Okay, let’s start with the strangest little joke in the entire episode: Micky has a particularly flabby cervex. Yes, you read that right. Or wrong—as there is no such body part as a cervex. There is no such word in the English language as “cervex”! There is, however, such a thing as a cervix, and that IS a body part… but not a body part that Micky would have, flabby or otherwise. (Brenda would, but not Micky—and it would require a fairly intrusive medical exam to determine its degree of flabbiness.) I wonder how far into the filming process they got before somebody noticed this bizarre choice of words and raised the red flag? Could it have gotten all the way to NBC Standards and Practices (that is, the network censor) or did some female member of the crew make the call?
The oddest thing about this section of the script is that the writers can’t seem to decide whether Peter is present during the meal, or absent the entire evening until he comes home from the hot dog stand. The stage directions at the beginning of scene 31 specifically call for “the boys” to be around the dinner table, but Peter never speaks a word—and there’s a heck of a lot of dialogue during that meal. In contrast, the stage directions for scene 32 specifically exclude Peter from the scene, yet there is a single stray line of dialogue (“Have you really got a cult?”) for him to speak even though he is out buying hot dogs at the time.
Of course, in the aired episode Mike would be absent, so Peter had to be present for the scene 31 meal after all. Dialogue was rearranged to shift some of Mike’s lines to Peter, and other lines were simply dropped. Notably, Mike’s line asking whether Micky made the peanut shell base himself was given to Peter; Jones added the words “you twit” to his reply, words that he probably would not have said if he had been speaking to Mike.
Did you notice that, in the script, Micky’s sumptuous meal of fried fermented goat milk curd, burnt in lemon seed oil to a crisp was a lovely golden brown? It was an unearthly minty green on the screen, probably to make it look more intensely unappetizing.
Earlier I had said that there were three major changes made necessary by Mike’s absence. One was Peter’s role as the doctor; the second was Peter’s phone conversation with Shah-Ku. The third was Davy’s awkward after-dinner “conversation” with Mr. Schneider about murder. I commented about this in the book; in this one instance, Mr. Schneider speaks with Davy’s voice. (Frequent director James Frawley usually provided the dummy’s voice.)
The line, “I can see the headlines now, four skinny musicians found in apartment,” is nearly identical to a line Peter delivered in the first season episode The Audition (Find the Monkees). Fortunately, the line was cut—perhaps somebody remembered that it had already been used.
There’s a good place to stop! The most significant change in the second act is that the action spans two full days, while the aired episode wraps everything up in a single day. Let’s go back to our story outline:
At the end of Act One (in the script) Micky was handed a stack of health food books, an instruction booklet, and most importantly, he signed a contract. That did not happen in the aired episode. So, at the outset of Act Two (as it aired), there’s a brief conversation between Peter and Davy, explaining that Micky had signed up for just a half week of Shah-Ku’s program. This tiny bit of exposition plugs a huge plot hole, as Micky won’t actually be presented with a contract to sign until the Weaklings Anonymous meeting, later in Act Two.
This scene quickly morphs into one that nearly matches the script, except that Micky walks into the room at the end of Peter and Davy’s conversation (the script has him already in the room, staring blankly at a wall) and he collapses directly onto the chaise rather than falling into Peter’s arms. Which is a good thing, because Peter is going to need those arms to make a phone call.
In the script, it is Mike who makes the phone call. And if you look into your heart, you will know that this is true. Peter is never the one to take charge and act paternal. (Or maternal, for that matter.) This, and Mike’s role as the ersatz doctor in Act One, are two of the three significant shifts made necessary by Nesmith’s absence from the episode.
The humor of the phone call is vastly improved, as Shah-Ku will have other opportunities to question the virility of Micky’s friends, but the joke about Micky coming from a broken home is perfectly suited for a phone call. Also note that the script did not call for Mike to conjure the phone. Nice bit of Monkee Magic there, totally unnecessary, but delightfully apt.
The script continues with two scenes that did not appear in any form in the episode: one around the supper table after Micky has finished a meal of green rice; it’s only 8 o’clock, but he’s ready to sleep. (What is it with Gardner and Caruso and people falling asleep? See the Monkees in a Ghost Town script-to-screen project.) Interestingly, it would seem that Micky’s decision to turn out the lights caused his friends to fall asleep too, as we will see in the next scene where they wake up at the table—not in their beds.
Even though Micky left them a note asking them to rouse him at 5:00 am, he wakes himself up at dawn to do some calisthenics. Let me pause to ask: Did they not have the term “jumping jacks” in 1967? Gardner and Caruso took 27 words to describe what I can name in two: jumping jacks.
So. Peter was dreaming about Elke Sommer, was he? Let’s just take a moment to consider this juicy detail about Peter’s inner life. We have been led to believe that he has the emotional maturity of an innocent child. Let us also take a moment to consider that love-‘em-and-leave-‘em Davy is ALSO asleep at the table. Why would they give the Elke Sommer line to Peter? Wouldn’t it make some viewers uncomfortable? (Please note that this was one of the more demure and… well… fully clothed photos of Ms. Sommer that I could find. She is a woman who is most definitely comfortable in her own skin.)
I’m glad they dropped the business of having all of them doing deep knee bends while trying to read Shah-Ku’s book. It would have been wickedly difficult to film.
Moving along, we have a scene that appeared—in a vastly changed form—early in the aired episode. Micky returns to Shah-Ku’s place of business (a health food store in the script, a gymnasium on the screen) and is humiliated when he tries to lift a dumb-bell. Actually, it was probably meant to be a barbell all along, given the description in the script. The scene ends with Shah-Ku trying to extort even more money from Micky than he already has: “Hock the guitars.”
I have recently noticed something odd and surprising. The script copy I have, the one dated April 13, 1967, gives credit to Gerald Gardner & Dee Caruso, based on a story by Jon Andersen. But on the screen, there is a fourth name: the teleplay was written by Gerald Gardner & Dee Caruso and Neil Burstyn.
That tells me two things: first, that there must have been another draft of the script after this one, a draft that must have had a significant contribution from Neil Burstyn. Also, it tells me that much of the difference between this script and the finished episode can probably be credited to a writer who worked on only three Monkees episodes, always working with another writer. Burstyn worked with David Panich on Monstrous Monkee Mash, and with Dave Evans on The Christmas Show.
One last thought before we move along. Throughout the script, the health-food guru’s hyphen comes and goes. Sometimes he’s Shah-Ku, and sometimes he’s Shah Ku. And sometimes he’s the Shah-Ku, or Shahku. I’ll do my best to reproduce the spelling in the script exactly.
In the next installment of the Monkees Script Project - I Was a 99 Lb. Weakling, we learn what -- or should I say, who -- Peter dreams about. And in the installment after that, we learn what fictional (?) body part of Micky’s is particularly flabby.
Well, let’s start this section of the analysis with that costume—the heavily padded sports jacket and built-up shoes, that is. I have to admit that I have no idea how this was supposed to work, or what it was supposed to look like, but I do know that the combination of football shoulder pads and blue down coat was a visual delight no mere sports jacket could approximate. As for the built-up shoes, they were apparently meant to put Micky so far off balance that he couldn’t help but fall down on the beach. As if Micky needed any help falling down! Micky gamely embraced the shoulder pads, the down coat, and committed pratfall after believable pratfall on the beach using just his own bare feet.
So, score five points for the aired episode. This sequence would not have been nearly as funny if Micky had arrived at the beach wearing ordinary street clothes—no matter how heavily padded. Throw in an extra two points for Davy’s joke about the zipper: “That’s as casual as you can get.”
The shoes, by the way, “once belonged to George Raft.” That was the same actor mentioned in the script for Monkees in a Ghost Town, famous for his coin-flipping gangster in the 1932 film Scarface. I haven’t found any specific references to George Raft wearing built-up shoes, though at 5’7” he was not particularly tall. (Nor were many other Hollywood leading men, for that matter.) Nonetheless, Gardner and Caruso must have believed he was a good choice for a shorthand costume description.
When Hulk tosses Micky over the dune for the third time, Shah-Ku is waiting there for him. Micky’s response in the script is not particularly witty: “Did you ever have the feeling you’d gone through something once before?” In the episode, he replies with a line clever enough to end Act One: “I’m a believer! I’m a believer!”
But in the script, Act One isn’t over yet. In a scene reminiscent of the one we saw at the opening of Act One, Micky finally visits Shah-Ku’s place of business. Unlike the well-equipped gymnasium set we saw in the episode, the script describes it as the Hickory Health Food Store, which apparently has a large selection of books. (It also sells Yummy Yogurt, which may have seemed funny back in 1967, but which today sounds… well, yummy.) None of the books, none of the food appears in the episode.
The act closes with a morally ambiguous statement from Shah-Ku to his muscled accomplice: “Another customer. Business is Good.” Keep in mind that the final moment before a commercial break is supposed to be tense and dramatic enough to stop a viewer from changing the channel. This is an extraordinarily dull moment, and could easily be taken as the casual musings of an honest businessman. Shah-Ku is not exactly cackling maniacally and rubbing his dishonest hands together. Compared to the colorful and obvious larceny of Reynaldo and the sexy Miss Buntwell in Dance, Monkee, Dance, this is tepid storytelling, indeed. The heart of drama is conflict, and the first half of this script only sets up conflict between Micky and Hulk. We have not yet learned to recognize Shah-Ku as a threat.
In the episode’s somewhat more complicated plot, we do have evidence of Shah-Ku’s cruel dishonesty, displayed during the baldly rigged physical tests. We also have Micky’s conversation with Davy and Peter while he packs up his drums, a conversation that reminds the viewer that a band without a drum kit is hardly a band at all. Finally, we have the heavy supply of comedic disdain that Monte Landis can put into a simple sneer. The Shah-Ku of the script is calm and meditative; the Shah-Ku on the screen is clearly a threat.
Time for a commercial break. Don’t touch that dial!
Time to pause the transcript for a little while. These beach scenes continues pretty much the way we saw them, which is why I’m not going to transcribe any more for now. After convincing Hulk that he’s sick and losing his strength, they will trick him with a lead volleyball and a kite string tied to a departing dirigible. There are just a few variances:
Doctor Mike instructs Brenda to rub even more suntan oil (paint!) on Hulk’s back, because it will “stop the dryness of his skin before it spreads.”
There’s a timely, topical joke, as Mike says bitterly, “You wanted medicare, now you’ve got it.” (As I pointed out in my review of The Case of the Missing Monkee, Medicare was brand new and still controversial when these episodes were made. Today, the joke would be, “You wanted Obamacare, now you’ve got it.”) Nonetheless, the Medicare joke was replaced with a different joke about the cost of medicine going up.
In the script, the delivery of the lead volleyball is preceded by a brief game of catch among the three Monkees, at the end of which Peter surreptitiously switches the lead ball for the real one. Note that this is the second time in a row that Peter is responsible for a critical feat of slight-of-hand.
Mike is the one who identifies the destination of the dirigible. In the aired episode, Davy has difficulty pronouncing the word “dirigible” and goes on to fondly remember a girl he once dated in Bayonne, New Jersey. Those charming elements of the conversation do not occur in the script.
Do you remember how Act One began on the screen? No, really. Do you? The teaser ended with Micky on the beach, trying to tear up Shah-Ku’s business card. Act One began in Shah-Ku’s gymnasium, as the guru put Micky through a battery of physical tests, quoted him a membership price, and sent him off to pawn his drums so he could afford to join up. Then he rushed home and started to pack his drums up, and his friends offered to train him themselves.
The script has a leaner, simpler story. Micky receives Shah-Ku’s business card in the teaser, but rejects it—he tries to tear it up, remember? He then complains about the way he was treated by Hulk, and his friends immediately take steps to humiliate the bully. It’s not until all these efforts fail that Micky will accept Shah-Ku’s offer of help, visit the Health Food Store, and pack up the drums.
Structurally, the script makes more sense. It’s a simple line from A to B. But emotionally, the aired episode packs more punch. We get to know Shah-Ku, see his operation, watch his salesmanship, and learn that he is a charlatan much sooner. The physical comedy of the scene in the gymnasium—the greased rope, the rigged pulley weights, the enormous barbell—is condensed in the script to a mere paragraph in Act Two.
The scene in which Micky tells his friends about his initial humiliation on the beach appears at the opening of Act One in the script. On screen, it appears in a shrunken form much later in Act One. The only similarities between the scenes are that Micky complains about being called “Skinny,” and Davy cautions against using violence. (In the script, there was an elaborate three-beat joke in which Mike and Davy quoted famous writers, and Peter quoted a baseball player.)
Of course, Peter’s ill-advised Monkeeman transformation does not appear in the episode. It was a dead end joke, leading nowhere and adding nothing to the plot. Ironically, the Monkeemen will appear in the climactic romp, but without fanfare, smoke, or explosions. Perhaps the costumer dug the red tights and black capes out of storage based on the script, and director Alex Singer decided to use them in the romp even though the scene they were meant for had been cut?
The scene in which Micky packs up his drums is a necessary addition, as Davy reminds him (and the viewers) that the loss of the drums could spell disaster for the whole band. For a bonus, Davy also points out that the band can’t even afford food right now. (It also offers another opportunity to utilize the episode’s running gag: “Yeah. Intelligent.” Not to mention the perennial running gag: “Don’t do that.”) Nothing from this scene appears anywhere in the script.
Another addition, somewhat random but still fun, is a trio of “We’ll train you ourselves” vignettes. In the script, Micky makes no attempt to eat healthy or exercise until he has already signed up with Shah-Ku.
Also missing from the script but added to the show is Brenda’s visit to the pad; another well-chosen opportunity for Micky to work his physical comedy muscles to exhaustion. Throughout the aired episode, Brenda’s bored, half-hearted attention seems to be available to either Micky or Hulk, depending on the circumstances. For example, in the script she is cuddled on a beach blanket with Hulk when the boys arrive to start humiliating him. In the aired episode, she walks into the scene, apparently at random, licking an ice cream cone.
Even though much of the Hulk-humiliating dialogue is remarkably similar from script to screen, having Mike portray the doctor gives the scene a much different flavor than it has with Peter in the role. We are primed to assume that Mike is in control of the situation, while Peter’s role is usually to make disastrous mistakes. To watch Peter try to pull off a scam is nerve-wracking; to watch him succeed is triumphant.
The minor shift from “Let me look at your chest,” in the script, to “Let me see your back,” on the screen drains much of the titillation out of the moment when Brenda eagerly puts herself forward. This may have been a sop to the censors, but it’s more likely an accommodation made necessary because there’s no way to put spots on Hulk’s chest in the modified scenario used in the episode. (And seriously: isn’t it ten times better to see Davy repeatedly daring Hulk to cross a line, than to see Peter trip and fall down?)
Note that Brenda addressed Hulk by name (“Forget it, Hulk.”) I don’t believe the character’s name was ever spoken in the episode as it aired.
Got my hands on another juicy script yesterday. It’s one of the four I wanted to see, because it’s one of the four episodes that only has three Monkees in it. The first thing I wanted to know, I’ll share with you now: the script has all four Monkees in it. The rest will be an adventure. How did they write him OUT?
You must listen to Mike Nesmith's interview on Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. He talks at length about the Monkees, and in particular the Monkees pilot, exploring some of the concepts I had explored in the Monkees Script Project. Here’s the pull quote:
“What happened was this: The screenplay, instead of it being ironic, and funny, it became sardonic and angry. It was… it mocked. And so the four main characters were assholes. They were just jerks. Nobody liked them, nobody wanted to be around them or anything. They were written into the screenplay so they were in everybody’s face and everybody’s hair. And it was just a very unpleasant kind of thing, and it never got funny.
“When they put Davy’s interview… and they put my screen test on it, that changed … ‘Meet the Monkees and you’ll never know where they show up next.’ And now, then, it became madcap, and kind of easygoing, and so when we were making fun of something, or poking fun at it, it was gentle and it was not angry. It was just kids fooling around and having fun.”
Monkees Script Project - Find the Monkees (The Audition) part 1 of ??
Think, for a moment, about the opening scene of this episode. If you haven’t seen it for a while, go check it out. Just the first minute or so. I’ll wait.
Pretty impressive, huh? Micky’s panic reaction to the Four Martians’ arrival is one of the best Micky freakouts of the entire series. It’s a masterpiece of fearless, reckless, unrestrained abandon. And now… here’s the opening page of the script.
****
TEASER
FADE IN:
1. INT. BOY’S PAD – DAY
MICKY is asleep in a chair, his feet in the air. A fly buzzes his nose. He slaps it away. THE FOUR MARTIANS (a rock-and-roll group) dressed in their weird costumes and makeup enter from the porch. They encircle Micky and tickle his nose, buzzing like a fly. Micky awakens, sees the four grotesque figures, does a back flip.
MICKY
Yaaaaa! Martians! Martians! We’ve been invaded!
The other three MONKEES rush in.
MARTIAN #1
(to the boys)
Hi Fellas…
****
Whoa! What happened there? Micky fell over backwards from his chair, and that’s it? “Hi, fellas,” and on with the scene? Think about it. Somebody had to decide to expand that scene. Somebody had to decide that Micky would flip, fall, sprint, climb, and slide the length and breadth of the pad set. Somebody had to decide to scatter the other Monkees throughout the pad, to have Davy at the top of the stairs, Mike in the downstairs bedroom, and Peter… well, he’s on the other side of that mysterious door near the kitchen. (When he enters, he is carrying a single rose—did you notice?)
Anyway, we’re seeing the creative process in action. The scene as described in the script is quick, and functional. The only detail that’s present in the script that’s missing on the screen is the mischievous prank executed by the Martians, who are tickling Micky’s nose and making fly noises. (Though that may explain the odd, hunched posture of the leftmost Martian in that first shot—perhaps he was supposed to be tickling Micky’s nose, but the detail got lost.)
Note also that there is no description of the Martians, except to say that they have “weird costumes and makeup.” For what it’s worth, their shiny gold tabards do appear to have been borrowed from the Mozzarella Brothers in Monkees at the Circus, but as it turns out, Monkees at the Circus won’t be filmed for nearly 3 months. The red costumes underneath are much baggier than the Monkeemen costumes, so I’m guessing they were just some plain red sweatshirts and sweatpants. As for their bizarre makeup—they’re just wearing stockings over their heads. They look like bank robbers. Much faster, and cheaper, than putting weird alien makeup on four extras. And let’s not forget, the makeup artists had their hands full with one of the other bands….
****
MIKE
(helping Micky up)
It’s the Four Martians, man.
MICKY
(wiping away the sleep)
Oh! Hi guys. I must’ve been dreaming. What’s up?
MARTIAN #1
We need the loan of a B-string.
MIKE
Sure. I have a spare. You guys playing a gig?
MARTIAN #1
Better. We’re auditioning for Hubbell Benson.
DAVY
Hubbell Benson… the tv producer?
MARTIAN #1
He’s looking for a singing group to star in his new tv show. didn’t he mail you an invitation?
DAVY
Oh… sure…
Martian produces their engraved invitation.
MARTIAN #1
See you at the audition,. Thanks for the string. Later.
MIKE
Yea… later…
(feebly)
Good luck…
The Martians leave. Boys glance at each other.
****
Did you notice what was missing in that scene? I didn’t, not at first. But in the time it took me to type all that dialogue out, all the while wondering that there were four Martians but only one of them got a speaking part, it finally sank in that the script did not in any way describe the actual exchange of the requested guitar string. I actually liked the little specifics given to the transaction on the screen, such as the tin box on the bandstand where Mike keeps his spare strings.
****
MIKE
The mail!
The boys charge for door, fly through the days collection of unopened bills.
DAVY
Bills… bills… no invitation here.
PETER
How come the Four Martians got an invitation and we didn’t?
MIKE
Probably a very few invitations went out…
The kitchen door flies open, there stand four long-haired members of a r&r quartet – THE FOREIGN AGENTS. Their movements are furtive, hands deep in their trench coats.
MICKY
The Foreign Agents.
AGENT #1
(sotto voce)
Hi… men. Did you get your invitation?
Agent holds up his invitation, flips through the handful of bills Davy is still holding. Davy thrusts them behind himself. Meanwhile the other three Foreign Agents prowl about the room.
DAVY
Uh… no… our mail comes late on Monday.
PETER
Yeah. It comes around Thursday.
AGENT #1
(holds up invitation)
Well, we gotta split for rehearsal. This is our big chance.
Agent #1 makes a clicking sound to the other agents. The group exits out the front door. the door no sooner closes than the back door opens.
GIANT #1
Yo… Ho… Ho….
In file four very tall men with green tinted faces and long green hair. This is the JOLLY GREEN GIANTS, another r&r group.
****
The script calls for four guys with green faces and long green hair. What we got were three guys with gray faces (and arms) and green bathing caps. Cost cutting abounds! It makes sense to cut two of the quartets down to trios, as the sets will get very crowded later in the episode; I can’t imagine what the deal is with the gray makeup except maybe that their makeup artists couldn’t procure sufficient green makeup for three big guys. It’s a good thing that the actor playing Giant #1 did such a good job with his hearty, “Yo… Ho… Ho…!” because there’s very little else about the Jolly Green Giants that could be called jolly, or green, or giant. (And for what it’s worth, the iconic TV cartoon pitchman for canned and frozen vegetables always rendered his trademark “Ho-ho-ho!” in a very, very deep bass voice. )
One thing I notice about the Foreign Agents (besides the fact that there were only three of them in the episode) is that the script describes the Foreign Agents prowling around the room. In contrast to the opening scene, which was expanded from a simple Micky pratfall to a world class Micky freakout, this moment is condensed to a bit of random snooping by the Foreign Agents as they stood clustered in the same shot. Very economical
Note also, the script called for the Foreign Agents to burst through the kitchen door. They actually slipped furtively through the front door, the mysterious kitchen door having already been used for Peter’s entrance earlier in the episode. I refer to that door as “mysterious” because it leads to different places in different episodes: a closet (Don’t Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth, Monkees in the Ring); a bathroom (Monkee Chow Mein, The Chaperone) or the great outdoors (One Man Shy). I assume that the script’s instruction for the Jolly Green Giants arriving through the “back door” was also a reference to the kitchen door. James Frawley very cleverly mixed things up by having Davy come down the stairs, Mike enter through the bedroom door, Peter arrive by the kitchen door, the Martians exit through the patio door (presumably they entered the same way), the Agents use the front door and the Jolly Green Giants chat through the open kitchen window.
****
MIKE
Yo… ho… ho… What’s new, Jolly Green Giants?
GIANT #1
Hi Monkees. You know what we got in the mail?
MICKY
(glumly)
Don’t tell us…
GIANT #1
An autographed photo of Annette Funicello.
The Monkees are suddenly wreathed in smiles.
DAVY
We thought you meant an invitation to Benson’s audition.
GIANT #1
Oh, yeah.
(brings out invitation)
We got that too…
He waves it before the four boys. They tighten around and stare at it. FREEZE FRAME super storm cloud which drenches them.
****
Yikes! Where did that freak super storm cloud come from? They were drenched… inside the pad? Was this supposed to be a special effect? Was it supposed to be funny? Seems strange that, in a teaser scene that includes twelve extras, three of them with speaking parts, eight with massive amounts of makeup, the show’s Script and Story Editors (Caruso & Gardner, two of the three credited writers of this episode) would include a special effects shot. Thank goodness somebody thought better of it, and the scene ended with just a look of disgust from our heroes.
