them an hour to leave, so the boys must stall for the three hours until Baker’s backer meeting. Unfortunately, once the backer backs out, the boys then have to find a new one to save the show and find a way to pay the hotel.
