Every ‘Monkees’ Episode: “One Man Shy” (aka “Peter and the Debutante”) (S1E13)
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: “One Man Shy” (aka “Peter and the Debutante”) (Season 1, Episode 13)
Air date: December 6, 1966
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7Sf5hXn4UM
This sweet and entertaining episode starts with the Monkees at the home of Valerie Cartwright (played by Lisa James), a young girl who’s auditioning the Monkees to play at her debutante party. With Valerie is her obnoxious and pompous boyfriend, Ronnie Farnsworth (played by the inimitable Tony Award-winner George Furth).
The proverbially girl-shy Peter has been fawning at a portrait of Valerie before they launched into their audition number, clearly captivated by her beauty. Her boyfriend dismisses their music with multiple put downs. The despondent guys leave, and while getting into the Monkeemobile, they see Peter has stolen the portrait which then precipitates a fast exit home in television’s coolest car.
Back home, Peter continues to obsess over the portrait, so the others decide to feed Peter lines expressing his desire for her as he stands outside her balcony. (Sound familiar? Cyrano?) They try it, but it fails and Peter gets punched out by Valerie’s groundskeeper. Back home they go.
Valerie and Ronnie drop by to inquire about their playlist for the party. Worried the portrait will be seen, Michael holds a mirror over it. Ronnie, being the complete prick that he is, expresses his disgust at their digs and then recognizes the portrait hidden behind the mirror.
Ronnie is outraged, but Valerie is cool and tells Peter to just return it when they come to the party. Peter’s buddies are distressed at his pain and decide to discredit Ronnie in Valerie’s eyes.
The plan is for the guys to disguise themselves, follow the couple, and then embarrass Ronnie so thoroughly that Valerie will leave him for Peter. This goes, as you might suspect, not well for the guys, but it is exceedingly funny.
Davy, posing as a waiter, booby traps a champagne bottle and when the cork explodes out it knocks down a building. Michael approaches them in a park as they admire a presumed pop art maze of pipes and proceeds to squirt Ronnie in the face as he asks if it’s for sale.
Micky approaches them as a toy salesman as they’re walking along a street and brings up children, prompting Ronnie to say he isn’t interested in his toys. Micky asks, “Oh, you don’t like kids, do you?”
Ronnie then stutters that he does indeed like them and then Micky holds up a doll which squirts Ronnie with water. Ronnie finally senses he is being played and Micky dashes away. Ronnie plans revenge by repeating the same ploy on them.
Inviting them to Valerie’s home, he proceeds to outdo them in a variety of sports, including skeet shooting, archery, and badminton. Valerie is angry by Ronnie’s behavior and stomps off, later calling Peter to ask if he would escort her to her party.
Peter is worried that he’ll blow it so the guys teach him the basic skills in wooing his lady. With “I’m a Believer” playing over the segment, Micky starts the process by showing Peter how to pull out a chair for Valerie (he hangs the chair on a coat rack), then Michael shows him how to put his coat over a puddle so Valerie can cross a street without getting her feet wet.
Poor Peter instead takes Valerie’s coat instead of his own and lays it over the puddle. Mike’s astonished look tells it all. Surely even he isn’t that stupid! Moving on, Davy shows him how to open a car door for her, but the smitten Peter shuts the door on her ankle. Davy tries to show him how to light Valerie’s cigarette, but his lighter doesn’t work, and he tries a blowtorch.
“I’m a Believer” made its Monkees debut in this episode. Penned by Neil Diamond and produced by Jeff Barry, the lead was ably sung by Micky at a progressively faster pace until, at the end, he’s belting it out at true garage band-like decibel levels. At the time, Barry was married to Ellie Greenwich and both, along with Diamond, were veterans of the famous Brill Building songwriting factory.
Barry and Greenwich ultimately became one of the best songwriting teams in history. “I’m a Believer” reached #1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart for the week ending December 31, 1966 and stayed there for seven weeks, becoming the last No. 1 hit of 1966 and 1967’s best-selling record. At the end of the ’60s, it had assumed its place as one of the best songs of the decade.
Interspersed with these scenes of futile teaching is a touching montage of Peter and Valerie in a park, dancing slowly, touching, and staring into each other’s eyes. Suddenly though, that wacky kid Ronnie appears and flings a discus, of all things, at Peter, but only succeeds in knocking himself down. Peter and Valerie finally kiss.
Back at the Monkees’ place, the guys ask Peter about his previous history with girls and learn it’s been sparse and unfruitful. They decide to invite a girl over to play Spin-the-Bottle with them, hoping some kisses will free up his anxieties, but the bottle always ends up pointing at Davy, even when he leaves the room. It’s funny, and I’m sure the skit delighted many a female viewer of a certain age.
Micky then dresses up as Sigmund Freud and determines Peter has a Mother problem, but just then its Micky’s mother who calls and instructs him to wear his galoshes. Nothing is working, and Peter says he’s not going to the party, but the guys insist they’ll be there to back him up, so off they go.
At the party, Peter is in a suit and the other three are in their red performance shirts. Peter tries conversing with Valerie on a wide range of subjects, but he blows it, and the guys once again disguise themselves and attempt to convince Valerie that Peter is the perfect guy. Mike, Micky, and Davy, respectively posing as a stockbroker, a tailor, and a yacht captain, once again fail as Valerie is aware of their ploy. Ronnie shows up in a cape and berates the group and orders them to play.
They begin playing (“You May Just Be the One” – written by Mike) as Valerie accepts Peter’s invitation to dance instead of Ronnie’s. Interspersed with the number, Peter and Ronnie scuffle and then begins a series of short clips where Peter beats Ronnie in several games, including hopscotch, marbles, pistol shooting (with flags in the barrels), boxing, and fencing. Peter has finally won!
This is an action-packed 25 minutes. Written by Gerald Gardner & Dee Caruso (the two were also head writers for Get Smart) and Treva Silverman (see last week’s episode review of “I’ve Got a Little Song Here” – Silverman was the only female writer on this show and later won awards for her writing on the Mary Tyler Moore Show) and directed by James Frawley (only 30 years old at the time), it’s highly representative of The Monkees‘ two-year run. Focusing on a single Monkee is always fun, and Peter was never better than this turn as a love-sick puppy.
“I’m a Believer” was played on the next three consecutive episodes making December 1966 one of the most memorable months of The Monkees’ legacy and foreshadowed what would be their most productive and revolutionary year: 1967.
