CHAPTER 15

The Monkees in “The Movies”

Because of the Monkees’ rapid popularity, there was talk early on of making a feature film, but there wasn’t time to give it much attention. It was only natural for them to star in a motion picture. The Beatles, Herman’s Hermits, and others had done it, and the Monkees were already contracted to the TV division of a major studio.

Director Bob Rafelson liked to expand and experiment in the medium in which he was working. While The Monkees TV show was certainly formulaic, the use of quick cutting and breaking the fourth wall (where the actors stop the drama and talk directly to the audience) were progressive by TV standards. During the second season Rafelson broke out of the routine format and presented episodes that were documentaries (“The Monkees On Tour,” “The Monkees in Paris”), fantasy (“Fairy Tale”), and just plain strange (“Monkees Watch Their Feet”). Weirder still was “Mijacogeo (The Frodis Caper),” the last episode of the show, which Micky Dolenz wrote and directed. “Frodis” was the Monkees’ slang for marijuana. Rather than expand a TV situation into a feature film, which was how it was usually done, Rafelson wanted the feature film to be markedly different, and so did the Monkees.

Davy, Micky, Mike, and Peter felt very strongly about wanting to influence the content of the movie. The group was riding high with their first four singles being big hits: two number ones, a number two, and a number three. And they had completed an extremely successful thirty-date summer tour. As a result, in November 1967 Rafelson invited the Monkees to join him, along with producer Bert Schneider, and Jack Nicholson, for a weekend at the Ojai Valley Inn. A lot of marijuana was smoked, and the participants made suggestions for what they wanted to see in a Monkees movie. At that point Nicholson was a TV actor with recurring appearances on Dr. Kildare and The Andy Griffith Show. Rafelson had met him at a film society screening and connected with his intelligence and humor. He liked the way Nicholson had structured his script for The Trip, an American International Pictures film about the new LSD culture. Primarily because Rafelson liked him, he hired him to take everybody’s ideas from that meeting and write the script, with his input. Nicholson reported back to Rafelson: “These guys are mad, they think they’re Marlon Brando!”

The film’s original title, “Changes,” reflected changes on many levels compared with the TV show. When it was determined that another film had claimed that name, the title was changed to Head. A slang usage of the term at the time referred to one who was a marijuana smoker, shortened from pothead. It also referred to the movie as taking place in somebody’s head. Drugs influenced much more than the title of the movie. It was structured like an acid trip, and Rafelson and Nicholson wrote scenes for the script while tripping on LSD. An early form of solarization was developed to provide some color-changing psychedelic effects for some scenes.

Rather than a story, the film was composed of short episodes, many of them standard genres from the history of film: Western, World War II, musical, silent movie; dropped from the script was a lengthy scenario set in 1880s Japan with a samurai adversary named Godzilla. Rafelson wasn’t sure he was going to be able to direct another feature, so he wanted to get an idea of what it would be like to sample various settings and styles. The boxing scenes were inspired by Body and Soul and the desert scenes by Lawrence of Arabia.

Unlike in the TV show, where the Monkees are charming and cute, in Head their characters are unlikeable. Some of the film reflected the Monkees’ concerns: their manufactured image, smart Peter Tork’s role being that of the dummy, and Mike disliking surprises. But most of it was bizarre; the scenes didn’t add up. When I saw it for the first time in the mid-1970s, I thought even then that it was ahead of its time. The Monkees look great, the songs are good, and the mind is engaged trying to understand what it’s all about. The film had high production values even though it only cost $790,000.

Rafelson was expressing himself as the director at the same time as he was trying to depart from convention and make a hip film to re-invigorate the Monkees. The film was so strange and the group so unlikeable, that members of the Monkees suggest that Rafelson, now tired of the TV show and wanting to direct features, intended to kill off the band. I disagree. Contributing to their suspicion is a scene where the Monkees leap from a large bridge into the ocean. But that scene was in the first draft of the script, submitted in December 1967, when the Monkees were at their most potent. Rafelson was not the only director of the TV show’s episodes, and while it may have been clear to him that it was his last Monkees project, it’s also clear that everyone involved desired to make a quality film. As an actor, Micky is particularly impressive, but he didn’t get the recognition.

Had the film been released six months earlier when the Monkees last big hit, “Valleri,” was still on the charts, there would have been more interest from Monkees fans. But by the time of the release of the movie in November, the Monkees had been out of the top ten for seven months. “Porpoise Song,” the theme from Head, didn’t even make the Top 50. With the TV series off the air, the group was cold, and marketing the film was a big problem.

Rafelson miscalculated big time in embracing Marshall McLuhan’s philosophy on media and Andy Warhol’s pop art imagery. He wanted his film to be appreciated by the hip cognoscenti. So, rather than market the film as a Monkees’ feature, the dominant campaign was aimed at older moviegoers. It featured the head of avant-garde marketer and Warhol follower John Brockman in the poster, print ads, billboard ads, and TV commercial, sans Monkees. The film bombed at the box office. Years later, after Rafelson had established himself as a cutting edge director with Five Easy Pieces and producer with Easy Rider, people, like the Rolling Stones, had him set up screenings of Head. I’ve seen the film many times, and I still find it engrossing.

As part of Rhino’s acquisition of the Monkees catalogue, I wanted to increase their exposure by producing a new feature film. On TV shows and in movies, actors usually play characters. Such was the case in The Monkees, except here, to some extent, they played themselves and used their real names. Because of that it was difficult for me to imagine a Monkees movie with other actors in the roles. The Monkees were in their early fifties, but so were the Marx Brothers when they were making movies.

The success of The Addams Family movie in 1991 ushered in a fad of reviving 1960s TV sitcoms as feature films: The Adams Family Values and The Beverly Hillbillies followed in 1993, The Brady Bunch in 1995. Those were very successful, but not all were. McHale’s Navy bombed in 1997. It didn’t take much imagination to see The Monkees on the list.

Early in 1994 we were alerted to an “open assignment” notice to talent agencies posted by Columbia Pictures looking for a writer for a Monkees movie. That’s strange, I thought, as Columbia didn’t own the rights to make a Monkees movie—we did. I called the executive who was mentioned, Lisa Henson (daughter of Jim Henson, creator of The Muppets). Barry Josephson called me back. He was stumbling on the phone, saying that it was the idea of the Brillstein-Grey Company and suggested I meet with their executive, Howard Rosenman. Brillstein-Grey managed mostly comedians and was involved in producing TV shows. They had an overhead deal with Columbia at the time. This meant that the studio was paying for overhead, and the only way Columbia could get that investment back was from fees paid to the producer if projects were realized.

Howard and a couple of his guys met with us. He said it was Josephson’s idea to do the movie. He pitched a story of one-time Monkees’ manager, used-car salesman Jon Lovitz, trying to get the group to reform twenty-five years later as a grunge group. It seemed that Rosenman was coming from a place of trying to capitalize on the TV movie fad rather than a love for or an understanding of the original TV show. The writers he invited to attend the meeting had never seen the show. Nonetheless, I was open, and tried to improve on their idea, but they lost interest.

In early 1995, Jeff Sherman wrote a script for the Monkees titled “The Foregone Conclusion.” It had some nice elements and was a spy farce along the lines of Austin Powers, which came a couple of years later. Jeff was a staff producer and writer for the Boy Meets World TV show, and he also was writing with Micky Dolenz. I went on a few pitch meetings with Jeff, and a friendship developed, but no one was interested in his idea.

During the summer David Hoberman came to see me. I had met with him ten years before, pitching him movie ideas when he was an executive at Disney. He was a nice enough guy, if low on energy, but he had questionable taste. At the time he was excited about Earnest Goes to Camp. The low budget feature starred Jim Varney as Ernest P. Worrell, a character he had created who became popular from appearing in commercials, and it made a lot of money for Disney’s Touchstone division. That film and its sequels represented lowbrow entertainment. They weren’t well reviewed by film critics.

Like Rosenman, Hoberman was interested in making a feature of The Monkees, but seemed more of an opportunist than someone who expressed any ideas. I wasn’t interested in merely making a movie for Rhino to pocket the licensing fees. The goal was to make a good movie, preferably one starring the original Monkees. Hoberman wanted a free option, which meant that he could tie up the rights to the film for a year without paying Rhino any money, even if he did nothing. We had a couple more meetings. I would have liked to make it work, but his interest waned. Subsequently, he was one of the producers who made a live-action movie of the cartoon George of the Jungle. The movie was not well reviewed, but it grossed over $100 million at the box office.

When Brandon Tartikoff was president of NBC Entertainment, he had Mike Nesmith produce a show titled Television Parts for the 1985 summer season. The show was based on Mike’s groundbreaking 1981 video Elephant Parts that won the first Grammy Award in the Music Video category. Television Parts didn’t fare well in the ratings, but Brandon and Mike established an enduring friendship. Brandon had NBC Productions provide financing for two of Mike’s Pacific Arts feature films, Tape Heads and Square Dance. In June 1996, after initial discussions with Mike, Brandon met with me to express his idea for a Monkees movie. He suggested setting it in the town where the Weekly World News was published and incorporating the strange events they reported in their pages. The supermarket tabloid was similar to The National Enquirer (and printed on their former presses when the Enquirer went to color), but was more implausible, with stories about space aliens and Elvis sightings.

Mike was friendly with Bob Katz, who became interested in the project. Bob rented a hangar at the Santa Monica Airport to house his motorcycle collection across from the one that Mike used as his office. Katz was partnered with Moctesuma Esparza in a production company. I had met with them previously when they were interested in teaming with us to produce the Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas movie. Even though I didn’t like Brandon’s idea, I valued what Mike had put together, so I was supportive. Katz was going to put up the money to develop the movie, which meant having a script written.

The other Monkees were all too willing to star in another feature film. Negotiations were proceeding, with each member of the Monkees to be paid $250,000 to act, which meant a million dollars for the group of four. All of a sudden Davy decided he wanted a million dollars, just for himself. It was an unreasonable demand, especially because it was difficult to determine if the Monkees could attract enough ticket buyers to justify the budget of such a film. Davy couldn’t be dissuaded. The project fell apart, and his action attracted the others’ disdain.

In the fall of 1998 I got a call from Vin Di Bona Productions, who were interested in producing a Monkees biopic for TV. They told me that VH1 was starting a new division to produce low budget TV movies of rock music stories. Vin Di Bono was best known for producing America’s Funniest Home Videos. I couldn’t see what they could bring to the production. From the meeting I had at their office with a handful of their executives, I didn’t get a sense that they were either passionate or knowledgeable about the Monkees. They were only offering a fee to Rhino of $75,000.

I wanted to get more of an understanding of what VH1 wanted to do, so I set up a meeting with Mike Larkin, the vice president of VH1’s Motion Pictures division. I thought that if Rhino Films was the producer, the picture would be better and the record company would make more money. In addition to telling the Monkees story, I wanted it to be more authentic than similar docudramas. Larkin had no allegiance with Di Bona and was fine with having Rhino Films produce, but wanted to have us work with another company that was experienced in producing movies made for TV. He recommended his previous employer, Howard Braunstein of Jaffe-Braunstein Productions. Their business was making TV movies, mostly in Canada to take advantage of the tax breaks the Canadian government gave for not only location filming but also for the use of above-the-line Canadian talent, which could include producers, writers, actors, or the director.

Larkin liked the script that Ron McGee had written for VH1’s Meat Loaf: To Hell and Back and recommended him to write the Monkees. I worked with Ron on the story. When the script was written, I forwarded a copy to each of the Monkees, Bob Rafelson, ex-manager Ward Sylvester, Don Kirshner, and Monkees experts Andrew Sandoval, Bill Inglot, and Eric Lefcowitz. Nobody pointed out any inaccuracies, and Peter and Micky gave me their approval.

In February 2000 I received a letter from Mike’s attorney, objecting to his off-screen life being depicted in the movie. It wasn’t clear to me if Mike read the script or had any specific objection. The letter said, in part, “it will be viewed as an infringement of Mr. Nesmith’s rights and will be vigorously defended by him.” Just because an attorney is paid to write a letter and make a claim on behalf of a client doesn’t make it a valid one. In this case, given that we were making a facts-based movie, I thought Mike and his attorney were off base. I felt personally hurt by the two letters his attorney sent me.

I thought I had a good relationship with Mike, going back twenty-nine years. While most of our interaction was business, some of it was social, and I thought we enjoyed each other’s company. I had worked with him on enough projects for Mike to know that I had artistic integrity as well as a commercial sense. I was always sensitive to his and the other members’ wishes. That he didn’t pick up the phone and call me to express himself, and instead had a lawyer send me letters, was a big disappointment and changed the way I felt about him.

Braunstein was great to work with and allowed me the freedom to forge the creative elements while he dealt with the physical production, the financing aspects, and suggestions from VH1. For me, I like actors to look like their subjects. For example, around the time we were casting our movie, The Beach Boys: An American Family miniseries aired on TV. The actor who played Beach Boy Brian Wilson did a fine job, but I kept thinking he didn’t look like Brian, which pulled me out of the movie as a viewer. In Little Richard, a TV movie that aired around the same time, the actor who played Richard was good, but he was about a foot taller than the real Richard.

With the Monkees being so recognizable from the TV show, it was important to me to get actors who looked like them. I chose three of the actors in Los Angeles. Peter Tork said of L. B. Fisher, the actor who played him, “He looks more like me than me.” George Stanchev was another find. He showed up to the initial casting interview wearing a longhaired wig, and made an immediate impression. He was also short. He got as close to projecting Davy’s charm as I believe anybody could. Only after the filming was completed did Davy suggest using his nephew. “He looks just like me,” he said. Micky Dolenz was a hard one to cast because his features are so flat. Davy used to call him “Skillet Face.” It was a tough role for Aaron Lohr, who hadn’t much experience, but he pulled it off. Jeff Geddis, who was cast in Canada, looked remarkably like Mike Nesmith. He assumed the role so well that at times when I watched the finished movie, I forgot I was watching an actor. They were all young actors with great attitudes and looked more like their subjects than any ensemble cast.

Colin Ferguson, who is best known for his later role of Sheriff Jack Carter in the Eureka TV series, played a composite of the Monkees’ producers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider, and he looked like them. Early on I told Rafelson about the project and asked him if he wanted to be the director. He was ten years past his last significant feature, Black Widow, and had recently finished an HBO film, Poodle Springs, from Raymond Chandler’s incomplete novel. Rafelson thought about it, but decided that he didn’t want to revisit that period of his life. Later, expressing privacy issues, he asked me to not have his character named in the movie. I minded, but not too much, as it was a composite character and I didn’t think he was that well known.

The main casting problem I had was with VH1’s selection of Wallace Langham to play Don Kirshner, the Monkees’ music supervisor. I was familiar with Langham, who is best known for having portrayed a writer on The Larry Sanders Show. But Langham was skinny. Kirshner was plump, Jewish, and spoke with a New York accent. Because of all the unknown actors, VH1 wanted someone who was more familiar to the kids and had us pay him a lot of money, $70,000, for a week of work.

I chose all the music for the film and negotiated all the licensing deals. “All of Your Toys” was an unreleased song that Bill Inglot found in the tape vaults. It was recorded during the Headquarters sessions. The song wasn’t released at the time because Screen Gems publishing, which was owned by Columbia Pictures, didn’t publish the song and didn’t want to give away the income to another company. It sounded to me like it would have been a hit had it been released back then. Because it was largely unfamiliar to Monkees fans, I wanted to give them a treat, and featured it in the movie.

Howard Braunstein’s priority was to get the picture finished so it could be delivered to the network in order to meet the scheduled airdate. For him it was a matter of expediency and completion, not artistry or quality. He had produced a lot of TV movies, but none were memorable. My point is that, whether you have a small amount of money or a huge amount, a good movie can be made.

I would have preferred to film in Los Angeles, where the story was set. The funding came from VH1 ($1.9 million), World International Network ($800,000), and the Canadian government ($500,000). Because of the tax subsidy, it was filmed in Toronto, where there are no palm trees. It was shot in four weeks, March to April.

For a low-budget movie, the location manager did an excellent job. A recently cancelled Canadian soap opera, Riverdale, provided many sets in one location. Lake Ontario stood in for the Santa Monica beach scene at the end of the movie. Of course there were no waves. Viewers failed to see the snow on the ground in the distance at the scene that took place at a farm in Beeton.

I had the Monkees beach house interior recreated. After filming wrapped, I thought it would be cool to have the set reconstituted in our lobby. I was told the trucking fee would be so costly that it would have been cheaper to construct the set from scratch in Los Angeles. For the scene where Jimi Hendrix opens for the Monkees, I had wardrobe copy the “eye jacket” that Hendrix wore on tour in 1967.

Copps Coliseum, with an ice floor set for hockey, stood in for the concert hall for the Monkees’ live scene. Stanchev told me he experienced what it was like to be a Monkee on stage. Even though he and the others were miming to the Monkees’ thirty-year-old live recordings, the teenage extras in the audience were genuinely caught up in the experience and responded like real, emotional fans.

Davy called me and suggested that he play the role of his dad. It was such a good idea, how could I have not thought of it? Davy would fly in on a Tuesday, act his part on Wednesday, and fly out on Thursday. We offered what we thought was fair, $35,000 for the one day of work. I thought he was going to do it, but then he decided that he wanted double what we offered. We couldn’t justify that in a $3 million budget. Much to my disappointment, he passed. From what he was making as a solo act, he would have to have worked a few weeks to earn $35,000. He would have benefitted himself financially, made the movie better, and ingratiated himself to Rhino. It’s another example of Davy making a poor business decision. The actor who was cast in Canada was bald. Davy’s father had hair. Why wasn’t an actor used who had hair? Would it have cost more money?

I suggested having Micky Dolenz direct. He had experience directing for TV and theater in England and had an excellent comedic sense. Because he hadn’t directed a TV movie before, Larkin rejected him. Neill Fearnley was chosen because he was competent and he was Canadian. It frustrated me that he wasn’t better. I viewed the scenes that were shot—the “dailies”—a day after. I could weigh in on what takes I preferred but I couldn’t suggest what should have been done. In one scene the Monkees flee from chasing fans into a hotel and pass a waiter balancing a bottle of champagne on a tray. There was an opportunity for comedy in having the bottle fall, but it was missed. The actor who played John Lennon in a party scene looked way too old and had the wrong mustache for the “Sgt. Pepper” period. The reason the Monkees wore the same hairstyles was because Fearnley said that in using the same location for different periods, it would take too long to change the wigs. I wish he was more sensitive to Micky’s hair, as his style was totally different during the TV show’s second season. The fans were obviously critical of that, and didn’t know the reason why.

Daydream Believers: The Monkees’ Story ran a number of times in July 2000 on VH1. It was a success across the board. It was among the highest viewed in VH1’s movie series. Larkin called the movie “terrific” and thought Fearnley did “an amazing job.” Micky told me, “I was pleasantly surprised. It was honest, loving, accurate, and sensitive. It was great. It captured the spirit very well. I’m glad you did it.” Peter and Davy gave me compliments as well, as did Ward Sylvester, although he thought we were too easy on Don Kirshner. I never heard from Mike.

The only disappointment came from CD sales. As an entertaining movie with great music throughout, I thought it would be reasonable to expect 10 percent of the viewers to purchase a “Greatest Hits” or other Monkees’ album. In the initial period in which it was shown, we sold 20,000 more albums than usual, which we calculated was about one album sold for every one hundred viewers.

When Simon Fuller was in town to set up American Idol, he scheduled an initial meeting at Rhino to discuss producing a “New Monkees” TV show. I couldn’t see much point in it. Nor did I see it with the New Monkees TV show, that ran in syndication in 1987 and performed so poorly that not all the completed episodes were shown. There were some good elements to that show, but it seemed more like Schneider and Rafelson taking the money and running. To me, the Monkees were the Monkees, those four guys and no one else. If you want to do something similar—don’t forget, the Beatles were similar—call it something else. I suggested this to Fuller, but he wanted to take advantage of the Monkees’ exceptional repertoire by having the actors record new versions of the old hits.

Simon Cowell, soon to be the star judge of American Idol, attended the second meeting with the intention of having the new group’s recordings released on his custom label through RCA Records. I like learning about new areas that I have an interest in. This was an opportunity to learn about producing a weekly network TV series. Fuller suggested that the two of us produce the show together. Similar to the Why Do Fools Fall in Love and the Daydream Believers movies, Rhino Films would coproduce the TV show, and the Rhino label would derive a licensing fee for use of the Monkees’ property.

Because of the immediate success of American Idol, the executives at Fox TV were interested in any of Fuller’s projects, and that included the “New Monkees.” But Fuller thought he should establish relationships at the other TV studios. NBC, with languishing ratings, was interested. The proposed series was championed by Ted Harbert, a big Beatles fan. Fuller’s time was spread too thinly. He wasn’t in LA enough to physically meet with NBC. He designated Alan Barnette, who had worked as a producer on the S Club 7 pop group’s TV show. Barnette and I got along really well, but Fuller’s absence worked against the project. Ex-Simpsons writers and producers Josh Weinstein and Bill Oakley wrote a pilot episode that NBC liked. Most of the casting was in place, with Jay Baruchel slated to be the drummer.

On February 13, 2003, there was a big meeting at NBC in Burbank. Alan and I and the writers met with the NBC executives before they were to meet the cast. We were ushered into an office where Jeff Zucker, president of NBC Entertainment, was excitedly watching the debut of Are You Hot? The Search for American’s Sexiest People. Although it was an afternoon meeting, Zucker was viewing an East Coast feed of the show as it aired on ABC. With his bald head, Zucker struck me as a cross between Homer Simpson and comedian Don Rickles. On the TV, Lorenzo Lamas, one of the experts on the show’s panel, was aiming his laser pointer at a contestant’s breasts while verbalizing his assessment. Zucker was exclaiming, “This is a train wreck!” I took his excitement to mean that he thought the public would respond to this show and make it a hit. If this was his sensibility, I thought I would have difficulty relating to him. The show was cancelled five weeks later.

Zucker liked our cast and the script and said he was “green lighting” the production of the pilot episode. The production of a pilot, or sample show, doesn’t guarantee that the network will like the show and add it to their schedule, but it’s a necessary step to see what the show’s all about before more are ordered and money is spent. Before our pilot could advance, because of NBC’s poor ratings, executives were fired, including Hartley. At the same time, another pilot script Oakley and Weinstein had written was picked up, and NBC thought they would be unavailable for the “New Monkees.” I was given both reasons as to why Zucker reneged on “green lighting” our pilot. Oakley’s and Weinstein’s other show, The Mullets, was the lowest rated show of the season. When we later approached Fox TV about the “New Monkees,” their interest had cooled.