The Monkees in Monstrous Peril #3: "I Was a Teenage Monster!"

Last year, we visited the Monkees as they ran amok in a haunted house (Monkee See, Monkee Die) and had to fight off an entire castle of Universal Monster knockoffs (The Monstrous Monkee Mash). But the Monkees had several other flirtations with the supernatural and the macabre in the short run of their popular series, and so let's pick up the ball yet again for this year's Countdown to Halloween for more silly hijinks with one of my favorite groups.

One thing that I really admire about the plots of Monkee episodes (if plots they be indeed) is that they waste little time in jumping straight into the goofiness. After all, the boys have to cram a zillion one-liners, a song or two, flirting with whatever girls are at hand, and lots of scenes of them running about like crazy into a mere 25 minutes. It helps a great deal if they walk into a scenario and all of the major players are ready to get going straight away.

So it goes with I Was a Teenage Monster, the 18th episode of the first season of The Monkees TV show, which aired originally on January 16, 1967. True to form for a horror-centric Monkees story, the episode starts with the requisite castle shot and the brief eerie wail of a theremin, before we cut to the wise-cracking Monkees approaching the front door. Micky Dolenz comments that the place "looks like it was condemned before it was built" and Mike Nesmith backs that up by saying it looks "like a high-rise garbage dump." Mike knocks on the door and the group is met by a man wearing a white lab coat who is quite clearly expecting the band to arrive. He even says so. The actor playing the doctor is John Hoyt, a character actor long familiar to fans of TV from the 1950s through the 1980s, but who started out on Broadway in the early 1930s and began a film career in the late '40s.

The Monkees try to introduce themselves, but the doctor, last name Mendoza, doesn't even shake their hands. The band is confused, because they thought there was a party going on at the castle for which they were to provide the entertainment, but the doctor has seemingly tricked them into coming. He has other plans, you see... he wants the Monkees to... TEACH!

Mendoza convinces them to help by saying they are to teach a youngster, for whom "we have such HIGH hopes!" Before the first minute has even passed, the mood is interrupted by the doctor's assistant, who leads the doctor downstairs into the castle's laboratory. Referring to the doctor as "master," the toady named Groot (that's right... Groot) informs the doctor that "everything is in readiness," to which Mendoza replies, "Good! Good! We shall create the greatest rock 'n' roll singer in za world!" (Mendoza has a slight accent.) The doctor pulls aside a sheet that is draped over a huge slab, and on that slab is revealed a huge monstrous creation, much akin to Frankenstein's monster.

The monster is played by the late Richard Kiel, the acromegaly-plagued 7'2" actor who was exceedingly memorable in a wide variety of roles throughout his career. For me, this has been somewhat of The Year of Kiel at the movie theatres, as I not only got to see him in his arguably finest moment as Jaws, the steel-toothed villain who battles James Bond in 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me, on the big screen again this past summer, but I also saw him play the titular caveman Eegah when that film was shown during the recent live tour for the new Mystery Science Theater 3000 series. And here I get to see Kiel once again (albeit only on my computer), essaying a comedic take on his usual role as a heavy, with a much more mod-looking, shaggy haircut than a monster usually gets in these sorts of affairs. (Most definitely a sign of the times in which the episode was filmed.)

Oh, but first, we have to play the Monkees' opening theme song...

After the theme song and a quick plug for Kellogg's cereals, we dive right back into the story. Mike questions the doctor about teaching rock 'n' roll, and Mendoza reacts, "That's right! Rock 'n' roll really appeals to the little monsters!" Asked if the youngster is the doctor's son, he says "Yes, you could say he is my own... flesh and blood" and then laughs uproariously at his own comment. The doctor decides that the boys need to meet "his son" and toddles off to prepare the meeting. Mike, ever cautious, stops Davy and says, "You know there are overtones to this that I don't like!" but Davy says, "Don't ya get it? Flesh and blood... it's a joke!" Both laugh in the manner that the doctor did before, but then both turn to the camera and grimace, knowing full well that the band is once again in deep trouble.

In the basement lab, the band asks to see the little monster, and the doctor obliges, once more pulling the sheet off the slab. The boys are horrified – Micky cries out, "The little monster... is... a little monster!" – and try to come up with reasons why they should leave right away. Peter, meanwhile, goes up to the creature to study him more closely. Mike tells the doc, "You can't really expect us to teach a monster to sing?" but Mendoza reasons that "He's not a monster... he's a machine." Mike's quick retort is "Well, we can't tutor a computer!" But Peter cuts in, "I find it hard to believe that he's dangerous" and the monster opens his eyes and groans deeply. Peter tickles the creature and says "He wouldn't hurt a fly!" and the monster puts on a smile and groans again.

The other three try to leave but the doctor stands in their way, claiming that "Science must be served!" Mike says that he "can't risk the lives of me and my men... for such a foolhardy experiment... and for such a pittance of a sum of a hundred dollars!" The doctor doubles their money and the next shot shows the four Monkees wearing lab coats – Davy and Micky even have crazy wigs on their heads – and each one holds a beaker containing some chemical or another. They say in tandem, "SCIENCE MUST BE SERVED!"

The doctor claims that his "android" already knows how to sing, and when he claps his hands, the monster goes, "Goo-ra! Goo-ra! Goo-ra!" The doctor explains it as "an old Transylvania folk song." Asked to translate, Mike offers up, "Jimmy crack corn and I don't care!" The doctor unbuckles the monster, which makes the Monkees nervous, and Micky expresses worries that "his pants will fall down," not wishing to make the doctor think he is actually scared. The doctor leaves his creation with the boys alone, and the monster reaches out his enormous hand in friendship. Micky, Mike and Davy all shake the hand in unison nervously, but when Davy sneezes, the monster says perfectly politely, "Gesundheit!" The boys are shocked to hear this and it calms them down temporarily, but then the monster follows it up with a huge roar which makes them freak out anew.

Peter, however, really likes the monster, and as many things with Peter go, his reaction reverts to that of a child. "You said that if I made dinner every night and made my bed, that I could have a pet!" and the boys agree that such was the deal. Mike says, "Alright, but the first night you don't feed it, back he goes!" Micky has other things on his mind, wondering aloud about how amazing it is to think that this monster was created in the very lab in which they stand, but absentmindedly almost knocks an entire beaker full of some concoction onto the floor. Luckily, Mike catches it in time, and says, "You almost dropped his mother!" to which the monster looks sadly.

Later, in the music room, the boys try to work with the monster to turn him into a rock 'n' roll star. They decide to name him, to which Mike offers up "Frankie Frankenstein." "I can see it now in lights... all... around... the mausoleum." Davy rejects the name for a singer, because he "doesn't even sound Italian." Micky taps the monster with his drumsticks, and the monster spits out a very clear, non-monster-like "Don't do that!" He decides to change the monster's look, starting with "a Beatle haircut," and the monster's hair switches to a mop-top, "then dark glasses," and he is suddenly wearing dark, rectangular-lensed wireframes, "some groovy clothes," his outfit changes, "and a guitar." The monster strums the instrument awkwardly, and Micky asks Mike how he looks. "He looks like a long-haired, near-sighted monster with a guitar."

The Monkees decide to teach the monster how to move onstage, but when he swings to the left, he sends Peter and his bass flying away, and when he switches to the right, Davy goes sprawling with his tambourine. Micky has the monster try the drums, telling the creature that the trick is to "very gentle... veeeeerrrrry gentle." On the count of three, the monster jabs the drumsticks straight through the skins on the tom-toms while kicking a hole through the bass drum. "Some style!" says Micky, "Where d'ya keep your brains?" The monster smiles widely and holds up his hands, snapping the sticks into pieces as he does.

A little bit later, the monster is shown strumming the guitar and yelling out, "Goo-ra! Goo-ra!" again. The boys, still trying to escape the castle, decide that he doesn't sound half bad and tell the doctor they will be back in the morning to work on his voice. The doctor says the mountain road is too treacherous at night, and calls Groot to prepare their rooms for the night. As the boys split the room, the doctor has the monster play "Goo-ra!" again and seems pretty pleased with the result. Once the boys are gone, the doctor talks to Groot about the rest of his plan... to switch the voices of the Monkees into the monster. Groot asks how this is to be done, and Mendoza says, "It's very simple. We merely unite the frontal lobe with coaxial conduits and force the cerebellum to proliferate to the reflexes. Do you understand?" to which Groot replies, "All except the last part, master!" 'What last part?" "The part after 'It's very simple...'"

In their room, the Monkees continue to try and look for a way out of their predicament. Micky opens up the closet door and finds a gorgeous, blonde woman standing there. They ask who she is and she tells them she is "the doctor's beautiful daughter." When she is asked what she has to do with "all of this," she replies, "Nothing. I'm the sequel." They close the closet door and Mike expresses worry that "200 dollars isn't going to do us any good if we're dead." Micky says, "Yeah, we should have asked for 250."

They decided to try to calm themselves down with a little television viewing. The program on the tube is a mad scientist movie where the doctor is discussing an operation with his doctor. Davy tries to stretch out on a couch, but he falls through the back cushion and disappears through a trap door. Mike calls out to him and realizes that his friend has gone missing. He sits down on a chair against the wall, but the wall spins around and Mike disappears, replaced by a second empty chair. Micky then seeks out Mike but is pulled feet first through the curtains. Finally, Peter has a bag thrown over his head by Groot the henchman.

In the laboratory, the four Monkees find themselves strapped onto a large, rectangular slab with helmets on their heads attached via electrodes. The doctor tries to assure them that this sort of experiment need not be fatal, but then shocks himself when he is handed two wires. Soon, the experiment begins, but while the machinery starts pulsing, Davy expresses concern over getting a headache. "Oh, don't worry," says the doctor, "there won't be any headache. But you won't be able to make a fist for three weeks!" and then he laughs crazily again. Davy continues to panic, and the doctor tells him to relax. He turns to the camera in the manner of a medicinal advertisement and states, "My electricity gets into the bloodstream seconds faster than aspirin." The doctor shouts out ever more ridiculous orders to Groot: "Turn the coaxial knob to full!" "Set the input output to whatever!" "Move the quasar to mellow!"

With such orders, even the bound Monkees are starting to doubt the science behind the experiment, but then the doctor throws the last switch. There is a series of four explosions, one behind each Monkee on the large slab. He orders the boys to sing, and Micky starts out meekly and unsure of himself with "Here we come... walkin' down the street...," Mike joins in on "We get the funniest looks from... everyone we meet..." and then Peter comes in on "Hey, hey, we're the Monkees." Davy joins the rest on the rest of the chorus, and the monster listens with great interest, taking in every note. Finally, the monster's voice seems to start up like an old cranked Victrola, and the sound coming out of his mouth is that of the four blended voices (along with the music) of the Monkees themselves. In the middle of the room, Doctor Mendoza and Groot dance together in victory while the Monkees, still strapped to the slab, look on with shocked faces.

Mike warns the doctor that he will be sorry when the police hear about it, but the doctor has a plan for this as well. He hypnotizes the boys by holding a device to their heads, one at a time, and telling them "You will remember nothing" to which they each reply "I will remember nothing." However, he goes one body too far and does the same thing to Groot, whom he then slaps and says, "Not you!" He then discusses with Groot their final experiment for the next day: whether the monster can fool an entire audience.

The next day, as said, the Monkees are preparing their instruments onstage for the experiment. Mendoza asks the boys how they are feeling, and they all seem to be feeling fine but very confused when the doctor refers to an experiment. They attempt to start playing Tomorrow's Gonna Be Another Day, but the instruments are all out of tune and none of their voices can get anywhere near harmony. The doctor demands his money back, saying that the band told him that they were trained musicians. Mike coughs up the dough and hands it over and the band, still under hypnosis, try to depart. But the doctor stops them, wishing them to see his new discovery, The Swinging Android. The monster steps onto stage in his "cool" regalia and starts to strum his guitar. He plays the same song perfectly and exactly like the Monkees.

Afterward, the Monkees are confused as to why the monster played and sounded exactly like them. Suddenly, Micky remembers something about a laboratory, and then all of them start to be flooded with memories of what happened to them. They check the closet where the doctor's beautiful daughter was kept, and Micky tells her, "Your father stole our voices and gave them to that monster. Now what do you think about that?" The girl is shown reading a script with the Monkees logo emblazoned across the front of it, and says, "Just wait until the sequel. A vampire turns Davy into a werewolf." Micky closes the door on the creepy girl, whining "I don't wanna hear it!"

In the lab, the quartet find the monster strapped back into his normal place, and Micky attempts to reverse the experiment. With the boys moving at high-speed, they try every knob on the machinery, and then strap themselves back onto their slab and helmets. However, when it comes time for Micky to throw the final switch, he can't quite reach it from his position. The machine starts to wind down and they have to start all over again. Meanwhile, the doctor and his toady stroll the halls in triumph, and the doctor can't resist stopping at a magical mirror on the wall. Asking "who is the evilest one of all?," the doctor is disappointed to find out another doctor in Dusseldorf, Germany is the truly evilest one. The mirror, who is voiced by James Frawley, who directed the vast majority of other Monkees episodes (Sidney Miller did the honors here), says, "You are only second best. You vill have to try harder. And don't yell at me; I only vork here."

Back on the slab, Micky figures he has the wiring straightened out now, but Mike says he isn't worried because he "is very fatalistic. I figure either an electrode has my name on it or it hasn't." Micky has by now employed the crook end of a cane to help him reach all of the knobs and switches, but is very nervous about hitting them. He rattles the cane wildly as he hits everything in sight, and the machinery starts to smoke and overreact. The monster starts to speaker like a hippy, saying "Groovy, man. That's not my bag. Don't get uptight." Davy notices the change, and the monster says, "Let's split... go to my pad. That's where it's at. Groovy? You dig?" Mike rolls his eyes and says, "Oh, great. Now we've got a super hippy on our hands."

Micky figures that they have corrected themselves, but we see Mike have a strange reaction and he starts saying, in Kiel's deep voice, "Kill! Kill!" Micky adjusts the dials and pops the switch again. The monster comes loose and immediately says, in a lisping voice, "I would do this room in French provincial!" He follows that up with "The color scheme should be lavender and puce... or this." The monster picks up a vat containing something or other, but Micky takes it from him, saying he has one more adjustment to make. He sets the formula down, but it falls and crashes to the floor, alerting Doctor Mendoza upstairs. He runs down and has Micky taken captive by Groot. Micky yells "Curse you, Red Baron!" in a nod to the popular Snoopy oath of the day. The doctor orders the monster to kill the rest of the Monkees, but Peter stops him briefly by calling him "Andy" (short for "Android").

He tells the monster that the doctor is out to exploit him, "You're only a pawn in his hands, a tool for his avaricious ambitions!" When Mike asks where Peter got words like that, Davy says "It's in the script. On page 28." Peter continues, claiming the doctor wants 60% of his income. The monster says "60 per cent?" and turns on the doctor, who says he only wants 25% and orders him to "Kill that Peter!" But Peter turns the monster around again by simply saying, "He's a bad man!" The monster keeps turning back and forth from Mendoza to Peter over and over again, and the strains of the song Auntie Grizelda being to play. With the music on, the monster starts to dance instead.

As the creatures spins and twirls, the Monkees free themselves from the slab and start to run all over castle while the song continues to play. The monster chases them at one point, but so too do a pack of villagers with torches, who appear from out of nowhere. Micky stops to drink a potion and starts to act like he is being transformed. He turns his back on his friends and the audience, but then turns around and he is fine, if not a little disappointed. Mike flips a switch on the lab equipment, and we see a quick clip from the old crappy Danish monster flick, Reptilicus, where the giant reptile breathes a quick snort of fire. Davy leaps into the monster's waiting arms and at first it looks like a cute move. But then Davy punches him with a boxing glove that suddenly appears on his fist. (At least he barely taps the monster, who lets Davy go without a fight.)

Mike plays the surface of the lab equipment like the Phantom of the Opera would play a pipe organ, but is chased away by Mendoza. Micky plays a rack of equipment and beakers like a xylophone and convinces the monster to take over, which he does happily. The Monkees form a football huddle but stop the monster from joining in, so he and the doctor and toady wait patiently. Davy opens the closet door and finds the doctor's daughter. She grabs him and kiss him. Davy then reaches for a sign that says, "A sequel? You better believe it!" At another point, the monster is seated in a chair while the boys give him a manicure and brush his hair. Reptilicus is shown attacking the Netherlands again for no real good reason but for kicks. The monster sits around a campfire roasting marshmallows with the villagers. Finally, the Monkees capture the doctor and strap him to his own slab as Reptilicus seems to either lie down for a nap or die. The song ends.

In the epilogue, Mike is shown talking to the police on the phone. "That's right, Officer. It's the big scary-looking house at the very top of the hill." He has to stop to ask the doctor for directions, but the doctor has been completely tied up by the other Monkees. He tells them the name of the street is Rosebud Lane, and Mike says, "Rosebud? I thought that was the name of a sled." Micky insists he got the wiring correct and that they shouldn't have lost any musical abilities. "We didn't have any to spare," replies Peter. To put them to a test, Mike and Peter pick up guitars while Davy picks up maracas, but on the count of three, the maracas and guitars shatter into pieces while the amps behind them short out and catch on fire. Cue closing credit sequence.

This is a really fun episode of the Monkees, chiefly for the game performance of Richard Kiel. Yes, he finds himself typecast in the role of yet another monster, but he gets loads of little opportunities during the episode to step outside of the character and act against type. He also gets to dance with great abandon, try on cool clothes, and switch personas more than once. It is actually a pretty full role for the length of a sitcom, and I think that Kiel seems to be having great fun being so silly throughout the show. Hoyt, too, seems to be having a ball playing a part that is really far beneath his talent, but then again, so were many of the parts he ended up playing in his long television career.

As promised by the doctor's beautiful doctor, there was a sequel to this, only the details got shifted slightly. The episode was the already discussed The Monstrous Monkee Mash, which aired almost exactly a year after this episode. While there is a vampire villain who turns a Monkee into a werewolf, Micky is the victim, while poor Davy is selected to become a new vampire instead. It hardly matters; like most of the details within a Monkees episode, they are only there for fleeting reference, nothing sticks forever, and the only important thing was record sales. And being truly, truly silly, something which this episode does in spades. As one expects from the Monkees...

RTJ

*****

And in case you haven't seen it...

Other titles in this series:

#1 "Monkee See, Monkee Die"
#2 "The Monstrous Monkee Mash"