Every ‘Monkees’ Episode: “Monkee vs. Machine” (S1E3)
This past summer, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Monkees as a band by counting down our top 50 Monkees songs. Now, we’re celebrating The Monkees TV show by profiling each and every episode — exactly 50 years after it first premiered.
Tonight’s episode: “Monkee vs Machine” (Season 1, Episode 3)
Air date: September 26, 1966
When Bob Rafelson brought the show to Screen Gems/Columbia and got NBC to put it on air, he made sure that he could get as much great talent behind the Monkees as possible. Don Kirshner was retained as the music supervisor for the first season and funneled such hits to the group as “Last Train to Clarksville” which got performed on last week’s episode, as well as other pieces by Brill Building alum.
The show attracted good writers, such as David Panich, who in addition to writing this episode would go on to become script supervisor for Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. Rafelson himself, who would later direct such films as Five Easy Pieces and Head, took the chair for this episode.
And in this case, there’s some surprising strong talent sharing the screen with the Monkees.
Yes, that’s Stan Freberg. Beyond just his extensive voice work for both Warner Brothers and Disney animated productions, as well as his radio shows and extensive discography of comedy albums,, Freberg was a pivotal figure in American advertising, changing the tenor and direction of how products are pitched on the radio and television almost single-handedly. In one form or another, everyone grew up on Stan Freberg.
So what’s he doing here with an (at the time) ersatz band? Supporting surrendering our kids to machines, of course…
The Monkees’ need for cash flow outside of their music work (an eternal challenge for all musicians) forces Peter to go up against DJ-61, a computer that handles human resources for a toy company. (One that, interestingly, has plenty of Mattel toys on display, though no acknowledgement is given them in the show.) Upset at Peter’s humiliation, Mike goes back to even the score.
Once he beats DJ-61, Mike meets Freberg’s Daggert, the company’s manager and efficiency expert. Although the title “power behind the throne” works well too, the way he browbeats company president J. B. Guggins Jr (Severn Darden) and behaves so nastily that Screen Gems actually found “canned boos” to insert after some maliciousness, so terrible that it puts Mike into a funk, during which he contemplates hard enough to take the show into a presentation of the song “Saturday’s Child,” complete with the Monkees playing with kids at a beachside playground.
Ultimately, the Monkees decide on zany cosplay to infiltrate the product testing at the toy company, with enough comedic hijinks to ultimately lead to Daggert’s toppling from the organization.
The genius of the episode is in how the Monkees interact with a more established comedic talent. Freberg, who has created plenty of crazed characters that go absolutely wild, is perfectly happy to play the straight man, the foil for the newcomers, and he does a remarkable job keeping himself in control as he hands off the shtick to the stars.
Some of the best comedians did their finest material when they bounced off the straight guy, the way the Marx Brothers played off of Margaret Dumont, and here the band has what may have been the best man for the job when the show was on the air.
In many ways, this was a breakthrough episode for the series. Over and above this being our first introduction to Mr. Schneider just sitting around for a cheap laugh (when he wasn’t doing something else), we get to really see the routine for the series gel before us as the band finds its comedic rhythm; as much as we remember their music, we’d not be talking about them today had they failed as a television sitcom act.
-
Guy Smiley