Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 28. Micky Dolenz

Episode Date: December 7, 2014

Gilbert and Frank visit the George Burns Room at the historic New York Friars Club, where they're joined by actor, singer and musician MICKY DOLENZ for a fun and fascinating look back at "Monkeemania" and his own unlikely journey from 1950's child star ("Circus Boy") to 1960's pop/rock icon. Also, Micky drops in on a "Sgt. Pepper" recording session, makes movies with Jack Nicholson and Frank Zappa and hits the town with fellow "Hollywood Vampires" John Lennon, Keith Moon and Alice Cooper. PLUS: Lon Chaney Jr.! Micky's mom meets "The Creeper"! The Monkees take on "Faust"! Harry Nilsson quits his day job! And Sgt. Bilko sings "Yesterday"! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. I'm here with my co-host Frank Santopadre at the legendary Friars Club. Today, we're joined by an actor, musician, singer, director, radio personality, and one of the stars of a historic, groundbreaking TV show. He also happens to be a genuine show business and pop culture icon. Welcome the drummer and lead singer of the Monkees, the great Mickey Dolenz. Whoa, what an intro. Could you louder? A bit louder. Well, I figure you're old. I know, the hearing, what?

Great pop, popcorn, popcorn, I can knock a pop, what? A popcorn, I can, Icon, I, Acorn, Pop Acorn. Popcorn,, acorn, popcorn acorn. Popcorn acorn. So you're basically turning into Jerry Lewis. Yes. Popcorn acorn. Lady. Lady.

Funny, I just did that character about a month ago. I just did a play in Connecticut at a Summerstock theater, a very famous one called the Iverton Theater. And the first Summerstock theater in the country. And I did a new play by Mike Reese, a writer for a producer for The Simpsons. We had him on the

show. You're kidding me. Yeah, he was one of our guests. He wrote this new play. I read it. I begged to do it. I did it at Iverton with Joyce DeWitt from Three's Company, a wonderful, wonderful actress. And I don't know why they thought of me, but I played an 84-year-old Jewish comedian. And I don't know where it came from. I was channeling Shecky Green and Rodney Dangerfield. And, hey, that's comedy.

We did this wonderful play, a two-hander with me and Joyce. Joyce and I, excuse me. And we just finished. And to rave reviews, I'm told. I don't read reviews, but rave reviews. And I don't know where that comes from. Jerry Lewis. I was brought up on Jerry Lewis and Shelly Berman

and Danny Kaye, Red Skelton. What was the name of the play? Comedy is Hard. And it's about this 84-year-old Jewish comedian in a wheelchair. And Joyce DeWitt plays a Broadway diva in a wheelchair, and we're in a home. It's like very Neil Simon-esque. It's just the funniest thing.

And it's funny that you mentioned Shelley Berman. Were you in a Shelley Berman movie? I absolutely was. It was called Keep Off My Grass. And a very gallant attempt, like in the early 70s or mid-70s, to do a movie about weed and about these hippies in a bus. And I don't remember what it was about much. But to do that back then, I thought it was kind of weird that they even got it made or distributed. But Shelley Berman had never directed, and he was asked to direct.

And I loved him. And frankly, he was one of the reasons I agreed to do the movie, because I was a huge fan. I mean, that was a little before your time, right? I remember Shelley Berman. I remember Shelly Berman. Wear your seatbelt so only the top half of you flies through the front of the plane. Oh, God. Remember that?

Oh, yes. And Shelly Berman, I think, always hated Bob Newhart because he felt that Bob Newhart stole the phone bit from him. So they asked me to do this movie playing this like weird hippie kid. It was just post-Monkeys. And I played this like weird kind of hippie, you know, kid that wanted to grow weed or something like that. It was an okay movie. But you know but i'll never forget shelly who was so funny and i just adored him but he'd never directed before and hope he doesn't mind me telling he lives where i live near right near where i live hope he doesn't mind me telling

this story but he got on the set and had never directed anything and this was when there were real cameras like bncs you know the 35 millimeter thing on the dolly and the tracking and stuff and these cameras had a huge lens thing and a high and in the first day of shooting he goes and he looks in the wrong end of the camera i can't say anything that's a bad start. And the cinematographer has to, excuse me, Mr. Berman, that's the other side of the camera. You know, since you mentioned Jerry Lois, Mick, we have to talk real quick about how your parents were actors, which I found out doing research, and that your dad, George Dolenz, worked with Dean and Jerry. Oh, absolutely, and Scared Stiff. But he'd done a lot of work.

I mean, even before that, he did pretty well for himself. He was off the boat at Italians. He swam from Cuba to get to the States or something like that. Some crazy story. And wanted to be an actor and worked his way in the restaurant business to Los Angeles. And then he was doing plays and local, I guess, stuff in L.A. in the early 40s. Met my mom, who was also an actress. They met doing a play.

Your mom's name was Janelle Johnson. Janelle Johnson. And they met doing a play. Janelle Johnson. Janelle Johnson. And they met doing a play. He was working as the maitre d' at the Trocadero, which was a very, very famous upmarket, big-time club restaurant thing like the Copacabana or something like that in Los Angeles. And the story goes that – and he was an actor trying to get acting work.

And he was in the men's room, and Howard Hughes walks in. I guess they're taking a pee together. And Howard Hughes asked him, what are you doing? He says, I'm an actor. And he signed him. Signed him to RKO. Yeah. Signed him, too.

And he did one big movie called, I think, what's it called, Vendetta? I can't remember. But he was under contract for a number of years and of course never worked because Howard Hughes never made any actual movies except one or two. He wound up making a few films with Edward G. Robinson. He made Bullet for Joey and Donna Reed. I think that was after the Howard Hughes thing.

Oh, he made quite a few movies. And then his big... Oh, no, I was saying... His big claim to fame would have been The Count of Monte Cristo, the series in the 50s. No, Frank and I were talking that your mother was in a movie with the great Rondo Hatton. Yep. The Brute Man. Yeah.

Yeah. And for those who don't know Rondo Hatton, he was a guy suffering a disease called acromegaly. That's right. That made people grow really big. Elephantitis. Yes. The elephant man is about that. So he was like a guy who needed no makeup for horror films.

Wasn't he exposed to some kind of gas in the war? That was the thing. That wouldn't cause that disease. I think that's genetic DNA thing. And so he got horror parts, the poor thing, because he had these deformities. And I think the English guy in the Jeffersons,

like, oh, George, that guy had had it. Oh, really? You mean Bentley? Mr. Bentley. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Interesting. I think that was what they called Elephant Titus, which the elephant man, you know. Gigantism. What's his name? John.

John Merrick. John Merrick. I believe that was the same thing. My mom used to talk about that, and she talked about that actor, and she said, yeah, she did that movie. So she was an actress, yep, and they met. She did that movie. So she was an actress, yep, and they met. And then she started having kids, and she bailed out of the entertainment part of it.

But my dad went on and had a wonderful five-star restaurant in Los Angeles and did the Count of Monte Cristo series about the same time I was doing Circus Boy. So you're a showbiz kid. Oh, I'm born and raised. I mean I'm – I thought everybody's father was an actor. On parent day, they'd say, what does your father do? He gets shot by fake bullets and falls off a horse.

That's the first time I saw him in a movie called Wings of the Hawk. I don't know if there was a Howard Hawks movie. He was like this evil Mexican captain something in the Spanish-American War. And he's like getting shot with all these fake bullets and falling off a horse. And I'm there going, Daddy, are you okay? ahead after the success of a hard day's night and help uh they they decided uh to do i guess an americanized uh beatles well it depends who you ask you know the the uh it's not that's not

from when i understand that's not exactly what happened. Don't contradict me. It's my fucking show. Okay, Gilbert. Yes, you're absolutely right. Okay. End of interview. Goodbye. If I get your name wrong, we're going to take that away.

The story I heard was a little more complicated. But essentially, yes, that is what happened. But the story behind that I think is very interesting. Bob Rafelson, who was kicking around town as a writer, director guy, and he had worked as a roadie or something for a pop – a folk band, a folk group in the early 60s or late 50s even. And he had been trying to pitch this show around L.A., a TV show, about the behind-the-scenes roadies of a folk group touring. And he'd been to Mexico or been all around. And he tried to pitch this show, and it didn't fly.

Nobody wanted to do it. And then the Beatles hit. And he hooked up, I guess, with Bert Schneider, whose father happened to be Abe Schneider of Columbia Pictures. And the Beatles came out and the whole pop British invasion, the whole hippie culture. And they said, let's take your idea and just put them in bell bottoms instead of you know jeans i guess or something and make it about this particular generation and and and culture but somewhere along the line they said but it's got to be funny and it's got to be lighthearted. And so they modeled the humor and the sensibility much more on the Marx Brothers than the Beatles.

And it was actually John Lennon. Oh, did I drop that name? Who said to me once, I like the monkeys, I like the Marx Brothers. And ultimately it was... Yeah, he got it. Marx Brothers. And ultimately – So he got it. Yeah, he got it. Yeah. And there were a lot of people that got it.

Frank Zappa got it. He was on the show. Sure. And so those kind of people got it. It wasn't so much about the Beatles. The Monkees was a television show about a band, an imaginary band, that wanted to be the Beatles but never were. We never made it on the television show. We were never successful on the show.

It was the struggle for success that spoke to all those kids out there, all that generation that were in their garages and living rooms and basements trying to be the Beatles. And we had a poster on the set of the Beatles and we would throw darts at it. But that's kind of what it was about. It was much more musical theater. It was like a Marx Brothers, a 30-minute Marx Brothers musical on television. There's different stories about the origin. I mean, I read something today that Ray Fulsonson like you said was was trying as early as 62 and of course hard day's night

doesn't happen for another two years if in fact that's true i also read that they tried originally there was an impulse to do it with an existing band yep like the love and spoonful yep that's true that i heard that they were looking at that was but by that time it was casting they already had the idea that the pilot script had been written i have the pilot script my character on in the script is like steve or something you know biff or bongo or something um and they were looking at that you know and the audition process was you know intense it was was – I remember it as almost being months. It probably wasn't.

But for an audition process for a TV series, it was intense. I mean it went on – excuse me. I was up for two or three different pilots that year, music pilots, pop music. There was one about a folk group like Peter, Paul, and Mary that actually went to pilot and I can't remember the name of it, but it did go to pilot, but didn't sell. And then one about like a surfer band like the

Beach Boys. I was up for that. And then another one like a new Christy Minstrel's big family The Mighty Wind. Oh, sure. A great movie. Big family thing with all these singers and stuff that I think eventually kind of became Partridge Family years later.

Well, that was supposedly loosely based on the cow sales of Partridge Family. Yeah. And this was, I think, well, pre-cow sales would have been 65. Sure, sure, sure. But they didn't sell. But the Monkees, who knows why, just clicked and they sold it. The audition process, you had to sing, you had to play, you had to dance, you had to improvise. They were heavily on the improvisation.

Jim Frawley, who was one of the directors eventually of the show, was one of the uh the directors uh of eventually of the show wonderful wonderful director and guy named james frawley uh won the emmy for um alan mcbeal pilot years later he directed a lot of the episodes and they brought him in after they sold the pilot and taught us improv because we didn't know so it was heavily weighted towards improv but even in the audition process it was an improv whole screen test and then lines and scene study and and screen tests and uh and then playing my audition piece was johnny be good on the guitar because i was a and excuse me interviews and then combining us with all the other characters but by the time I remember

the you know I was in school at the time yeah we were talking about it you were leaving show business and you wanted to be an architect because you had been in Circus Boy yep and then after that I think your parents decided. Yeah.

Yeah. David? Dave, do you mind? Friend of mine. Yeah, that's true. My parents, having both been in the business, but we lived a very non-business life. We lived way out in the San Fernando Valley on a ranch and had horses. My dad was old school, like I said, off the boat from Italy. And we didn't live the hollywood beverly hills thing

at all we we uh you know i got up and you know during circus boy and i'd go out and have to muck out the horses and and stuff and um after circus boy i they sent me to an educational counselor which that's what they said it was. Basically, it was a shrink. And I remember taking Rorschach tests and, you know, why are all these pictures of my mother? And I guess he said you probably should get him out of the business now. Or something like that. Because I was offered another show, so the story goes, of a new show called Cabin Boy, which was about, I guess, a Treasure Island kind of boy on a ship in the – Interesting.

Some kind of a Treasure Island thing. And thank God they took me out because looking back, the initial success of a child star is not the problem it's the aftermath when at 13 you're a has-been right you know puberty is tough enough when do you get the monkeys i mean there's a stretch there oh yeah i think 10 years i think danny bonaduce she said being a child star is great it's being a former child star that's terrible. Absolutely perfect. And I know Danny, and that's absolutely perfect. A former child star, if you try, I think, it's a generality,

but if you try to make the transition and live it and try to keep your career going and try to keep your thing. Shirley Temple is about, well, and she just bailed. I'm going to be a diplomat. Something else with her life, right? That's the hard part because it's tough enough going through puberty and growing up and being a teenager for anybody to do it as a has-been and almost like a mascot, you know, this kind of, you know, novelty. It must be brutal. And so my parents at some point said, no, he's not going to do anymore.

He's going back to high school, going back to school. And I did. Next day, like the day after the show wrapped almost, I was back at a public school, my blonde roots growing out, you know, from my bleached hair for the show, and I was back in school and didn't do anything for years showbiz-wise. And I don't remember caring much. It was like – And I just recently saw something on the internet that was doing one of these things saying, former child stars, look how horrible they look now. And it's like you look at the pictures and then now you go,

well, they just aren't five years old anymore. Yeah. Good old journalism. Yes. So when an ad goes out. Good old exploitive, you know, extra, extra. There's all that. An ad goes out in Daily Variety for this new show.

And you were what, 20 years old? And the audition, by the way, there's something. I don't know if it's all of your audition, but you can see on YouTube. There's black and white footage of you sitting on a couch strumming a guitar. Yeah, yeah. With two guys I don't recognize. Yeah, right. Well, that would have been about the last 16, maybe 8 or 12, you know, audition people that were trying.

Like I say, it went on and on and on, and they would narrow it down. You know, it was 16. I remember it being about 16. Before that, it was kind of cattle call. I didn't go to a cattle call because I had already had my own series. So one had one's own private audition with producers and directors.

No, the auditions are there. So what was your question? Now, I want... They also made a big deal, like they always do. They try to create feuds. So they would make it like, oh, like the Beatles looked down and hated the monkeys. But it wasn't like that. No, it wasn't the Beatles or us that did that. It was the good old press.

The Beatles versus monkey things. No, it never existed. First of all, it was years, you know, culturally, two or three years in music and culture. It was a long, long time. We didn't have the same fans even, the Beatle fans. We had the younger brothers and sisters of the Beatle fans, because it was good four years later, three to four years later, and the Beatles had gone on to other things. And like I say, this was a television show about a band that wanted to be the Beatles.

So no, there wasn't any feud at all. No, there wasn't any feud at all. And you also sat in on a bunch of the Beatles albums, like Sgt. Pepper. Yeah, whatever happened to that? That was really good, Gilbert. And I just like, wow, man. So there's an ad placed in the Daily Variety that they're casting this show called The Monk. Was it called The Monkees from the very beginning? Yes, but spelled...

Excuse me. But spelled normally, just M-O-N-K-E-Y-S. And then some lawyer must have said, you can't spell it like that or you'll never be able to get ownership of any branding. So that's when they changed it.

Oh, I love that. There's always a play on the Beatles misspelling Beatles, that they misspelled monkeys. No, in this case, I think it was more about getting a brand. But, you know, a lot of groups were naming themselves after animals. Right. Like the animals.

Oh, that makes me remember something. And I don't know if this is total showbiz bullshit. But they said one of the songs, one of the monkey songs, you go, no, no, no. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Oh, no, no, no. It's Clarksville. Yes, yes. Class training in Clarksville. And they said that was because the Beatles were doing yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't remember that, but that's a good one. It's a great one. I'll use it.

Good Hollywood bullshit. I'll use it. Claim it's true. It's a great story. That's a good one. Well, the best is to the Charlie Manson. And that story about you and the gerbil was... Well, just prove the Manson one real briefly now that you brought it up.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, total bullshit. I made the big mistake once of doing a show back in L.A., back in the early 70s or something or whenever, and I was just screwing around. It was Rodney Bingenheimer, I think, K-Rock or something, and I just made a joke. and I were, I think, K-Rock or something. And I just made a joke. Oh, yeah, everybody auditioned for the Monkees.

You know, Stephen Stills, Paul Williams, and Charlie Manson. Right. And everybody took it as gospel, and now it's an urban myth. I love it. Didn't Peter Tork get the part because Stephen Stills recommended him? Yes. Yeah. That's true.

Interesting. Yeah. I'm trying to imagine Stephen Stills and the Monkees. Yeah, right. So, oh, we were talking about, but you actually, aside from going to these, to sit in on the Beatles making their albums, you were also friends. Yeah, eventually. I mean, initially I met Paul. Did I drop that name? I met Paul on a – it was more like a – I was there on a press junket to England promoting the upcoming tour.

And the publicity people wanted to do a monkeys meets Beatles thing. And Paul graciously had me over to his house in Ab'd be wrote I mean on in made of ale for dinner and we just sat and chatted and took a few photographs and then he invited me to this recording session the next day for that that album sergeant bilko and That was the album they did with Phil Silvers. Hey! I love it. Phil Silvers does Yesterday.

I was like so... I was such a huge fan. First of all, I mean, I was just a huge fan first of all i mean i was just a huge fan beetle fan of course and i i think i had an autograph book i was like all i could do and not to get his autograph and um i um they invited me to a session for a bunch of stuff they'd been doing and um uh at Abbey Road. And the next day I went. And I tell this story actually even in my solo show. I think I was expecting some kind of Beatlemania, Funfest, freakout, psycho, jello, you know, love-in, be-in thing.

So I got dressed accordingly with my paisley bell bottoms and my tie-dyed underwear and my little linen glasses and my hair and beads and curls and and the limo picks me up in the middle of the day and i get there like two o'clock in the afternoon i look like a cross between ronald mcdonnell and charlie manson there go. And I walk in and I'm like, where are the girls? Sheets to the wind. And there's nobody there. It's the Abbey Road Studios and there's just the four guys, fluorescent lighting like my high school gymnasium. And they're just playing.

And it was John that looked upchunk, ka-chunk. And it was John that looked up and said, Hey, monkey man, that's what he called me, monkey man, you want to hear what we're working on? And I'm, like, trying to be so cool, you know, my best hip-wise. Yeah, John, cool, man, yeah, right, far out, man, yeah. And they played the tracks to Good Morning, John Cool, man. Yeah, right. Far out, man. Yeah. And they played the tracks to Good Morning, Good Morning, which they were working on, the tracking of that.

And then we had tea and we sat down and chatted. And then an interesting thing happened that I remember to this day. The guy from EMI in the white little suit comes in with tea, four o'clock, and boom, puts the tea down on a little card table. Everybody has tea. Like in ten minutes or so, John Lennon says, oh, right, lads, back down the mines. Wow. Yeah. And didn't realize it at the time, but looking back, now I realize how they managed to produce that much incredible material. They just worked their butts off 24-7 for those years.

And I heard even later that it was John. He was the one that would say, back down the mines, lads. He was the taskmaster, huh? Interesting. That northern England working class mentality. And they just sat there by themselves. I'm sure they partied, but at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, they were there just playing and playing and playing and playing. It's interesting. You tell an interesting story about when Monkey Mania first hits, that you were in a mall when you first had this realization. Oh, you heard that?

Yeah, I saw you on Oprah. Oh, that's right. Yeah. It's a good story. Well, watch Oprah. I don't like to repeat myself. No, it's a great story. It was December of 66.

The show had been on the air for three months, September, October, four months. And we'd been ensconced, of course, in the filming. We were 24-7, six days a week, filming the television show, rehearsing, recording at night, rehearsing. So we never got out. And we'd heard that the show was on the air and that it was a pretty good reaction. And the record, of course, we knew was like number one. But had no personal sort of interaction with anybody in Hollywood that in those days didn't happen much anyway. You guys were in the bubble.

Yeah, we were in the eye of the hurricane and didn't know it. And so Christmas came along. We had a week hiatus for Christmas. And I jumped in my little Ford, sorry, Pontiac GTO,

which they'd given me, which they eventually took back, the bastard. Really? Man. That's not right. They took it back. They took the goddamn GTO back. And I got my little shopping list,

and I went down to the mall in the San Fernando Valley, the same mall I'd shopped at all my life, my parents and my sisters for years. And I had my list, and I had about an hour or two to go and do my shopping because I had to go up north to see my parents and my sisters. And I get out of my car, and I go through the big sliding glass doors or whatever, and all of a sudden I hear screaming, and people start running towards the door. And I think it's a fire. And I start going, yes, this way.

Don't panic. And I hold open the door. Don't panic. Don't run. And then, of course, I realize they're running at me, all these kids. And I was really pissed off. I'm like, I've got to do my shopping. And I couldn't.

I had to get in my car. And I hired my roadie to go do my Christmas shopping. And suddenly it was on. And that was the first inkling I got. Then when we went on the road, of course, it was pretty apparent, obviously. We lived in a little black box, which is the black box in the movie Head is the black box of us living from limousine to garbage entrance of hotel to elevator to room back bullshit, but you can tell it and claim it's true that when they did the movie head, they were planning. They were talking about doing a sequel. So just so they can advertise from the people who gave you head.

Absolutely true. Absolutely true. We joked about that. That's funny. We absolutely had had We joked about that. That's funny. We absolutely had a great laugh over that. And I think Bob and Bert would have probably gone ahead and done that if that had been another movie. And that was a wonderful experience. I love the movie.

I'm still not sure what it's about entirely. Well, I mean, first of all, a totally unknown screenwriter by the name of Jack Nicholson wrote it. Bob introduced him one day. They must have met somewhere, I guess, and were hanging out. He was a B-movie actor. You know, he'd done a few little movies. Yeah, we had Roger Corman on the podcast. He did a few of the movies.

And Bob introduced him one day to us and said, this is a guy named Jack Nicholson. He's an actor. He wants to do some writing. And I think he'd be a good collaborator for our movie. We had decided, sort of en masse, we did not want to do a movie because the idea of the movie had come up. movie because the idea of the movie had come up and we didn't want to do a movie that the idea was we did not do a movie that was just a 90 minute version of the television show an episode excuse me an episode of the tv show and we all sort of bought into that you know we i did certainly i said yeah that's a good idea let's something. Let's get out of the box, you know, a little bit.

Because on the TV show, it was so highly, highly restrictive in the censorship. And, you know, you couldn't mention anything. You know, like Fawlty Towers, don't mention Zavore. Don't say that. We couldn't mention any. I mean, it was highly, highly restrictive. If you remind me, I'll tell you a story about one of the episodes.

The censorship. So the idea for the movie came along and we were like, wow, that's cool. And Bob brought in this guy named Jack Nicholson and we just all absolutely fell in love with him. He's so charismatic and so funny and so genuine and real and honest and just wonderful, wonderful character.

And so we all were like, yeah. And we'd agreed we're going to do something different. So we all go out to a golf resort spa in california for a weekend uh oh hi and we're all gonna create this movie together and i and there's tapes and i have film of us all sitting around jack and the four of us and a couple of you know and bob raffles and of course and bert schneider and a couple of you know uh in you know, roadie guys. And we start talking, and we just talk and talk and talk. And it went on for days.

And then Jack took all of that and meeting me and spending time with me and my family and Mike and Peter and David and crafted, you know, that really amazing, weird script. It's weird. It's nothing like the series. I mean, not only that you had free reign to do much more than you could do in the series, but I mean, the anti-war stuff. Well, in the series, like I say, it was NBC, and back then the censorship was just brutal. The best story that I have about that is we did an episode called The Devil and Peter Tork. Oh, sure. And it was –

We were talking about Monty Landis before. He played the devil. Yeah, and he played the devil. And it was obviously damn monkeys. It was Faust. And there was a line in the script where Peter gets seduced by the devil and Monty Landis. And I say something like, well, Peter, you can't do that. You can't sell your soul to the devil to play the harp

because if you do, you'll go to hell. And the censors came back and said, you can't use the word hell. You cannot say the word hell in primetime network television at 7.30 on a Monday night. And Bob Ravelson, I heard, he went back to New York. He, like, fought, and he just, like, beat him up. He just, like, he fought for this.

He said, are you kidding me? It's Faust. Right. And they refused, and they refused. So if you watch the episode, I think what happens, if I can remember, is that when that line comes up, I say something like, but Peter, you can't do that, sell your soul to the devil, because if you do, you'll go to that place that you can't mention on network television. That's funny. And I heard, too, during the making of Head, as well as other times, that you and Jack Nicholson and, you know, the monkeys and Jack Nicholson weren't exactly saying no to drugs. I never got that much into drugs.

I was drinking a little bit. And I smoked a lot of weed, and if you consider that, heavily into drugs. But that was about it. About the time that the monkeys was over and all that was passing, like cocaine had never even got into the equation yet. By the time cocaine started coming in, I was gone. I had moved to England. So basically it was just weed and drinking and not even that much drinking. It was more weed.

I can't speak for Jack. There's some talk that he was on acid when he wrote the script. Oh, no. I definitely had done a couple acid trips. Thank God, touch wood, I'd never had any serious side effects or anything. And I do not recommend that to anyone. It's way too risky Obviously But you know I can't speak for anybody else

But I never First of all I was too busy There wasn't the time What kind of days were you guys putting in? You were learning songs You were doing a TV series It was a typical sitcom shooting schedule

For starters Which was 6 or 7 in the morning songs. You were doing a TV series. It was a typical sitcom shooting schedule, for starters. Which was 6 or 7 in the morning until 7 or 8 at night. 10, 12 hours easily. And then I usually had to go in the studio, or David, we did most

vocals. And we'd go into RCA and I would often record three lead vocals a night in one night, the lead vocals. And then on the weekends, we were starting to rehearse for touring. So for two to three years, there was just not a lot of time. And then I'd go home and get in my workshop and build shit. Then I'd go home and get in my workshop and build shit. I built a gyrocopter in my workshop.

So there wasn't a lot of time during that period. Post-Monkeys, those early 70 years, John's lost weekend years with Harry Nilsson and Alice. Tell us a little bit about that, the Hollywood vampires. I'm told I had a great time. Funnily enough, the Hollywood Vampires was a softball team. Interesting. Alice had started it because we were all into sports. Alice Cooper. I was playing tennis and Alice.

We were playing sport. We were like out there playing softball. I'm trying to picture you and Harry Nilsson and out there playing softball and i was trying to picture you and harry nielsen and alice cooper playing softball you should look up harry nielsen stuff early 70s he was a he was a huge basketball player and really good i mean he was tall he's two or three he would play all the time every week um i was into tennis i was doing tournaments i became like a b uh club i got to about a b club tennis player in the early 70s and alice said let's start a softball because we love softball we play on the weekends uh and uh play like you know against other

companies or orAPD. I remember once we played a bunch of these kids that were in a juvie camp. They were like borderline juvenile delinquents. I remember this really clearly because they beat the shit out of us. It's bizarre. We were a bunch of rock and rollers trying to play softball, and these are, like, hardcore. But they were really good. So this was all about, like, you know, softball and playing, and we were serious.

I mean, we really played hard. And then we would go and party at the Rainbow and, you know, have a post-game kind of thing. But, and it was a lot of fun. It was great. But, you know, in answer to your extra, extra... LAUGHTER ..just speaking for myself, I didn't... You know, touch wood, I think I always had a governor.

You know, I would, like, go up to the edge of the cliff and then something would, like back and say, nope, too far. My mom always used to say I had a guardian angel. Now, also, before I forget, when you were with the Monkees, you had the most amazing group of songwriters. Can you name some of them? Neil Diamond, Neil Sadaka, Neil Armstrong. Really? Blue Moon.

Really? Hey, that's comedy. My wife's going, oh, not that stupid line again. Mickey's wife is here. I got a laugh, honey. Give me a break here. Well, Carole King and Jerry Goffin. I did a tribute album recently, if I can plug something.

King for a Day. It's a great record. Yeah, a tribute album to Carole King and Jerry, of course, and her other songwriter partners. Birdman, Cynthia Weil, I mean, Neil Sedaka, Paul Williams. Carol Bearer Sager. Carol Bearer Sager.

David Gates. Yeah. John Stewart from the Kingston Studio. John Stewart. Wrote Daydream Believer. Oh my God. And Harry Nilsson, like I said, that's a great Sure. Harry Nilsson. Was Boyce Hart? I'm sorry. And Boyce and Hart.

And Boyce and Hart. The first huge hit, Clarksville. The theme song. That's right. The monkey theme. And Boyce and Hart not only wrote some of the biggest hits we ever had, they produced the early biggest hits we ever had. Tommy Boyce and bobby hart you could almost give them

credit for the sound not even almost they created the sound of the original early monkey songs tommy boyce and bobby hart not only wrote but produced and created that sound. That was them. And they deserve an enormous amount of credit for that. And they wrote Stepping Stone. Yeah, I love that one. I mean, you know. So many. Unbelievable great hits. And I always, oh, go ahead.

I'm interrupting you. I was going to tell the Harry Nilsson. Oh, go ahead. So two or three albums later, we're doing Headquarters. When we'd fought for the rights to do the music and all that stuff. We should tell our listeners, that was the first album where you guys had creative control. And you got Kirshner out of the picture, Don Kirshner, and you did your own thing. Right.

Headquarters. Headquarters. The Palace Revolt. And we're in the studio recording and doing it all. And the publisher at the time from the publishing company brings in this kid called Harry Nilsson. And Harry was working at a bank at the time. And he told me years later he was doing check and clearances at some bank in Van Nuys or something. And they brought him in, and they said, this is a guy, Harry Nielsen.

He has some songs. And he sat down at a piano, and for some reason I so remember this, and he played Cuddly Toy. And Davey, after he finished the song, Davey says, I'll do that song. Well, years later, Harry tells me, because we became very, very close, he says, I walked out of the recording studio, and the publisher said to me, you can quit the bank. That's great. And he did, and of course he went on to, like, you know, incredible stuff.

He was a wonderful, wonderful guy. You know, incredible stuff. He was a wonderful, wonderful guy. I was just out of nowhere thinking, I always thought that the theme to Friends was nothing more than a reworking of Pleasant Valley Sunday. Yeah, it's true. And I can't remember who it was. I went and visited the set at one point, and I can't remember who it was, I went and visited the set at one point,

and I can't remember who it was, producer or somebody said, you know, we ripped off your song. And I'm like, hey, it's okay. It's cool. Great song. Yeah. How did you become the drummer, Mickey, because you weren't a drummer? No, as a guitar player.

I started out playing classical guitar, Spanish guitar, at about 10 years old. My father introduced me to it, and I loved it. I was under Segovia and stuff. And then when I got into high school, I remember I'd go to parties, and I'd bring my guitar, and I'd play some Segovia. And the girls would go, do you know any Kingston Trio? And I was like, okay. By the next party I hang down your head, Tom Dooley, hang down your head.

And so I figured that was the way to go. And then that sort of morphed into rock and roll and um like i mentioned my audition piece for the monkeys was johnny be good but then when i they cast me they said i said they said you're going to be the drummer and i was like but you know but i'm a guitar player and they said we have enough guitar players because mike of course a great guitar player and peter is incredible musician on like nine instruments. You know, he plays everything all at the same time. And they said, no, you're, cast you as the drummer.

And I approached it like I did with Circus Boy when they said, you're going to write an elephant. I just said, where do I learn? Where do I start? And I went into fairly intensive lessons playing the drum. But I'd also been a musician. I could read music from playing the guitar. And I'd been in bands. I'd had some rock and roll kind of cover bands.

Was it Mickey Dolan's and the One-Nighters? Mickey Dolan's and the One-Nighters. Because it was one night, but it was... And there was another one, The Missing Links. Oh, yeah. I got fired from The Missing Links. Coincidental, The Missing Links and the Monkees. I know, isn't that crazy?

Yeah, I got fired. I remember I was the lead singer. And it was five pieces, four guys in the band, and I was the lead singer. four guys in the band and I was the lead singer and one day we were playing a cocktail lounge in a bowling alley in Englewood, California

and we went back to they had a motel I lived in LA so I was home but we went back to the motel and they said we have to let you go we can't afford a lead singer the other

guys can sing and you're not playing i wasn't playing at that time i was just singing we can't afford it because you know we get 75 dollars a night split four or five ways tough and i was heartbroken i was And I was going to architectural drafting school at the time and doing this on the weekends. And I was crushed. And I went back to my little apartment in the valley. And about, I don't know, a couple of months later, I remember the drummer, I kept in touch with him. And he called me and he said, how are you doing? I said, I'm okay.

And he said, I said, how i'm okay and he said i said how you doing he said oh you know we're okay we're doing a bar mitzvah and i said oh cool cool are you doing you know money and uh you know johnny be good yeah yeah so i'm like oh yeah he said what are you doing i said oh not much i'm going to school, doing architecture, drafting. And I was up for this show. I don't think it'll probably make it. And he said, what is it? I said, oh, it's a show called The Monkees.

Now, I got to ask you an important one for me. I remember being a kid raised on monster movies, sitting in front of my little black and white TV at home, and watching the Monkees and Lon Chaney Jr. Yeah. Yeah, he was on the show. Oh, we had a lot of great co-stars. Oh, I mean, we were talking before. And Rob Marie, Jerry Colonna.

Jerry, we love Jerry Colonna. Can you believe that? So many people. Lon Chaney Jr., funnily enough, had lived next door to me when I was a kid in the Valley. And so I knew him and his family. And, you know, like I said, Rosemary, Stan Freeberg. Wally Cox, Rip Taylor. Well, I brought Rip Taylor in. I was a huge fan. So I cast him into the episode that I wrote and directed.

And there were lots of others. Pat Paulson. Oh, yeah. Pat Paulson. And what was Chaney like? Who? Lon Chaney. Well, he was just a lovely guy.

Very sweet. sweet you know funnily enough those those horror monster movie people are always the sweetest nicest you know non-horror it's always the the good guys that are assholes i've noticed that over the years i mean it's funny all the heroes and and the really beautiful you know like women are assholes can younew-women or... Little assholes! Can you name some? No. There's one great story about an actor, a wonderful actor who I admired so much,

named Hans Conrad. Brilliant character actor. And he did an episode, and he was Uncle Tannous. Oh, on the Danny Thomas show. Yeah, on the Danny Thomas show. And he used to pop up on Rocky and Bullwinkle. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Great character actor, voice actor. Wonderful. So he was on the show once. And just to set this up properly, one of the important elements, as I had mentioned, was this improvisational quality that they had inspired they had trained us spontaneity improvisation which is wonderful back in those days that didn't happen a lot on network sitcom television it was usually very scripted and you just read the lines and you'd

you'd go home but they had really you you know, created this environment, which was very, very spontaneous, along with Bob and Bert and Jim Frawley and, you know, a lot of the other writers and a lot of people that were involved. Jim Frawley was from Second City with Elaine May and Mike Nichols. So there was this whole – and they encouraged it. They trained us. So we would let loose, and they would record all the stuff and then, you know, in the editing room try to put together an episode. But the problem with that in those days and in that environment, it's a little bit like a nuclear reaction, you know, like a fission sort of reaction.

If you let it go, it burns, it holds with the center of the earth like Fukushima. And if you put a lid on it, you kill it. It goes away. So there was this constant, you know, battle. And I can only imagine what it must have been like for bob and burt and all these people to keep a lid but let it go keep a lid but let it go and try to contain it but not kill it so at times we would literally bounce off the walls we would you know arrive on the set and it would be like we had all these separate little dressing rooms where we had our own

little environment and then the assistant director, wonderful guy named John Anderson would come out and he'd go, okay here they come alright, in three two, one, and they would let us out like a

cages and they're coming to the set. Take cover. Take cover. They're coming. But that's what they wanted. We would come out of these dressing rooms like... It was like the Marx Brothers. They said they used to keep the Marx Brothers in cages.

Well, I'm not surprised. But that was the dynamic behind the show. So we would come out and just literally start dynamic behind the show. So we would come out and just literally start bouncing off the walls. And most of the time, thank God, it worked and it was fun and everybody got it. But sometimes some of the old school people didn't. They weren't used to working that way.

And I remember Hans Conrad came on the show, and I was a huge fan of his and we had scenes with him a number of scenes and uh there was and they show this you know that this is on youtube i've seen it you know we're out there and they're trying to record they're trying to film this scene and it's like we're just like and Hans Connery's trying to do his lines and finally he looks at the camera and he says I hate these fucking kids and they

shut down the set they stopped filming and I don't even remember but years later I was so embarrassed. I was like, oh, my God, my hero, Hans Cartman, and he hates me. But that's what they wanted. That's what they had created, this, like, you know, fire in the belly. And trained actors just weren't ready for that.

Well, some. Now, there were others. Rosemarie, brilliant. She was in the belly. And trained actors just weren't ready for that. Well, some. Now, there were others. Rosemarie, brilliant. She was in that episode. A couple. A couple of episodes. Stan Freeberg. There were others that got it and were able.

And also, we might not have been as nuts. There were great comedians, too. Pat Paulson, Charlie Callis, Doodles Weaver, Carl Ballantyne, Harvey Lembeck. Lots of funny people. And trivia, Doodles Weaver was the uncle of Sigourney Weaver. Oh, wow. Yeah. Jerry Lewis came by one day, the set.

Oh, yeah? He was touted to be a director. I don't even know if I've told that story. No. I remember it because I was, of course, a director i don't even know if i've told that story no i remember because i was of course a huge jerry lewis fan too and uh one day i remember it was you know something bob herbert said jerry lewis is coming by we're thinking about him as a director and he came by and uh i met him and said hi you doing and and he said you know yeah and then i just remember somebody saying yeah he doesn't want to do it.

I think it might have scared him a little bit. He could have worked with two generations of Dolwinses. Yeah. Yeah. I think it might have scared him a little bit because it was kind of scary. Like I say, it was, you never knew what was going to happen. It was, you know, and that's one of the reasons why it only lasted two years. You know, we only did two seasons.

56 episodes. Well, these days it would be four seasons. But back then it was... But the show was ambitious for its time. And Time Magazine, when Davey passed Time Magazine, I can't remember the reporter's name, but he wrote a wonderful review of The Monkees, looking back and saying it was an ambitious show,

it was a smart show. Have you read that chapter in Timothy Leary's book, Politics of Ecstasy? No. It's really interesting, despite what you may think of Timothy Leary. It was very interesting. Politics of Ecstasy is the book. And he writes a chapter about the monkeys saying, well, it's a long thing, dissertation. But essentially he says they brought long hair into the living room and made it safe.

Interesting. Because up until then, if you had long hair and more bell bottoms or – you were committing crimes against nature. The only time you saw long-haired kids on TV, they were getting arrested. And for the longest time, the Monkees were kind of like, became like a punchline. Like, they were this talentless group, they were nobody's blah, blah, blah. And then over the years, people started really respecting what came out of the... Mike Nesmith basically created music videos,

it seems like. He created MTV. And today, people like Tom Petty, U2, R.E.M., Kurt Cobain, Brian Wilson, Guns N' Roses, all identify themselves as monkey fans. No accounting for taste. Yay! Tell us about the award you got. The Yay! Tell us about the award you got.

The what? Tell us about the award you got. Tell us about the honor you got in New York City last night. Oh, it was a lifetime achievement for Broadway, Rockers on Broadway. We've done it for years, 10, 15 years. Raising money

for Broadway Cares, Equity Fights AIDS, and now the Path Foundation and for Broadway Dreams and stuff because I got involved with it with Donnie Kerr, who was actually my understudy in AIDA when I did it on the road. And we just became great friends, and I started doing the shows with him to raise money. It started out for Broadway Cares. It's great.

And you were going to say something right before. I guess we were talking about how the monkeys have respect now. You know, I don't have any control over that uh there were a lot of people at the time who just didn't get it i call them the hip wazee and a lot of the people in tv and and in the music industry because it's the first time that anything like that had ever happened on television. It had happened in films many times with West Side Story or people being cast into – and in films, Johnny – sorry, what was that movie about the guitar player? Johnny Cash? The jazz guitar player.

Oh, the Woody Allen movie? No. Anyway, so in films, the tradition is ripe with fame and with other musical movies. But for television to do that in the early 60s was unheard of. There was nothing like that. To meld music and TV and recording companies and the record industry,

that hadn't really ever happened before. A little bit of crossover with Paul Williams and, I mean not Paul Williams, Paul Peterson and the Donna Reid show or Ricky Nelson. Sure. But to come out with this concerted assault on the American consumer where everything

was connected. And it, frankly, it pissed a lot of people off. You know, the record industry, as we know at the time, was very, very powerful. And the radio industry was very powerful. And all of a sudden, this thing comes out of nowhere, left field. And I had this happen to me years later. Radio stations would say, fuck them. They had to play the music.

There wasn't any backhanders. There wasn't play the music. There wasn't any backhanders. There wasn't any payola. There wasn't any. They had to play this music. They had no choice. And they didn't like that. They were pissed off. And there was a lot of pissed off radio and record people that said, you know, because we hadn't come up the chain and done the deals. And it wasn't even us.

You know, the four of us, we were just hired hands. It was the producers and NBC and RCA Victor. All of a sudden there was this dynamic. There was this train, excuse the pun, this inertia created by this television show and these radio stations and these record companies they had to play the stuff they had to sell it and they had to play it and they were really pissed off you know because we hadn't you know and now i also heard stories that when they were doing the reunions of the monkeys, and usually Mike Nesmith didn't want to be part of those. But I heard the three of you would get along for about five minutes, and then you hated each other after that.

Not true. No. No. Not accurate. Do you have any brothers or sisters? Oh, yes. Okay. Do you get along with them your whole life? Do you get along with them

your whole life? Yes. Every minute of every moment of your whole life. When you're involved with people like that for so many years and such an emotional, intense environment, working, off-working day in, day out. No, of course you don't get along. For five decades.

For five decades. Of course you don't get along every minute of the day. Sometimes incredible creative differences. But that's usually what it was, a creative difference. And you hear about that all the time. You hear about that with actors and a director in some stupid movie or bands. I mean, look at God Love Them, the Beach Boys. I mean, or look at even Lennon and McCartney.

Look at, you know, that is a natural. Simon and Garfunkel. Simon and Garfunkel. I mean, the list goes on about creative teams. But that is a natural. Simon and Garfunkel. Simon and Garfunkel. I mean the list goes on about creative teams. Rodgers and Hammerstein. The old joke about putting lyrics under the door. Come on.

I mean Gilbert and Sullivan. head-butting is, A, what creates the brilliance and can destroy it and can cause it's part of the equation. And those creative differences

can be problematic and they can be brilliant, but they're like part of the equation. Before we run, Mick, anything you want to plug or anything coming up? You're still performing. Yeah, I have a gun running business to Afghanistan. So if you're in Afghanistan and you need some.50 caliber Robars, I'm the guy to go to. No, I'm doing solo

shows. I have this wonderful furniture business with my daughter. Yes, I saw that on Oprah. It's one of the most wonderful things I've ever done in my life. I have a furniture business, because I told you I do shop work all the time. I have a wonderful business making

handcrafted fine furniture with one of my daughters, Georgia. I'm co-writing a book with my daughter, Amy. Amy, she was an actress. Beautiful girl. She's out of control. And she now is a children's book illustrator, quite successful one, and we're doing a new book together. And I do touring and I do this and the 50th anniversary

in 2016 we might get together and see what happens I hope so you never know well I'm tired of talking to you yeah you and me and maybe the other monkeys didn't hate you, but I'll continue to hate you. Thank you so much, folks.

Oh, Mickey, it was great. Thank you. Thanks for doing it, Mickey. We have been talking Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre to the legendary Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees. Thank you, Mickey. Thank you.

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