"Welcome to the world of The New Monkees, a show where rock and roll, high comedy ,warm funny characters and fantasy collide. It's a show where a simple story can lead somewhere you never expected to go. It's a show where the fourth wall is so full of holes why even discuss it? It's full of upbeat, irreverent humor, fast funny visuals and, most importantly, it's in color."
In 1986 my life had hit bottom city. The pits. It was as if God had pulled the rug out from under me and I wound up in the basement...after falling down the stairs one at a time. I was saved by the one constant that runs through my world. That's right, sports fans! I'm talkin' Television! The box with the little window pulled me up and shook me out. It was a time I'll never forget ( and that you don't remember ). Giants roamed the earth for a short while and I was lucky enough to ride piggy back with them. It was pretty fucking cool. And the money was okay too.
What follows is a handfull and a half of memories from a guy who wrote for The New Monkees T.V. show. It amazes me that no one has done this yet. The world is full of people with weird taste in media and somebody somewhere just might give enough of a shit to want to be filled in a little as to what went down. If you are one of those people this was written for you. If not, exit now and surf for some porno or whatever. It's okay by me. Really. I won't mind in the slightest. I promise.
Wow! You've hung in there! Too cool! Thanks and a big fat howdy to you and all that you hold near and dear. Do me a favor, will ya? As you read this stuff keep a couple of things in mind:
1) These are my memories. I drug them out of my own mind and wrote them down. Therefore, I just might have no idea of what I'm talking about. I don't know what really happened I only know how it looked to me. If, in reading this, you feel slighted in any way, shape, or form I'm sorry. Really. I hold no grudges and am not trying to attack anyone by writing this. Feel free to write your own version or send me one of those flame thingies. I can take it (in fact it would be kinda cool to hear from you!).
2) I don't splel or tyPe very well. If that kind of thing hampers your reading enjoyment I'm sorry about that too.
3) This is'nt a big deal. It's just a story. Sure, we all know that the show sucked. If it didn't I'd be making movies by now and you'd know who I am. I'd also have a cool house and lots and lots of cash and a very beautiful blonde woman with a real nice set of cochangas in a pink bathing suit that's about two sizes too small would be typing this right now while I drank champagne and hung around the pool listening to Oingo Boingo on my zillion dollar turntable...ah, well..I'm not trying to defend the show or make you think that it was any better than it actualy was. Let's leave that to people who are A) smarter than I am, B) much more fluid in the ways of media than I am, or C) the brain damaged.
4) Some of the names will be changed here and there. As I said before, I don't want to attach any blame to anyone (see above). Also, I've told this story a couple of times already and I'd like to keep a sense of flow throughout the verious versions of the tale.
5) I'd also like to give a crazy mad shout out to all the homeys and sister girlies out there who jammed on the muthafuckah and kicked the sucka all the way up in there and shit. But I'm a white guy and if I did it'd sound real stupid (and I don't mean "dope", brother man).
6) I never got copies of the show. If you know how I can feel free to E-me.
7) Sorry this thing has'nt got any big time graphics or anything like that. It's nothing more than a simple little story told in simple little words. I think being subtle has it's place now and then anyway.
Okay...here we go...
I grew up in the sixties. Pop culture back then was wonderful, or, at least it seems so in retrospect. We had The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and The Pink Panther and Motown and Hammer horror movies and The Who and James Bond and Marvel Comics and Fizzies and Top Cat and Flint movies and Warhol and Matt Helm and Jerry Lewis and Laugh-In and The Avengers and Bill Cosby and Fearless Fly and G.I. Joe and The Outer Limits and Rat Fink and Star Trek and Aurora and Revell and Famous Monsters Of Filmland and The Munsters and Fantastic Voyage and Batman and Vampirella and Planet Of The Apes and "Mama Mia! That's a spicy meatball!" and...well...you know what I mean,right?
The Beatles made a movie back then. It was called "A Hard Days Night" and these guys in Hollywood stole the idea (with love, mind you) and hired some other people and made a t.v. show called "The Monkees". It was on once a week and it grew to hold a very special place in my heart. Part rock and roll, part real weird comedy, and little messages now and then about life and love and all of that stuff. It was my favorite show at the time and I saw every single one of them. Oh...they made records too. I owned two or three of them as well. Cut to:
INT. AN APARTMENT IN HOLLYWOOD - 1986
I was living in Hollywood with a friend named Harold. I could'nt find work (I suck at that stuff, man!) and my presence was really getting on Harold's nerves. I called up an old friend from high school to see if he'd put me up for a while.
So...I moved into a tent in Rick's backyard. I swear.
"Hey, Rocky! Wake the fuck up!".
Rick is outside the tent. It's time for work. I have a smoke and a beer, climb into the truck and off we go. We drive across a lot of freeway and end up at the first lot. Rick starts up the leaf blower, helps me get it on my back and I start walking, blowing the trash away from the buildings and sidewalks so Rick can suck it up with the truck. The blower weighs a ton but I don't know how to drive, it's not like we can switch places or anything...ho hum...at least Rick's happy.
I'm sort of like a Ghostbuster. I've got this pack on my back and a wand in my hand and Rick drives around in the Ectomobile. It's a hell of a lot better on me if I deal with it in movie terms. When I get back to the truck I mention the Ghostbusters thing to Rick. He has no idea of what I'm talking about,having never seen the movie.
"What?", this freaks me out, "You've never seen Ghostbusters? Where are you from? Mars?".
Rick laughs at this...well, mainly he laughs at me. "You and your movies,man! We gotta get you back to reality and it better be soon!"
See...Rick feels that since I think I'm a writer type I have no idea of how the real world works. In fact Rick's new goal in life is teaching me how the real world works. "You'll never amount to anything if you think you'll get a kickback job like writing.", as he likes to say. Rick does'nt read,and so,does'nt know shit about writing.
One night Harold calls. It seems Jared was chosen to be in the cast of The New Monkees. He knows that Harold and I like to write and said that if we can pull something together he'll show it to the producers. I like Jared. He's a cool guy. I bet he'd help us in a minute. I tell all of this to Rick.
"Fuck, Rocky...Why don't you get a grip,dude? Get some food stamps and work harder. If you really think you're gonna get a kickback job like writing for a t.v. show you're only gonna end up...", and blah blah blah. Did I say that Rick likes to call writing a kickback job? I lied. He fucking loves it.
One day I couldn't take any more of his shit. I told him to bite me in front of his friends. Not friends like me, of course. Some of Rick's real friends. Coors light drinking, black joke telling, snotty to me because I like to write instead of talk about sports type friends. After Rick's zombie pals leave he has me pack my shit and we drive to my sister's place. I tell Rick that I'm sorry I blew up like that and that I hope I did'nt hurt him.
He drops me off and, as he drives away,he flips me off. What a jerk.
So...Harold and I wrote a script, the producers met with us, bought the script for a thousand dollars (the show being non-union) and a couple of weeks later met with us again. We were hired as staff writers for The New Monkees! It was just that easy. We were pulling in five hundred bucks a week...each! Man! I love television!
Meetings were a fucking trip. We'd get a cab, say, "Burbank Studios, please.", and sit back and dig on the ride. Once there we'd walk up to the little guard booth and tell them who we were. Then the guard says, "Go on in and have a nice day!", just like in the movies.
So...We stroll on to the lot and make our way to the Columbia Building, a large mirrored box that looks like it's out of Logan's Run or Clockwork Orange or something. We go in, sit down and have a Coke (Coca Cola owns Columbia so the soda's free) and get down to bizness. It's pretty easy.
The producers are wise asses. Just my kind of guys. They say, "This is good, change this and here's your check.". Then we go have lunch and write a bit at the studio cafeteria. You know how when you really belong somewhere it feels safe and warm no matter what you do or how you look? That's how it feels on the lot. I mean, I fuckin' work here! Dream come true time, daddy-o! No shit! After lunch we cruise the back lot. I fire up a butt and sneak hits off of a pint I have in my coat. There's a New York street, a hometown looking street, the water tower that later showed up in Animaniacs and, best of all, a western town. Blazing Saddles was shot here! Mel Brooks romed these dirt streets! I'm so fucking happy I almost can't stand it. I walk around saying, "Rock Ridge. Rock Ridge.", over and over. I get paid for this? It's better than sex,man. I promise.
Here's how the show works.
Four guys:
Dino - The tough guy with a heart of gold
Larry - The innocent guy
Marty - The genius/artist
and
Jared - The surfer guy
Live in a huge house that has nine hundred and ninety nine rooms. In the rooms is anything a writer can imagine. Anything at all. From swimming pools to other planets. From railway stations to fancy schmancy Hollywood parties.
There's also a butler, named Manford, and, in a sixties looking diner that sits just off from the living room, there's a waitress named Darlene.
The four guys are in a rock and roll band and they have a computer who talks.
That's pretty much all there is to it.
Writing scripts is sort of hard at first then,one night,I have a moment of slight Satori. By mentally splitting myself into seven segments, each segment being the core mindframe of the seven main characters, a sort of flow occurs. For example, all of Dino's actions and dialogue are written as if he were a guy from the Bronx and Jared's are written in the style of two or three guys that I went to high school with. After that it comes pretty easy. The stuff just pours out of Harold and I and, goddamn it, it's some good stuff.
The producers think so too. It's as if we can do anything we want on paper. When it's time for sleep, when I bother sleeping, I sometimes dream little scenes that can be used in episodes. Other times I dream of The Big Goal. What is The Big Goal?
CHANGING THE FACE OF TELEVISION AS WE KNOW IT.
I love this fucking job!
And then...slowly at first...things started to change...
First of all, we move from the Columbia Building to a building called "Producer's 7" (or maybe it was "Producers 4") or whatever. It's Ivan Rietman's building and Dan Aykroyd has an office there too! Going to the men's room becomes an event of total fright and worry...I picture myself taking a leak, Aykroyd comes in and says "Hello", my head explodes and I am found dead and on my back with my dick in my hand, a small fountian of whiz my last act of nature. I never see him though and I feel a bit cheated by this. I mean, we could've exchanged a "Howareya?" in the hallway. Ah, well...the buzz around the office is that we're going to get Peter Cook to play the butler! I'm one happy ass son of a bitch. Many fantasies fill my head: Peter Cook and I drinking together, Peter Cook and I having dinner, Peter Cook and I drinking some more and then dropping in on friends of mine (who have seen the movie "Bedazzled"" about seventy times just like I have) at three or four in the morning with the express purpose of freaking them the fuck out.
But alas...Mr. Cook asks for too much money, is'nt hired and I never get to meet him as well. This job does have it's bummers I guess.
It gets to the point where the guards know us. Harold and I walk up, wave,and stroll on in.
Sometimes we go to the studio just to have lunch and to pick up a couple of things at the company store, a place where you can get albums for five bucks and t-shirts for ten. The amount of famous people we run into is greatly increased as well. Like, I do a little shopping and get in line for food. A small blonde woman is in front of me. She says, in a squeeky New Yorkish voice,"I'm tryin' to find the salad bar!". She turns around...it's Cyndi Lauper! She's cute,
I mean "Cee-Fuckin-Youte!", man, I wouldn't kid ya at a time like this. We make eye contact and I freeze like a chipmunk in her headlights. She smiles and I say, "Gerrrf. Mell havfff outollel beedopherer.", or something along those lines so she shrugs and turns back around. I love this place!
In order to make writing more efficent I start staying at Harold's apartment. I give him a hundred dollars a week for rent. It's okay with me. My day goes something like this:
4:00 - I wake up,have a beer and, if need be, call the office.
5:00 - Take a shower.
6:00 - Go out for food.
7:00 - I notice that my shirt is dirty so I walk to Hollywood Blvd., buy a new shirt, see a movie, hit a record store, eat again, go to a book store, and buy more booze.
11:00 or 12:00 - Come home, rest, drink, watch t.v.,listen to music, etc.
2:00 - Take the small t.v. into the bathroom and write.
5:00 or 6:00 - sleep.
Harold starts to have some problems. First of all he can't write late night/early morning anymore. Seems he needs his sleep. Also: he can't write with the t.v. on...I can't write without it so I write in the bathroom while he sleeps. Third: he's really becoming a pain to work with...he snaps at me a lot and scenes that he write tend to ramble away from the story line. When I call him on this it only makes him angrier. Fuck! Like I need this shit...
After a while preproduction is finished. It seems we can't shoot on the Burbank lot because of the cost. Damn! Filming and such is going to happen at a place in Valencia, you know, near Magic Mountian? It's quite a trek...
We get a ride to the studio. Lisa drove us. Lisa is a very smart, very cute, slightly momlike redhead that I get a fast crush on. Flirting with her goes nowhere even faster, which, all in all is kinda cool. We become friends...no pressure on us or anything. I like knowing where things stand straight from the begining...it makes me feel sort of mature (well,maturesque anyway) but I gotta tell ya, I would've loved to have gotten her drunk and naked just once...hey! I'm a guy! Sue me,P.C. boy! She was a babe,okay?
Anywayz...We get to the studio. You walk through these glass doors which open on a entry room - sitting room - waiting room kind of place. A flight of stairs takes you to the Art Dept. or you can pass through another door which leads to the offices. Although some of the offices are, in fact, offices most of them are spaces that are sectioned off with those free standing/half a wall/room splitter-upper things. It's pretty powerful walking through these working stiffs knowing that you're the guys who do the writing. We meet a lot of people, clothes folk, grips, artists, sound techies, the whole deal. They all say the same thing, " You're Harold and Rocky? The producers love you guys!". Our hat sizes swell a notch or two.
So..They're shooting a scene in the diner. The director yells, "Cut!",so Harold sticks his head in a fake window to say hello to Jared.
"Hey!", Harold says, to me, "C'mere a minute!".
I stick my head in the window and see Darlene, the waitress. Woah, lawdy mama! Darlene is played by Bess Motta. Bess used to be on a show called "Twenty Minute Workout". I spent many a morning alone watching Bess workout, if you know what I mean (and I bet you do). She was also in a little movie called "The Terminator", she had a pet lizard, wore a Walkman and was killed by Arnold as she made a sandwich - good ol' family entertainment. Well, my family anyway.
Now...I've never met Bess and I'm sure she has no idea who the hell I am but there she is,
standing around waving at me with a big girly smile. I wave back and find a place to sit down.
It's time to play "Catch Your Breath"! Wow, I love this place too!
One night Harold and I get in a fight. Not with fists or anything, he'd have beat me into next month! Just a lot of yelling. To be honest, Harold did most of the yelling. I don't yell very often...you really have to piss me off to get me going. Don't get me wrong, I do yell and it's not a pretty sight but I really have to feel stepped on before I let loose. I'm easy going most of the time, you understand.
Anywayz...Harold's yelling away. I'm sitting there watching him pontificate and I notice a poster on the wall. It's a framed poster from the movie "Alien" without glass. There is a postcard stuck up between the edge of the frame and the poster itself at each of the top corners. Both the "A" and the "N" are covered by a postcard so I'm pretty much looking at a poster that says"LIE"in big white letters. Man! He sleeps under the thing! I mean, what would Freud say? The image of this strikes me like a truck. "LIE"? Jesus! I decide it's time to leave.
So...back to my sister's place...
Hooray for Hollywood! The Blvd! Man! This place is nuts! Check this shit out and keep in mind it's all true...
1) I'm walking on The Blvd. and laying on the sidewalk is a large pile of assorted footwear. It looks like it was tossed out of a ten or twenty story window. "Oh, my God!", I scream, "It's a shoe-a-cide!". No one reacts. It's as if this kind of thing happens every day.
2) I'm coming home from a movie and two guys are fighting on the sidewalk. One guy picks up the other guy and throws him into the street. The second guy arcs into the air and lands on the yellow line in the middle of The Blvd. He screams, "Nice fucking toss,man!". Do people act like this ih Ohio?
3) I'm doing laundry. The only pants I have to wear were torn in the front so I had to sew them up. The seam runs from from the bottom of the fly in a stright line to the top of the right pocket. It looks so lame that I only wear them on laundry day. Aw, shit! I'm out of cigarettes so I go to the store in these stupid pants. It's a sunny day so I have my baseball cap pulled down tight and I'm walking with my head low to keep the sun out of my eyes.
I glance up and see, coming toward me, a nice set of tits. Not too big. Not too small. Just nice. Cleavage City, if you catch my drift.
So...these hooters are bouncin' my way in this tight top and I'm thinking, "Wow! I wonder what she looks like?".
She gets closer and I look up at her face...she has stubble! Like a seven or eight o'clock shadow! It's a fucking guy! He looks at the lousy sewing job on my pants and says, "Hey! Nice penis!", like it's exactly what someone would say in a situation like this! Laugh? I thought I'd Die! I love this fucking town!
Producer number one has a problem...he's gaining weight. His girlfriend calls his potbelly "Poochie" so, to prove his love (or whatever), we have to write an episode where Jared's brain is put into a dog called Poochie so the word Poochie is spoken a whole bunch of times on T.V. and everybody will know how much he loves his girlfriend (or whatever). Hey, why do you think they call it work?
Now...I've written an episode where a soul comes back from the afterlife and explains that death isn't as bad as we all fear it is because we all end up going to heaven. I mainly wrote it for and because of my dead grandfather, both to deal with my feelings about his death and to give the kids who will watch a little something to think about. The producers won't even read it. I'm being too heavy for a comedy show and, besides teaching viewers something isn't as cool as saying the word Poochie a whole bunch of times. The "Death Episode" was, in fact very fucking funny and not that heavy at all. But when you won't even take the time to read something I guess you get to draw any conclusions you'd like.
Okay...I'm doing a job here and my bosses want something...besides,they are paying me so...
what the fuck can I say? I'll swallow it and, once the show picks up, I'll try for smarter scripts. Harold and I write the dog show.
It's not what they want.
We write it again.
It's still not what they want.
We write it again.
And again.
And again.
I hate it. Harold hates it. They love it. And change it.
So...why did'nt they just change it the first time?
You tell me.
Producer one has another problem (what's with this guy?). There's a line in a script that he'd like me to make funnier. Can I do it?
"No. I Can't.".
"Why not?".
"It's the set up to the joke. If the set up is funny then the joke won't work. Two straights and a left, you know? Carson's Rule Of Three?".
"What?".
"Look...Comedy and horror movies work exactly the same way. The girl, who's usualy naked, looks in the closet...nothing's there...she looks in the shower...nothing's there...she looks out the window...WHAMMO! She gets an ax in the face!".
"Huh?".
"Comedy works the same way. Nothing...nothing...WHAMMO! You throw in the monkey wrench. It's the rule of three. Three guys walk into a bar. Three nuns are on a waterbed...like that. If I change number two in a list set up then number three is pointless.".
"Well...", he says, after a long pause, "I don't like horror movies and try to make number two a little funnier.".
I went home and got drunk.
So...I'm at Harold's place one night. We've finished a long writing session and are hanging out drinking and smoking and talking. He does'nt always yell and when he does'nt he's a pretty cool guy.
"I love this job!", I say, "It's one of my dream jobs from childhood!".
"What are some of the others?", he asks.
"Well...you know those posters that are plastered up on those wooden fence things that are put up around buildings before they're finished? They're starched or whatever? It would be so hip to do that. Riding around in a van with three or four other guys drinking and listening to cool music, you know, like Miles Davis or the Peter Gunn soundtrack, something like that and then stopping at one of those wood things, leaping out of the van, sticking those posters up, jumping back in and then driving to the next place. It'd be like art patrol or something! That'd be the life, man!".
"Yeah...",Harold says, "That'd be kind of cool, I guess.".
"You guess? What could be cooler than that?".
Harold smiles. "The United States ambassador to Switzerland.",he says,"How hard could that be? Hanging around with women at parties going 'Oh, fine. Everything's fine.' Handing out chocolate and army knives. 'Sure, Mr. President. I think I could get you a clock.' That's the life, smart guy!".
I lit up another bowl and passed it to Harold. "Alright...", I said, "You win.".
The producers go nuts over a script of mine! Hooray!
It's called "All My Martys" and deals with Marty being cloned a few hundred times and going KA-RAY-ZEE all over the house. I stand around watching as it"s shot.
The director of the episode sits in a chair and watches the action on a video monitor. "Hey!", I say, to prouducer number two, "I could do that! Watching television was my major in high school!".
Number two looks me over a moment. "I'll tell you what...when we get picked up for the second set I'll let you do one.How does that sound!".
How does it sound!?!? It sounds like I'm gonna direct, that's how it fucking sounds!
YAHOOOO!
So...Harold goes to a meeting without me. He comes home with a check for each of us and some bad news...the first thirteen shows are done so there's no more work for us to do until we get picked up for the second set of episodes (what they call "The Back Nine". Thirteen plus nine is twenty two, and twenty two is how many episodes there are in a season).
That's right...We're out of work. Harold is crazed by this. He stomps around his apartment ranting and raving about the injustice in this town, how he never should have left New York, etc. Me? I take a hike. I walk Hollywood Blvd. drinking off a pint of Cap't Morgan's
and thinking...we have to wait for the show to go on the air then, after we get picked up, we'll have nine more shows to do. The producers already want one of the ones that I wrote alone.
Things'll work out. I'm gonna direct! Fuck it. I've got money...
Months pass. The show goes on the air and it's not very well liked....well.okay... ...it sucks. It sucks so bad that channel 5, the channel that showed it here in L.A., yanked it out of it's 7:30 time slot and ran it at 1:30 in the morning...AW,FUCK!!! What a bummer! We were canceled and were not picked up for the back nine. I never got to direct.
The show faded away. We were made fun of on Letterman and, although I don't remember which episode, Joel made fun of us on MST 3K, both of which I'm pretty fucking proud of (hey! have they ever made fun of you?). Things could've been worse.
Of course, they could've been better...
Nowadays nobody even remembers the show. In fact, Harold and I are the answer to one of the hardest trivia questions you could possibly imagine. Nope! You ain't gonna be seeing our names on "Jeopardy" any time soon...say-la-vee.
Me? I see it like this: I met a lot of real cool people and got paid a hundred dollars a day to attend a mid-level writing school. I got to mingle with creative types and hung around drunk on a real working sound stage. It was kind of like being in love...you meet someone, there are fireworks a plenty, and then - POOF! - it all fades away except the memory. But, sometimes, on cold and lonely nights,those memories warm you and keep you safe and you laugh to yourself and button up your coat and say, "Fuck you,man! Hit me with all you've got. I wrote for The New Monkees!", and then you grit your teeth and trudge out into the night.
I only wish I'd never called everyone I've ever known and told them to watch the show.
Oh...I really miss the money too...
BIG FAT X-TRA SPECIAL THANX TO PHILO FARNSWORTH FOR CAUSING ALL THIS SHIT IN THE FIRST PLACE. I OWE YOU BIGTIME, DADDY-O!!!
For more New Monkees fun, check out Mike Larsen's Page
