The Monkees: Season 2 On DVD (2003) [5DVD Box Set, Rhino R2 970128]

This 5-DVD Collector's set features all 26 uncut, original broacast episodes from the second season of the Monkees. DVD speial features incude 5.1 Audio, commentary tracks with all four Monkees, an exclusive interview and vintage TV commercials. Includes episodes 33-58 and the bonus "33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee".

The Monkees:

Formed: 1965, Hollywood, CA
Disbanded: 1969
Genres: Rock
Representative Albums: "The Best of the Monkees", "Then & Now…The Best of the Monkees", "Listen to the Band"
Representative Songs: "I'm a Believer", "Daydream Believer", "Last Train to Clarksville"

"Hey hey, we are the Monkees/You know we love to please/A manufactured image/With no philosophies." In 1968, the Monkees addressed their own reputation in the song "Ditty Diego (War Chant)," which summed up the bad rap they'd received in the music press since they first emerged in the summer of 1966. The Monkees were talented singers, musicians, and songwriters who made a handful of the finest pop singles of their day (as well as a few first-rate albums) and delivered exciting, entertaining live shows. But at a time when rock music was becoming more self-conscious and "serious," the hipper echelons of the music press often lambasted the Monkees, largely because they didn't come together organically but through the casting process for a television series, and they initially didn't write the bulk of their own material or play all the instruments on their records. The fact they later took creative control of their music was often overlooked, and the quality of their music, which featured the work of some of the finest session players and songwriters of the 1960s, often seemed to be beside the point. Time has ultimately vindicated the Monkees, and their music still sounds fresh and engaging decades after it was recorded, but in some circles they never fully shook being branded as "the Pre-Fab Four," no matter how far they moved from the circumstances that brought them together.

The Monkees story began in the fall of 1965, when Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider, a pair of producers whose Raybert Productions had a deal with Columbia Pictures and their TV branch Screen Gems, came up with an idea for a television series about a rock group. Inspired by Richard Lester's groundbreaking comedies with the Beatles, A Hard Day's Night and Help!, Rafelson and Schneider imagined a situation comedy in which a four-piece band had wacky adventures every week and occasionally burst into song. The NBC television network liked the idea, and production began on The Monkees in early 1966. Don Kirshner, a music business veteran who was a top executive at Colgems Records (a label affiliated with Columbia/Screen Gems), was appointed music coordinator for the series, and Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, a producing and songwriting team, signed on to handle much of the day-to-day chores of creating music for the show's fictive band. A casting call went out for four young men to play the members of the group, and Rafelson and Schneider's choices for the roles were truly inspired. Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork were musicians with solid performing and recording experience who also had a flair for playing comedy, while Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones were primarily actors but had also dabbled in pop music and had strong vocal abilities. As the show went before the camera, Kirshner had Boyce and Hart take the four leads into the studio to begin recording the songs that would be featured on the show each week. While initially the cast was only going to provide vocals for material Boyce and Hart had already recorded, the producers were impressed enough with Nesmith's songwriting skills that they chose to use a few of his tunes and let him produce them. With this, the Monkees took their first step toward evolving into a proper, self-sufficient rock band.

The Monkees debuted on NBC in the fall of 1966 and was an immediate hit in the ratings, while "Last Train to Clarksville," the group's first single, had become a number one hit a few weeks earlier (the self-titled debut album would top the chart in October). Rafelson, Schneider, and Kirshner shrewdly allowed the show to promote the records and vice versa, and while the notion that television time could sell pop records was hardly new (Ricky Nelson proved that almost a decade earlier), no one had made it work with quite the success the Monkees achieved almost immediately. Dozens of Monkees-related products flooded the marketplace, from toy guitars and lunch boxes to board games and models of the custom Pontiac the guys drove on the show. In late 1966, someone got the idea of booking a few live shows with the Monkees, and recordings of their early concerts prove that while not all four were virtuoso musicians, they worked well together on-stage and were a energetic, rough-and-ready rock band who could work a crowd. As the Monkees gained confidence in their abilities as performers, they began to chafe under the restrictions imposed on them by Kirshner, who had full control over what songs they would record and who would produce and play on the sessions.

The Monkees' early recordings found them working with a stellar team of songwriters (including Neil Diamond, Carole King and Gerry Goffin, and David Gates along with Boyce and Hart) and musicians (such as Glen Campbell, James Burton, Hal Blaine, and Larry Taylor), but Nesmith and Tork in particular were eager to show off their own talents (Nesmith was responsible for some of the Monkees' most distinctive tunes), and all four were stung by the negative publicity they'd received as rock critics declared they weren't a "real" band and couldn't play their instruments (Nesmith and Tork certainly could, and Dolenz and Jones would become capable instrumentalists, but they weren't allowed to play on their earliest recordings). When the Monkees were presented with copies of their second album, More of the Monkees, in January 1967, Nesmith and Tork were furious – it was filled with material recorded for the TV show and the bandmembers had no input into its packaging or sequencing. This led to a standoff between the four Monkees, who demanded autonomy over the music they performed, and Kirshner, who didn't want to disrupt the hitmaking machine he'd helped create. Eventually, Rafelson and Schneider sided with his stars (who could not be readily replaced) and Kirshner was fired in the spring of 1967. (Kirshner would later coordinate the music for the Archies, who as cartoon characters lacked the power to rebel against their producers.)

Now calling their own musical shots, the Monkees recorded their third album, Headquarters, with Chip Douglas (aka Douglas Farthing Hatlelid) of the Turtles producing and playing bass. Outside of Douglas and a few string and horn players, the Monkees played all the instruments on Headquarters, and the album rose to number one on the charts in May of 1967, proving the group members were more than capable of making memorable records on their own (and the closing track, "Randy Scouse Git," showed the cultural changes that were making themselves known in America had not escaped the attention of TV's leading pop group). Another Monkees album appeared in November 1967, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd., which is generally regarded as the group's finest work; while all four Monkees played and sang on the album, they also brought a few session players in for the recordings, hitting a middle ground between the polished studiocraft of the first two LPs and the more organic sound of Headquarters. While the Monkees now had the freedom to chart their own path in the recording studio, this also led to the musicians discovering their creative differences, and by the time they recorded The Birds, the Bees & the Monkees (released in April 1968), the foursome was starting to splinter, with each member essentially producing and coordinating 25 percent of the album, and the band's collaborative energy began to dissipate.

After two successful seasons, the Monkees' television series was not renewed for the fall 1968 season, as the group hoped to launch a career in the movies. But Head, their first (and last) feature film, was a commercial disaster; it was an often clever and challenging satire of the Monkees' own curious stardom and the culture that surrounded them, but it also quite literally had no plot and confounded the younger viewers who were the TV show's strongest fan base. The soundtrack album struggled to a relatively dismal number 45 on the charts, and shortly afterwards Peter Tork opted to leave the band. The Monkees released two albums as a trio in 1969, Instant Replay and The Monkees Present, but while they both contained fine music that showed the group was continuing to mature, neither launched any major hits, and the band's commercial fortunes were clearly beginning to wane. In late 1969, Nesmith left to pursue a solo career (he'd already released an instrumental solo album, The Wichita Train Whistle Sings, in 1968), and after a final Monkees album featuring just Dolenz and Jones, 1970's Changes, the group quietly dissolved.

Nesmith went on to a critically respected and modestly successful solo career, cutting several excellent country-rock albums, and he enjoyed considerable success in the entertainment business, producing music videos and feature films as well as running a film and video label, Pacific Arts. Both Dolenz and Jones moved back and forth between acting and music, and in 1975 they teamed up with Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart to record a new album and the foursome went out on the road, playing their new material as well as many of the Monkees' hits. Tork's music career stayed under the radar through much of the '70s, though he led a band called Release, operated a music production firm, recorded a Christmas single with Dolenz and Jones in 1976, and was courted for a solo deal with Sire Records.

The Monkees' television show stayed on the air for years in reruns after the group broke up, and in 1985, MTV presented a daylong marathon of Monkees episodes, tipping their hat to the show and the band that helped bring rock and television together. The marathon was a hit in the ratings and Monkees reruns became a regular feature on the network. That same year, producer and promoter David Fishof put together a Monkees reunion tour; while Nesmith's business commitments prevented him from joining his bandmates, Dolenz, Jones, and Tork were game, and the tour was a massive commercial success, and much of the group's back catalog bounced back into the charts. (Nesmith also made a guest appearance with the Monkees for their sold-out appearance at L.A.'s Greek Theater, and appeared with them on an MTV Christmas video.) In 1986, Dolenz and Tork cut a new single, "That Was Then, This Is Now," which was tagged onto a Monkees hits compilation and became a hit. The success of the single prompted the Monkees (again minus Nesmith) to record a new album, but 1987's Pool It! didn't fare well with critics or fans, and the members soon went their separate ways again, though Dolenz and Jones occasionally worked as a duo.

As the 30th anniversary of the Monkees' debut loomed in the mid-'90s and Rhino Records (who had reissued the group's back catalog in the 1980s) assumed full control of the group's filmed and recorded legacy and began a series of definitive reissues, another reunion tour was proposed, and the talks led to Dolenz, Jones, Nesmith, and Tork getting together to jam for the fun of it. They enjoyed the process enough that they decided to record a new album, and Justus, released in October 1996, became the first Monkees album written, performed, and produced solely by the four members of the band. The four Monkees appeared in a television special tied into the album's release (called Hey Hey, We're the Monkees), and they were set to take part in a world concert tour to promote the record. However, after a string of dates in the United Kingdom in 1997, Nesmith dropped out, and while the tour went on without him, the other three did little to hide their disappointment with Nesmith in the press. Another tour by the three-piece Monkees took place in 2001, but Tork left the show before the final dates; Tork told reporters he'd quit, while Dolenz and Jones said he'd been fired. Since then, Dolenz, Jones, and Tork have all toured as solo acts; Nesmith, meanwhile, released a solo album in 2006, Rays, and has taken up writing fiction, having penned two novels, The Long Sandy Hair of Neftoon Zamora and The American Gene.

~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Disc 1:

Episode 33: A Nice Place to Visit
Original Air Date—11 September 1967
While on a trip to Mexico, the group lands into trouble after Davy falls for the girlfriend of a local desperado.

Episode 34: The Picture Frame
Original Air Date—18 September 1967
Micky, Davy and Mike are duped into robbing a bank, thinking they're the stars of a new heist movie. After their arrest, it is up to Peter to prove his band mates' innocence while the trio of accused Monkees handle their own defense during the trial.

Episode 35: Everywhere a Sheik, Sheik
Original Air Date—25 September 1967
Faced with selecting a husband or be married to the evil Vidaru, Princess Colette of Nehudi picks out Davy's picture from a magazine. The Manchester Monkee is then put to the choice: marry a beautiful girl and life a life of luxury or be killed. In case he agrees, the remaining three Monkees will be granted high ranking positions on his staff (not to mention their pick of harem maidens). Of course, Vidaru plans to get rid of the Monkees whether they agree or not.

Episode 36: Monkee Mayor
Original Air Date—2 October 1967
Mike runs for Mayor.

Episode 37: Art for Monkees' Sake
Original Air Date—9 October 1967
When Peter displays a talent for copying art, crooked museum guards Duke and Chuche force him to copy Frans Hals' 'The Laughing Cavalier' and switch it with the real one. The Monkees mount Mission: Ridiculous to put the actual artwork back and take on the code names 'Manchester Marauder' (Davy), Conneticut Counterspy (Peter), Towering Texan (Mike) and the Los Angeles Leopard (Micky).

Episode 38: I Was a 99-Pound Weakling
Original Air Date—16 October 1967
When his girl Brenda is stolen from him by muscle bound Bulk, Micky contemplates hocking his drums so he can pay for Shah-Ku's "Weakling's Anonymous" course. Fearing this will break up the group, Davy and Peter first try to pass of Bulk as a weakling to Brenda, then set out to prove Shah-Ku is a phony.


Disc 2:

Episode 39: Hillbilly Honeymoon
Original Air Date—23 October 1967
The Monkees ride into Swinevill and immediately get caught up in a Hillbilly feud between the Chubber and the Weskitt family. Soon, Ella Mae Chubber takes a shine to Davy (and to a lesser extend Micky and Peter). The only way out is to patch things up between Ella Mae and her dim witted fiancé, Jud Weskitt.

Episode 40: Monkees Marooned
Original Air Date—30 October 1967
Naive and gullible, Peter gives his guitar to a scam artist in exchange for a treasure map.

Episode 41: The Card Carrying Red Shoes
Original Air Date—6 November 1967
Natasha Pavlova escapes from The Druvanian National Ballet by hiding in the Monkees' instrument trunk and falls in love with Peter, whom she refers to as 'The Face' (and sometimes just plain Piotr). Ballet Master Nicolai and his other star, Ivan, insist on getting her back, mainly because of the microchip hidden in one of her red shoes.

Episode 42: The Wild Monkees
Original Air Date—13 November 1967
The Monkees take a job as hotel musicians at The Henry Cabot Lodge and Cemetery, where they are forced into service as the staff as well. The guests include a quartet of tall female bikers, whom the boys set out to impress by dressing like Marlon Brando in 'The Wild One'. When the girl's boyfriends, Big Butch and the Black Angels, arrive, The Monkees (now known as The Chickens) have to enter a motorcycle race they cannot possible win.

Episode 43: A Coffin Too Frequent
Original Air Date—20 November 1967
The Monkees are surprised to find three members of a sinister family gathering in their beach pad come midnight to hold a séance.

Episode 44: Hitting the High Seas
Original Air Date—27 November 1967
The Monkees take on a job as sailors but Mike soon disappears below deck to recuperate from seasickness. Micky, Davy and Peter must prove themselves strong enough to survive the hardships of the sea, especially when it turns out their captain is a modern day pirate intend on hijacking the Queen Anne. Inspired by Clark Gable and Marlon Brando, the three musicians attempt to stage a mutiny.


Disc 3:

Episode 45: Monkees in Texas
Original Air Date—4 December 1967
Visiting Mike's Aunt Kate in Texas, The Monkees find the Nesmith Ranch being ambushed by Black Bart and his gang. Micky and Peter, dressed as The Lone Stranger and Pronto, go to town to seek help but end up join Black Bart's gang. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Mike tries to figure out what makes the Nesmith land so valuable.

Episode 46: Monkees on the Wheel
Original Air Date—11 December 1967
Micky 'Magic Fingers' Dolenz hits a lucky streak in Vegas, not realizing the roulette table is rigged. The Boss and Biggy soon steal the ill begotten money back from the Monkees, who are then given 24 hours by the police to retrieve it once more. So, they head back into the Casino dressed as gangsters The Insidious Strangler (Micky), The Professor (Peter), Muscles The Mauler (Davy) and Vicious Killer (Mike).

Episode 47: The Christmas Show
Original Air Date—25 December 1967
It's Christmas and the group has to teach a neglected boy about the magic and love of the season.

Episode 48: Fairy Tale
Original Air Date—8 January 1968
Peter, peasant of Tork is the only one who can save the fair Princess Gwen (Mike) who is being held in the tower. The Fairy of the Magic Locket orders Mike the Cobbler to make Peter a gravity defying pair of shoes, Davy the Taylor to sow a impenetrable suit of armor and Micky the Innkeeper to forge a magic sword. On his way to the tower guarded by the Dragon of the moat, Peter bumps into Little Red Riding Hood (Davy) Hansel & Gretel (Micky and Davy) and Goldilocks (Micky).

Episode 49: Monkees Watch Their Feet
Original Air Date—15 January 1968
The Secretary for the Department of UFO Information presents a film about impending dangers from outer space. In it, Micky is abducted by aliens from the planet Zlotnick and replaced by a robot duplicate. Despite the robot's feet being on backwards, at first Davy and Peter do not suspect a thing.

Episode 50: Monstrous Monkee Mash
Original Air Date—22 January 1968
Davy has been put under the spell of Lorelei, or to be precise, her magic necklace. Her uncle, a Transylvanian Count, wants to turn Davy into a vampire. When the other Monkees arrive looking for their missing mate from Manchester, Peter's mind is singled out to be put inside a monster and Micky to become a wolf man. Mike manages to escape the vampire's clutches by dressing up in a mummy's smelly old wrappings.


Disc 4:

Episode 51: The Monkee's Paw
Original Air Date—29 January 1968
Mickey buys a cursed Monkey's Paw from down on his luck Mendrek the Magician for a quarter and is given three withes, all of them bound to backfire. Meanwhile, Mendrek, finally free of bad luck, becomes a millionaire overnight. On the third wish, Micky loses his voice, leaving the other Monkees without their lead singer.

Episode 52: The Devil and Peter Tork
Original Air Date—5 February 1968
Peter browses through a pawn shop owned by a mysterious man known as S. Zero. He meets Zero and the two chat about the varied instruments he is selling, Zero talking cryptically about the previous owners of the instruments. Peter then notices a harp and falls in love with the instrument even though he has never played the instrument before. When Peter says he would give anything for the harp, Zero makes a deal - Peter will sign a contract to own the harp and pay for it later. Peter happily signs and carries the harp home, and does not see when Zero makes a phone call to inform his home office that he - in reality The Prince Of Darkness - has purchased Peter's soul. Zero later appears at The Monkees' beach house and tells Peter he can play the harp; when the initially disbelieving Peter begins playing and finds he has great dexterity in doing so, Zero disappears and Micky, Mike, and Davy are left surprised at Peter's ability. The Monkees integrate the harp into their touring act and are an enormous success - until Zero returns and it is revealed that he is The Devil, who now wants Peter's soul by midnight, although Mike vows to take Zero to court over his contract, leading to a trial in Hades itself at which Peter must prove to a waiting gaggle of criminals that he can play the harp on his own, without the help of Zero.

Episode 53: Monkees Race Again
Original Air Date—12 February 1968
T.N. Crumpets, an old racing friend of Davy's grandfather asks the Monkees to help in putting his car back together. His rival Baron Von Klutz is sabotaging Crumpets at every opportunity and kidnaps both the old man and Micky. Davy, being a British subject, ends up driving the Monkeemobile against the Klutzmobile in Crumpets' place.

Episode 54: The Monkees in Paris
Original Air Date—19 February 1968
Tired of the same old scripts, the Monkees walk off the set and take a holiday in Paris. Director James Frawley is left having to come up with a way to change the formula.

Episode 55: Monkees Mind Their Manor
Original Air Date—26 February 1968
The Monkees travel to England when Davy inherits the estate of Young Lord Malcolm Kibee on the condition that he lives there for the next five years. Davy has no intention of staying, but does not want the Lord's nephew, Lance Kibee, to sell it to a land developer either. So, the Monkees put on a medieval fair to raise enough money for the local villagers to buy the manor.

Episode 56: Some Like It Lukewarm
Original Air Date—4 March 1968
The Monkees want to enter the KXIW Rockathon contest to win $500, only to find out contest manager Jerry 'The Geator with the Heator' Blavat only allows mixed groups. Davy is chosen to dress up in drag. Soon, 'Miss Jones' falls in love with Daphne, a member of The West Minstrel Abbies who has to dress as a boy to enter the same contest.


Disc 5:

Episode 57: Monkees Blow Their Minds
Original Air Date—11 March 1968
Peter walks into The Great Oracullo's House of Mysteries for inspiration and is turned into a psychic slave by way of a cup of tea. Oracullo wants to headline at The Cassandra instead of the Monkees and use Peter in his act, simultaneously ruining the Monkees chances of getting the gig.

Episode 58: Mijacogeo
Original Air Date—25 March 1968
Micky, Mike and Peter find that Peter and all their neighbors have been hypnotized by their Television sets. The Evil Wizard Glick is using an alien Frodis to control people's minds through his machines (such as the Freeble Energizer) and plans to take over the world. Worst of all, The Monkees are prohibited by law to change into their Monkeemen alter ego's and even the chant Micky learned from a cereal box-top backfires on them.

Special: 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee

1. Opening
2. I'm A Believer
3. Prithee (Do Not Ask For Love)
4. Naked Persimmon
5. Goldilocks Sometime
6. Wind Up Man
7. Darwin
8. Only The Fittest Shall Survive
9. I Go Ape
10. Come On Up
11. At The Hop
12. I'm Ready; Tutti Fruitti; Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On; Shake A Tail Feather
13. Blue Monaday
14. Little Darlin'
15. Long Tall Sally
16. Down The Line (Move On)
17. Dry Bones
18. String For My Kite
19. Two Part Invention In F Major
20. Listen To The Band
21. End Credits/California Here It Comes