Friday Dance Party: The Monkees At The Movies

The stars of this week's Dance Party are all repeat offenders. The Monkees have appeared in these pages twice before; if you are interested, I wrote a bit about their invention (not many musical groups can claim to have been "invented," but The Monkees can), and another one at Christmas time last year. The Monkees have popped up on my radar lately as I've been reading about their current tour. Well, only three of them are currently touring, Mike Nesmith has declined to join them. A recent interview with Davy Jones somewhere indicated that Nesmith was the sly one of the group in their early years. While the other three performers were accepting merely a paycheck for their services to TV studio Screen Gems, Nesmith was negotiating to hold the rights to the B side of all the songs which The Monkees released as singles. Smart guy. The other star of this week's Party also appeared here during Christmas time, and it's a very nice little song. Bobby Sherman left the business years ago to become an emergency medical technician, but his name is still remembered as the breakout star of the TV series Here Come the Brides. Interestingly, just a little while before he landed that career-making gig, Sherman guest starred on The Monkees, and it is that appearance which includes today's clip. It's been mentioned here and elsewhere, and who am I to quibble, that The Monkees invented what would become known as the music video, as their television show always included at least one filmed presentation of one of their songs. That's all you need to know to enjoy this short clip, except that Bobby Sherman looks pretty ridiculous as a platinum blond. He turns 68 years old today.