"Hollywood executives decide to invent and market an American version of the Beatles-the early pre-prophetic cute, yeh yeh Beatles. Got It? They auditioned a hallfull of candidates and type cast four cute kids. What do the screaming teenyboppers want? Crank out the production and promote it. Feed the great consumer monster what it thinks it wants: plastic, syrupy, tasty, marshmallow-filled, chocolate coated, Saran wrapped, and sell it. No controversy, no protest. No thinking strange, unique thoughts. No offending Mom and Dad and the advertisers. Make it silly, suntanned, grinning NBC-TV. And What happened? The same thing that happened to the Beatles. The four young Monkees weren't fooled for a moment. They went along with the system but didn't buy it. Like all the beautiful young sons of the new age-Peter Fonda and Robert Walker and young John Barrymore and young Steinbeck and the wise young Hitchcocks-the Monkees use the new energies to sing the new songs and pass on the new message. The Monkees' television show, for example. Oh you thought that it was silly teenage entertainment? Don't be fooled. While it lasted, it was a classic Sci-Fi put on. An early-Christian electronic satire. A mystic magic show. A jolly Buddha laugh at hypocrisy. At early evening kiddie-time on Monday the Monkees would rush through a parody drama, burlesquing the very shows that glue Mom and Dad to the set during prime time. Spoofing the movies and the violence and the down-heavy-conflict-emotion themes that fascinate the middle-aged. And woven into the fast-moving psychedelic stream of action were the prophetic, holy, challenging words. Micky was rapping quickly, dropping literary names, making scholarly refrences: then the sudden psychedelic switch of the reality channel. He looked straight at the camera, right into your living room, and up-levelled the comedy by saying: "Pretty good talking for a long-haired weirdo, huh, Mr. and Mrs. America?" And then ZAP, flash. Back to the innocuous comedy."
-Dr. Timothy Leary, from the book The Politics of Ecstacy
