Where Are They Now: The Monkees

Here they come...walking down the street. The Monkees were the Naked Jonas Brothers Band from Montana of their day. Okay, that was a cruel. The Monkees expressed a thousand times more humor and intelligence in just one episode than it is likely the Naked Brothers Band, the Jonas Brothers Band and Hannah Montana will express throughout their Nickelodeon careers. At the height of Beatlemania in the late 1960s some clever writers and producers managed to find a network executive who was interested in expanding the concept of the 1960s sitcom and create a prefab rock group that weekly engaged in the same kind of offbeat and often surreal humor made so popular by that Fab Four from Liverpool in their movies A Hard Day's Night and, especially, Help!

The Monkees were, in case you don't remember: Mike Nesmith, Peter Tork, Davy Jones and Micky Dolenz and at their height they were actually outselling the Beatles. In fact, for a brief period of time The Monkees actually outsold the Beatles and the Rolling Stones combined. There is a standard rumor that the members of the Monkees could not play musical instruments at all. That is a bald-faced lie. In fact, Peter Tork was capable of playing a variety of stringed instruments quite well. All four members were musically inclined, although none of them had ever played drums before. The members of the Monkees actually did all their own performing during live shows, but a constant battled with highly overrated musical kingpin Don Kirshner kept them from being recorded for the live tracks. Eventually, a feud developed between Mike Nesmith and Don Kirshner that would erupt into a full scale rebellion.

The Monkees soon grew tired of the scripts that were basically just the same thing over and over and as a result the show only lasted two seasons. A much more mature movie co-written by none other than Jack Nicholson was released. The rumor goes that this movie was given the title Head, so that in the event a sequel was called for the advertisements could read "From the people who gave you Head." A sequel was never commissioned despite the fact that the Monkees' Head is a much more spirited and more universally authentic glimpse at the counterculture of the 1960s than a piece of overrated garbage like Easy Rider. If you haven't seen Head yet, you really need to rectify that situation.

The Monkees actually continued on a singing entity for a few years after the end of the TV show and the movie and, of course, irregularly there have been attempts at a reunion over the years. The band went its separate ways for the most part and their post-Monkees careers have been, in many cases, far more interesting. Michael Nesmith, in particular, went on to much greater things following the collapse of the Monkees. As you are probably already aware, Mike's mother was the inventor of Liquid Paper and since he remained on good terms with her he was never forced to do something for money. As a result, Nesmith's life after the Monkees had been one labor of love after another. Nesmith played a huge part in the country-rock movement of the early 1970s; he actually wrote the huge Linda Ronstadt hit "Different Drum." So much for the idea that the Monkees were just actors playing musicians. Nesmith's biggest claim to fame, however, was his role as a genuine pioneer in the medium of music videos. In fact, it is not going too far too call Michael Nesmith the father of MTV. Nesmith created a show revolving around music videos called Pop Clips that was later bought by Time Warner and turned into, yes, MTV. His most recent foray into the world of the Monkees occurred when he joined the 1998 reunion tour and recorded the first Monkees album to include all four members since the soundtrack to Head. Nesmith continues to be at the forefront of the world of video and is currently a nominating member of the American Film Institute. So if you believed that Lawrence of Arabia should not be on any list of American films like I do, take it up with a Monkee.

Following the Monkees Davy Jones' most memorable moment was kissing Marcia Brady in one of the most famous episodes of the Brady Bunch. He also performed both as a solo act and as part of Monkees reunions. Oddly enough, little Davy Jones, the biggest sex symbol of the Monkees, has experienced a tremendous amount of success playing the distinctly unsexy part of Fagin on stage in productions of the musical Oliver! Davy Jones is also a quite avid racing fan and has owned several successful racehorses. One fascinating bit of trivia: Davy Jones appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show the very same night that the Beatles made their US debut. He was there as part of the cast of Oliver!, though in that incarnation he was playing the Artful Dodger.

Peter Tork nearly went bankrupt in the 1970s because he was such a nice guy. Unlike so many of his contemporaries his money woes were not due to stupidity or greedy investments in scams, but because he cared more about people than money. He has regularly been a part of most Monkees reunions and has performed with bands that have such names as The Peter Tork Project and Shoe Suede Blues. He also pops up occasionally on TV, ranging from a role in Boy Meets World and 7^th Heaven. Perhaps his finest moment on TV in his post-Monkees career was his appearance on an episode of Wings when he was forced to bid against the character of Helen for the infamous Monkeemobile, the joke being that Helen does not even recognize her favorite Monkee. Earlier this year Peter Tork began an advice column at TheDailyPanic.com.

In the early 1970s Micky Dolenz walked into a room and auditioned for the small part of a greaser for a new show about the life of teenagers in 1950s America. Dolenz lost the role to an unknown actor named Henry Winkler who rode the part of the Fonz into television history. Dolenz's post-Monkees career has include parts both behind and in front of the camera and he has had quite a run staging and creating shows for live theater. At one point Tim Burton had decided on Micky Dolenz to play the part of the Riddler in the ill-fated Batman Forever sequel, but once Burton stepped aside everything fell apart in more than ways than one. You have been hearing Micky Dolenz for years without even knowing it: he has been the voice of Snuggles the Bear in those fabric softener commercials for years.