"Fairy Tale"

In The Monkees: The Day-by-Day Story, I recently read about the broadcast of "Fairy Tale," so I watched the episode again, and I noticed a handful of small elements to note.

Near the beginning of the episode, Mike tells Peter, "You gotta stop dreaming about that princess, man."  Because Nesmith himself also plays the rôle of the princess, however, his comment could be rendered as "You gotta stop dreaming about that princess-man," where man is combined with princess instead of being a stand-alone vocative.

After Peter kicks the "mud" sign by the carriage, there's a phrase in the incidental music something like this:

Immediately after he overhears Harold telling Richard to torture and kill Princess Gwen, it appears again in a slightly different form:

Perhaps just coincidentally, the first measure of this incidental phrase is identical (in rhythm and pitch) to part of the melody for the line "One day, I'll be famous; I'll be proper and prim" in "Just You Wait" from My Fair Lady, something like this (I referenced Julie Andrews' version):

(There are also a number of references to My Fair Lady in the first season episode "The Chaperone," which I previously wrote about.)

About halfway through the episode, Harold says, "Who will save you, Gwen?  The nobles hate you.  The clergy hate you.  The vassals hate you, and the serfs hate you."  His comments exhibit epistrophe (repeating the same phrase at the end of successive clauses), and in this context, it provides a sense of the totality of the population's hatred of Gwen.  Additionally, the subjects of these clauses almost line up with the hierarchy of The Three Estates (clergy first, nobles second, everyone else third), so the order here (roughly from top to bottom) also lends a sense of entirety.

"P.O. Box 9847"

In The Monkees: The Day-by-Day Story, I've been reading about the session at which the backing track for "P.O. Box 9847" was recorded (on 26 December 1967).  Bobby Hart notes (on page 415) that "It was Bob Rafelson's idea to do a song about a classified ad.  It wasn't his title or anything."  This comment got me thinking about the title, and I realized that, in a general way, the relative positions of the pitches to which the titular numbers are sung match their values.  "Nine" and "eight" are both sung to G notes.  "Four" is sung to a D, so it's lower in terms of both numerical value and musical pitch.  The two syllables of "seven" are sung to the notes F and G, so the word at least starts between "four" and "eight" with respect to both value and pitch.

"Pleasant Valley Sunday"

Yester-day, I realized that the alliteration in the phrase "so serene" in the line "And Mr. Green, he's so serene; he's got a TV in ev'ry room" in "Pleasant Valley Sunday" lends a small sense of degree.  The internal rhyme (between "Green" and "serene") may contribute to this, too.

"Monkees in Texas"

This morning, I watched "Monkees in Texas" and noticed a variation of a joke that's also in "Monkees a la Mode."  Both seem to be adapted from the Marx Brothers' A Day at the Races (1937).  Early in the episode, the Monkees grab guns to join the shootout at Aunt Kate's ranch, and each announces to the camera what type of gun he has:

Micky:  "Winchester 73"

 
Davy:  "Colt 45"

 
Mike:  "Smith and Wesson 38"

But then Peter breaks this pattern with "Vintage '66," holding up a bottle of what is presumably champagne.

As I wrote about with "Monkees a la Mode," the same sort of joke is in A Day at the Race, where three doctors step forward to introduce themselves and give their credentials:

Johnson, Bellevue Hospital, 1918

Franco, Johns Hopkins, '22

Wilmerding, Mayo Brothers, '24

But then Groucho, as Dr. Hackenbush, gives the model and year of his car:  "Dodge Brothers, late '29."

"Nine Times Blue"

When I listened to the super deluxe edition of Headquarters about a year ago, I felt that there was something significant in the structure of one of the verses in "Nine Times Blue" (which I know only via the demo version):

I know that never in the world

Could I have found me such a girl

Who's there pick me up before I fall

And if in the end we should go

Both our separate ways, I know

The lessons I've learned here is worth it all

I couldn't quite figure it out at the time, but recently, I ran across my note again and finally realized what it is.  Syntactically, it's odd that "we" and "both" in the clause "we should go both our separate ways" aren't together (normally, it would be "we both should go..." or even "we should both go..."), but the distance between the words matches the meaning of the lyrics.  Since the line break falls between them, there's an even greater sense of this separation.

"Hitting the High Seas"

I watched "Hitting the High Seas" this morning and (probably not for the first time) noticed a Biblical allusion.  When the captain orders Micky, Davy, and Peter to cut off their long hair, Micky replies, "No, we can't cut it; we'd lose our strength."  The trivia on the DVD notes that this is a reference to Samson, but I thought I'd be a bit more precise and give a citation.  In Judges 16:17, Samson tells Delilah, "If my head is shaved, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak and be like any other man."

"Card Carrying Red Shoes"

Last week, I watched "Card Carrying Red Shoes" and found what I think is a reference to Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), specifically in this conversation between Ivan and the Druvanian ambassador:

Ivan:  Now that we know the microfilm is safe, when do we dispose of boy?

Ambassador:  It will be at the very end of Natasha's solo.  You will take a gigantic leap into the air.  Just as your feet touch the ground, there will be a cymbal crash, and when that cymbal crashes, we will shoot him.

Ivan:  How did you ever think of such an intricate plan?

Ambassador:  I saw it in a movie.

The movie the ambassador refers to seems to be The Man Who Knew Too Much; a key element of the movie's plot is an assassination attempt on a prime minister during a performance at the Royal Albert Hall where the gunshot is meant to be disguised by a cymbal crash.

"Monkees in Manhattan"

Earlier this week, I watched the Marx Brothers' Room Service (1938).  "Monkees in Manhattan" shares the same basic plot and a number of specific elements.

In Room Service, Groucho Marx plays Gordon Miller, who's been staying in a hotel while trying to put on a play.  The management continually threatens to throw him out because he owes $1,200, and he has to stall until he can get financial backing for his play, which he'll use to settle his debts to the hotel.  One of the strategies he uses is to fake an illness; he reasons that the hotel can't throw out a sick man.  Harpo, as Miller's assistant Faker, blows iodine through a colander onto the face of Leo Davis, the play's author (played by Frank Albertson), to give the appearance of measles.  In an-other scene, Miller promises to consider one of the hotel waiters for a rôle in the play in exchange for the waiter's delivering some food to the room.

In "Monkees in Manhattan," the Monkees go to New York to star in McKinley Baker's Broadway show based on them.  Almost as soon as they arrive at his hotel, the hotel manager appears and tells Baker that he's tired of waiting for the rent and that Baker needs to leave in an hour.  Baker explains to the Monkees that in three hours, his backer will give him a check, which he can use to pay his debts, and he sneaks out to retrieve it while the Monkees hold the room.  As in Room Service, they feign an illness:  Micky claims that Peter, with dots drawn on his face, is suffering from the plague.  Later, when the hotel manager tries to starve the Monkees out of the room by refusing them any more room service, Mike convinces a waiter that he would be perfect for the rôle of a prince in a Broadway musical and that his first step in show business should be to deliver food to the Monkees' room.

There's a note in the credits of Room Service that it's based on a play (by John Murray and Allan Boretz), so it's possible that "Monkees in Manhattan" is drawing upon that rather than the movie, but the similarities are clear.

"Star Collector"

Recently, I listened to the deluxe edition of Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd. and remembered a small point about "Star Collector" that I realized last summer but forgot to write about.  This may be just a coincidence, but there's some resemblance between it and Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen," particularly the first half of the choruses of "Star Collector":

Yeah, she's a star collector

She only aims to please

Young celebrities

and the second verse of "Sweet Little Sixteen":

Sweet little sixteen, she just got to have

About a half a million famed autographs

Her wallet filled with pictures; she gets 'em one by one

Become so excited; watch her; look at her run, boy

Both are about girls who are obsessed with famous people and collect their autographs (as the first verse of "Star Collector" mentions:  "Give her my autograph and tell her, / 'It's been nice knowin' you'").

"Monkees a la Mode"

Yester-day, I watched the Marx Brothers' A Day at the Races (1937) and found an-other joke that's used (in only a slightly different form) in The Monkees, again in "Monkees a la Mode."  Near the beginning of the movie, Groucho, as Dr. Hackenbush, takes over as chief of staff of a sanitarium.  Mrs. Upjohn, a patient at the sanitarium who's also considering becoming one of its business partners, introduces him to some of the other doctors, each of whom steps forward and gives his credentials:

Johnson, Bellevue Hospital, 1918

Franco, Johns Hopkins, '22

Wilmerding, Mayo Brothers, '24

To these, Hackenbush replies, "Dodge Brothers, late '29," giving the model and year of his car.

In "Monkees a la Mode," there's a similar set up with writers* at Madame Quagmeyer's Chic magazine who introduce themselves to the Monkees as:

Miss Collins, Vassar, '64

Miss Osborn, Bryn Mawr, '63

Miss, uh, Delassups, Bennington, '62

Mike responds with, "Mike Nesmith, Eagle Scout, '61."  It's not as great a departure as Hackenbush's reply, but the jokes have the same structure.

Perhaps just coincidentally, Hackenbush also mentions Vassar when Mr. Whitmore, the sanitarium's business manager, asks about his medical training:  "To begin with, I took four years at Vassar."  When Mrs. Upjohn objects, "Vassar?  But that's a girls' college," he replies, "I found that out the third year."

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*I had to guess on the spellings of their names.

Head

Recently, I was thinking about a scene in A Hard Day's Night, and I realized that, probably just coincidentally, a similar situation appears in Head.

Around 47 minutes into A Hard Day's Night, there's a scene in a dressing room where, among other events going on, a tailor is measuring Paul's shoulders.  The Beatles' manager then tells them that they're wanted in the television studio, so Paul walks away and the tailor is left holding out his measuring tape.  John goes up to him, says in a funny voice, "I now declare this bridge open," and cuts the tape with a scissors.

The first scene in Head is the actual opening of a bridge.  After some initial set up, the mayor starts making a speech:  "Ladies and gentlemen, I hereby dedicate this magnificent marvel of modern architecture, one of the largest suspended arch bridges in the world, to the people of-" at which point, Micky interrupts him by running through the ribbon he was about to cut.

While the Beatles (and A Hard Day's Night specifically) are an acknowledged influence on the Monkees, I don't know if the faint resemblance between these two scenes is anything more than coincidence.  Neither scene is very significant in relation to the larger plot, and the "bridge opening" in A Hard Day's Night isn't even real.

"Monkees a la Mode"

Recently, I started watching a box set of Marx Brothers movies, partially to see if I can find any specific elements that may have influenced The Monkees series.  I vaguely remember reading somewhere that the Marx Brothers were an inspiration for the script writers, but the closest evidence I could find was an interview in the New Musical Express, referred to in the entry for 1 July 1967 in Andrew Sandoval's The Monkees: The Day-by-Day Story (p. 336), in which Mike Nesmith says, "We've taken a Marx Brothers approach and given it a contemporary twist."  (It's also worth pointing out that Micky impersonates Groucho in "Your Friendly Neighborhood Kidnappers.")

A couple days ago, I watched A Night at the Opera (1935) and found an element that, perhaps just coincidentally, is also used in The Monkees.  After Chico and Harpo sneak into the orchestra at the opera, Harpo starts antagonizing the conductor with a violin bow, and the conductor strikes back with his baton.  The violinists then come to his aid, and Harpo and the violinists use their bows as swords to attack each other.

The same sort of gag is also in "Monkees a la Mode."  When Toby reads the article about the Monkees that Rob Roy Fingerhead has fabricated for Madame Quagmeyer's Chic magazine, specifically the claim that "their taste in music runs to chamber music and organ recitals," there's an imagined scene of the Monkees as a string quartet, and Mike and Micky also use their bows as swords against each other, complete with clanging sound effects.