Behka Takes A Minute To Think About The Monkees

When I was a child, I was growing up in the 80's MTV Boom. We didn't have much in terms of luxuries, but we had cable, and we watched MTV. My parents were young people who still wanted to keep up with new music, and we'd watch MTV as much as we'd listen to the radio. Seeing the images of what The Stray Cats looked like, being scared by Peter Gabriel Videos, and wondering why Billy Idol was so angry was only part of the experience.

I was a normal kid, but somewhat naive. I believed that television was real. I thought Heathcliff the cat would wait for me to get home from school to start his show. Spoiler Alert: He didn't.  Double Dare went ahead and came on. But it took me a while to really understand that television could be at any time, any place, and I learned that lesson again with MTV when it came to The Monkees.

I was about six years old when MTV started playing the old Monkees' shows in reruns. This was right in the height of the 80's obsession with all things kitch from the 60's, and they fit that need perfectly. They were quick, they were funny, the songs were catchy, and why the heck not. To me, they were current. I had no idea they were from  a time before I was born.

I thought The Monkees were going to come to my town. I really did get ready. I had a winter wool hat with a little bob on the top, and I wore my fingerless gloves as I sat on the living room floor and watched the singing and play.

For some reason, The Monkees were always a spring/summer thing for me. As a teenager I found other groups that meant more to me as an individual like REM, PJ Harvey, Elliott Smith, Joni Mitchell, and in particular, The Beatles. But for some reason, I was never in the mood for The Monkees unless it was somewhere around the spring/summertime. I'd pull out the dvds, or the cd and enjoy for a few weeks and then it would get filed away again.

I've always defended the show and the music, but that's for another entry - or in comments, if you prefer. I always say they had great slapstick humor and the best songwriters of all time working for them... whether they squandered that opportunity in arrogant youth is another matter.

While my personal favorite was always Micky, I can't say it'll be quite the same............without our little Manchester Cowboy.

Poor little Davy!  He was supposed to be the cute one, but how can you stay cute when you lose the job you were born to do at the age of 20?  It seems fitting that the member of the Monkees who did most everything first - first one to work as an actor, first one to have an album, first one to appear on television, first one to get hired as a Monkee.... would be the first one to go. The members of the group always said that Davy was "the heart" of the organization.... that through all their arguments and spats, nobody ever had a problem with him or disliked him in the least.

One of my favorite Davy stories is from the early days, before they were on television. They were filming the show and had been sent off for a lunch to talk and get acquainted. They had ordered their lunches and each one came with a salad to start.  Micky, Mike and Peter, by some coincidence, all got theirs first. They immediately dug in, and Davy gave them all the most horrified, disgusted look imaginable.  "Do you all eat like animals??!"

Awkward pause.  They thought, well, he's an Englishman. He's been in the business a lot longer than we have. He's been on Broadway. Maybe he knows. Maybe we are rude.

Davy gets his salad. He sets up his napkin, he pours a nice glass of water. He proceeds to arrange forks and then take his cutlery and cut the salad into individual, bite sized pieces with careful precision. The group are watching him as he finishes cutting up each bit, and he says, "Now, this is the proper way to eat a salad."

He then promptly put down his knife and fork.

And then shoves the salad in his mouth with his hands.

It was the perfect ice breaker! Every member of the group loved Davy for doing things like that, for being willing to be someone who was kind and funny and understanding.

I suppose part of me will always love The Monkees TV show and the songs, and part of me will always criticize them just a tad. But then there are little moments like this, that you would never see on television then or since...... and you think, "He was a charming little guy".

Monkeyingly yours,
Behka