Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Micky Dolenz Encore

Episode Date: August 1, 2022

GGACP remembers producer, director and Monkees co-creator Bob Rafelson with this ENCORE of a 2014 interview with actor and musician Micky Dolenz. In this episode, Micky looks 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 Bob Rafelson!) 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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finish. Just sit back and listen to the music. This single malt scotch whiskey is guaranteed to impress dad this father's day. The Glenlivet. Live original. Please enjoy our products responsibly. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried. And this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast.

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 Iconaca? Pop what? Popcorn Icon. Acorn. Pop acorn. What? A popcorn icon. Acorn.

Pop 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 Somerstock theater, a very famous one called the Iverton Theater, the first Somerstock theater in the country. And I did a new play by Mike Reese, a producer for The Simpsons. We had him on the show. You're kidding me. Yeah, he was one of our kidding me he wrote this new play I read it I begged to do it I did it in Ed Iverton

with Joyce the Wit from Three's Company 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 i don't know how or distributed but shelly berman had never directed and he was asked to direct and i loved him and basically frankly he was one of the reasons i agreed to do the movie uh because i was a huge fan i mean, that was a little before your time, right? I remember Shelly Berman. Wear your seatbelts 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 business 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 I'll never forget Shelly, who was so funny, and I just adored him. But he'd never directed before. And I hope he doesn't mind me telling. He lives where I live, right near where I live.

I 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 B&Cs, you know, the 35-millimeter thing on the dolly and the tracking and stuff. And these cameras had a huge lens thing. And 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 says, excuse me, Mr. Berman,

that's the other side of the camera. You know, since you mentioned Jerry Lewis, 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. 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. Jan also an actress. They met doing a play. Your mom's name was 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 and Henry Fonda I think that was like after the Howard Hughes thing oh okay he made

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

Yeah. 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. 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 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 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.

And 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? And I'm there going, Daddy, are you okay? Now, then jumping ahead, after the success of A Hard Day's Night and Help, they decided to do, I guess, an Americanized Beatles. Well, it depends who you ask. You know, that's not, from what 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. You know, 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 jeans, I guess, or something, and make it about this particular generation 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 Monkees, I like the Marx Brothers. And ultimately – So he got it. Yeah, he got it. And there were a lot of people that got it. Frank Zappa got it. He was on the show. 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 Fulson, like you said, 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, like Love and Spoonful. Yep, that's true. I heard that. They were looking at – that was – but by that time, it was casting. They already had the idea. The pilot script had been written.

I have the pilot script. My character in the script is like Steve or something, or Biff or Bongo or something. And they were looking at that, know and the audition process was you know intense it was it was i remembered 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 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 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 I suppose loosely based on the Cow Sills The Partridge Family And this was I think pre-Cowow 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, wonderful, wonderful director and guy named James Frawley, won the Emmy for 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 Goode on the guitar because I was a guitar player. And – excuse me – interviews and then combining us with all the other characters. But by the time I remember the – I was in school at the time. Yeah, we were – Gill and I 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 was, 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, you know, like I said, off the boat from Italy, and we didn't live the Hollywood Beverly Hills thing at all. You know, I got up during Circus Boy and I'd go out and have to muck out the horses and stuff. And after Circus Boy, 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. And 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. Interesting. You know, some kind of a Treasure Island thing. And thank God they took me out because looking back, you know, the initial success of a child star is not the problem. It's the aftermath when at 13 you're a has-been.

You know, puberty is tough enough. When do you get the monkeys? I mean, there's a stretch there. Oh, yeah. Ten years. I think Danny Bonaduce 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 – Shirley Temple is about – well, and she just bailed. I'm going to be a diplomat. Something else with her life, right? 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 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, you know. And I just recently saw some 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 old anymore. Good old journalism. Yes. So an ad goes... Good old exploitive... Extra, extra... An ad goes out in Daily Variety for this new show. And you were what? You're 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 with two guys I don't recognize. Yeah, right. 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. 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... 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 beetles

or us that did that it was a good old press um the beetles versus monkey things no it never existed first of all it was years you know culturally two or three years in music and culture is 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. 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. Really good, Gilbert. And I just like, wow, man. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. Hear that, quarter pounder fans?

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New episodes Sundays. Watch free on CBC Gem. So there's an ad placed in the Daily Variety that they're casting this show called The Monk. Was it called The Monkeys from the very beginning? Yes, but spelled, excuse me, but spelled normally with 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 a lot of groups were naming themselves after animals. Right, like the animals. Yeah, like the animals. Oh, that makes me remember something, and I don't know if this is total chobis 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. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Oh, no, no, no. It's Clarksville. Yes, yes. That's kind of 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'm using it.

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

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. 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 beetles thing. And Paul graciously had me over to his house in Abbey Road – I mean in Maida Vale for dinner. And we just sat and chatted and took a few photographs. made of ale um for dinner and we just sat and chatted and took a few photographs and then he invited me to um this uh recording session the next day for that uh that album sergeant bilko

and i um that was the album they did with phil silvers yeah Phil Silvers. Right, yeah. Hey, I hate the bad, I hate the bad, I hate the bad day. Yesterday, I don't talk about it, it's in the phone. I love it. Phil Silvers does Yesterday. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like so, I mean, I was such a huge fan, first of all. I mean, I was just a huge fan, Beatle fan, of course. And I think I had an autograph book

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 i went and i tell this story actually even in my my solo show i show I think I was expecting some kind of Beatlemania, Funfest, Freakout Psycho Jello you know, love in being thing, so I got dressed accordingly with my paisley bell

bottoms and my tie dyed underwear and my little linen glasses and my hair in beads and curls 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 you go and i walk in and i'm like where are the girls? I threw 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 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, 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 a white little suit comes in with tea, 4 o'clock, and, boom, puts the tea down on a little card table.

Everybody has tea. Four o'clock, 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 mineslides. 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 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? 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 on 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, 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 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 the little black box, which is the black box in the movie Head. It is the black box of us living in. Interesting. Interesting. From limousine to garbage entrance of hotel to elevator to room back to garbage entrance to elevator to black box to – that's what that's – Now, here's another one that I'm sure is 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 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 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, and 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. 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. 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, television show, an episode of the TV show. And we all sort of bought into that. I did, certainly.

I said, yeah, that's a good idea. Let's do something. Let's get out of the box a little bit. Because on the TV show, it was so highly, highly restrictive in the censorship. And you couldn't mention anything. Like Fawlty Towers, don't mention Zavala!

Don't say that. We couldn't mention anything. 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 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 wonderful character and so we all were like yeah and um 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 going to 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 raffleson of course and bert schneider and a couple of you know uh in you know uh roadie guys and we start talking and we just talk and 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, 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, you know, 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. 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 730 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. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I never had the picture. 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, you know, first of all, I was too busy. I mean, there wasn't the time. What kind of days were you guys putting in? What kind of days were you putting in? I mean, you were learning songs. You were doing a TV series. Well, it was a typical sitcom shooting schedule, for starters.

Right. Which was 6 or 7 in the morning until 7 or 8 at night. You know, so 10, 12 hours easily. And then I usually had to go in the studio, or David, we did most of the vocals. You were the lead singer, yeah. Yep, 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 the for the for touring so for two to three years there was just not a lot of time then i'd go home and get my workshop and and build shit you know and like i built a gyrocopter

in my 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. Yeah, tell us a little bit about that, the Hollywood Vampires. I'm told I had a great time. Yeah, funnily enough, the Hollywood Vampires was a softball team. Interesting. It was a – 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 Nielsen and Alice Cooper playing softball. You should look up Harry Nielsen's stuff, early 70s. He was a huge basketball player and really good.

I mean, he was tall. He was 6'2 or 3. He would play all the time every week. I was into tennis. I was doing tournaments. I became like a B 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 and play against other companies or LAPD. I remember once we played a bunch of these kids that were in like a juvie camp. They were like borderline juvenile delinquents. And I remember this really clearly because they beat the shit out of us. It's bizarre.

We were a bunch of like rock and rollers trying to play softball, and these are like hardcore. But they were really good. So this was all about like softball know softball and and playing and we played we were serious i mean we really played hard and um then we would go and party at the rainbow and and you know have a post game kind of thing um but uh it and it was a lot of fun it was great but you know, in answer to your extra, extra, 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, you know, suck me back and say, nope, too far. My mom always used to say I had a guardian angel.

We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. But first, a word from our sponsor. Now, also, before I forget, you had, 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 Sadaka, Paul Williams. Carol Bearer Sager. Carol Bearer Sager.

Sure. David Gates. Yeah. John Stewart from the Kingston studio. John Stewart. Wrote Daydream Believer. Daydream Believer. Oh, my God.

And Harry Nilsson. Like I said, that's a great song. Sure. Harry Nilsson. Was Boyce Hart. I'm sorry. And Boyce my God. And Harry Nilsson, like I said, that's a great song. Sure. Harry Nilsson. Was it Boyce Hart? I'm sorry. And Boyce and Hart. 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. 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. Yeah. 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 Nielsen. 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 and van eyes or something and they brought him in and they said this is a guy here and he has some songs and he sat down at a piano and i for some reason i so remember this and he played cuddly toy and davy at the after he finished the song dav 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. 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, a 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, I was 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 Segoviavia and the girls would go, do you know any Kingston Trio? And I was like, OK, 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 like I mentioned, my audition piece for the Monkees was Johnny B. Goode. But then when they cast me, they said, you're going to be the drummer. And I was like, 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 an incredible musician on like nine instruments. He plays everything all at the same time.

They said, no, we'll cast you as the drummer. 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. And it was five pieces, 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 Inglewood, California. And we went back to there. They had a motel. I lived in L.A., 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.

Wow. 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 a night. Split four or five ways. Tough. And I was heartbroken.

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 are you doing? I said, I'm okay. And he said, I said, how are 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, you know, Johnny B. Goode? 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 And Rosemarie, 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, Rosemarie, 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. He was just a lovely guy, very sweet.

You know, funnily enough, those horror monster movie people are always the sweetest, nicest, you know, non-horror. It's always the good guys that are assholes. I've noticed that over the years. It's funny. All the heroes and the really beautiful, you know, like, aren't you new women? 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.annous, yeah. Oh, on the Danny Thomas show. Yeah, on the Danny Thomas show. And he used to pop up on Rocky and Bullwinkle.

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'd just read the lines, and you'd go home. But they had really created this environment, which was very, very spontaneous, along with Bob and Bert and Jim Frawley and a lot of the 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 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, 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 battle, and I can only imagine what it must have been like for Bob and Bert 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 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, a wonderful guy named John Anderson, would come out, and he'd go,

okay, here they come. You know, all right, in three, two, one. And they would let us out like 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, hey. 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 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, you know, didn't.

You know, 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 they show this. You know, 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 like hey, we're loving it. Hey, we're loving it. 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 stopped filming and I don't even remember but years later I was so embarrassed. I was so 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 fire 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 much. There were great comedians, too. Pat Paulson, Charlie Callis, Doodles Weaver, Carl Ballantyne, Harvey Lembeck. Lots ofulson charlie callous doodles weaver carl valentine harvey lembeck lots of funny people and trivia uh doodles weaver oh yeah was the the husband the uncle of sigourney weaver oh wow yeah more interesting 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 because i was of course a huge jerry lewis fan too and uh one day i remember it was you know something bob or bert 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're 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, 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 it's a, you know, the show was ambitious. I mean, for its time. And Time Magazine, when Davey passed Time Magazine, I can't remember the reporter's name, wrote a wonderful. Oh, yeah. Review of the monkeys. 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 Monkees 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 know, 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 monkeys 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 them. Well, like Mike Nesmith basically created music videos, it seems like. He created MTV. And today, people like Tom Petty, U2, REM, Kurt Cobain, Brian Wilson, Guns N' Roses all identify themselves as monkey fans. No accounting for taste.

Yay! Tell us about the awards you got. The what? Tell us about the awards 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 or something.

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, you know, how the monkeys have respect now.

You know, I don't have any control over that. 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 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? Sorry, what was that movie about the guitar player? You know... 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 Reed Show or Ricky Nelson. But to come out with this concerted assault on the American consumer where everything was connected. And 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 the and i had this happen to me years later radio stations would say fuck them you know they had to 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,

because we hadn't come up the chain and done the deals. And it wasn't even us. 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 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. Yeah. 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 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 national. Simon and Garfunkel. Simon and Garfunkel.

I mean, the list goes on about creative teams. Rodgers and Harristein. Right. The old joke about putting lyrics under the door. You know, come on. I mean, Gilbert and Sullivan. That creative 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 or they – 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 it's so if you're in Afghanistan and you need some

50 caliber row bars I'm the guy to go to. No, I'm doing solo shows. I have this wonderful furniture business with my daughter. Yeah, I saw that on Oprah. I'm telling you, 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 that. And the 50th anniversary in 2016. You never know.

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, Mick. 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. Thank you.