I'm revisiting the first Monkee book I ever bought, in the early days of my now years-long hyperfixation, Monkee Business: The Revolutionary Made-for-TV Band by Eric Lefcowitz. It's a fun read: it's more gossipy than other Monkee books I've read and has a lot of quotes from reviews of the era (which is mainly what I was hoping to find for the purposes of my ongoing Torksmith RPF saga). But knowing what I know now, I've identified a handful of factual errors already (stupid things like Peter getting married and divorced in college before moving to Village and Mike marrying Phyllis after moving to L.A. Did he mix them up somehow?), so I'm taking it with a grain of salt. But Lefcowitz gets into more detail about the screen tests and why Bob Did What He Did to all of those poor Monkee wannabes. Mainly that Bob had a college degree in mind-fucking and didn't mind putting it to use for the auditions.
Raybert’s finely tuned bullshit detector was on guard for fake rebels. To ensure no one slipped through the cracks, they employed an intricate and pressure-filled process of elimination. Rafelson had written his college thesis on cultural anthropology and he utilized his knowledge by waging a psychological war among the applicants where only the fittest would survive. [DIABOLICAL, BOB!]
The hopefuls, after filling out a questionnaire [apparently Mike crossed out PAST EXPERIENCE and wrote “LIFE.”], were led unwittingly to the producers’ offices. Once there, applicants faced a series of intimidation tactics designed to expose their identities. Many, according to the Saturday Evening Post, “became flustered when caught in the crossfire as the producers staged mock arguments over their merits, or ignored them while playing catch with a golf ball.”
Peter Tork found the atmosphere intimidating. “It was awful, I was so nervous,” he said of his audition. To cover up his anxiety, he improvised a stage personality he perfected in Greenwich Village, “a Three Stooges character without the testosterone that I used to protect myself against jokes that didn’t work.”
[...]
The use of confrontational tactics, Rafelson later argued, was both necessary and intentional: “As a rule, actors come into an audition prepared. Usually they’ve heard very little about the project that’s real. For example, their agents, who don’t know anything, have told them they’re looking for somebody sexy. So the girl comes into your office and tries to be sexy. The thing is to unmask people as quickly as possible to find out who they are. This is what we did with the Monkees.”
[...]
The screen tests, like everything else associated with the Monkees, were far from traditional. Potential cast members faced a volley of unpredictable questions. Portions of Jones’ and Nesmith’s tests later grafted onto the pilot episode remain fascinating artifacts, revealing as much about the subject as they do do the off-camera inquisitor. At various times Rafelson is heard ridiculing Jones’ attempt to show off “song and dance” moves; he cajoles Nesmith into admitting he’s been a “failure.”
The mix of self-effacing honestly and cheeky artifice was the quixotic brew that Raybert were intent on serving the public. Rafelson set the tone—he was loose, unafraid and in your face.
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Over the years, much ballyhoo has been made over the laboratory Darwinism employed by Rafelson and Schneider. What was perceived as unnecessary cruelty in the auditioning process became the stock-in-trade of reality TV shows like Survivor and American Idol—just one example of how Rafelson and Schneider were pushing the boundaries.
