A friend mentioned that he saw this clip on TV the other day … I watched the monkees, but certainly did not remember this (check out @1:15 to 1:30) … the unicycles seem to have training wheels
I was on a slow pitch softball team with the Monkees. Davy Jones sucked at softball. He kept looking for wickets or something. I taught Peter Tork how to ride in my driveway. He was pretty good. He ate a lot of bacon.
I grew up in that era, with laugh-in-which the monkees were on-and all the other fun 60’s and 70’s shows. The guys were mostly actors, but Michael considered himself a “real” musician, and soon they wanted to learn to play their own instruments so they could tour, and prove that that were real musicians.
Mike would often not even show up and dropped out of the group several times, so most of the time the group was three instead of four during touring. Here’s Mike’s actual audition for the show. He seemed like the most “real” of the four imo, and didn’t seem to care if he got the job, even though he said he “hoped to get this series”.
Some trivia: Michael Nesmith’s mom invented “liquid paper”, and when she died in 1980, Mike inherited half of his mom’s estate, roughly 25 million dollars! “Hey hey, I’m a rich Monkee!”
interesting stuff, I knew there would be some of us who knew a thing or two about the Monkees. I was pretty young when they burst onto the scene, but they where a big hit at the time.
Harper teaching Peter to ride ... how awesome is that, and Terry thanks for the link. I think somewhere stored in my brain over the course of time was that fact about the liquid paper ... I think I erased (or killed) that braincell a while ago.
When I saw the vid, I was looking for one of the uni's without training wheels ... I was thinking at least one already knew how to ride. What kind of drugs would the director be on to say ... I know lets film a scene with all the guys on unicycles!
Fond memories of the Monkees. It’s hard to get a good look at those training-wheel unicycles. I think they had mag wheels (like their car) but I can’t remember. Oddly enough, I also remember that Mike Nesmith audition, which was used on the actual show. I remember watching it when I was a little older, and wondering if that was an actual audition, or a ‘reinactment’ for the show. But it always seemed way too random to have been “scripted”. I love how he started going through the drawers and cupboards. That out-of-the-box thinking made an impression on me.
I used to have a toy car version of the Monkee Mobile (from Corgi, I think). In fact, I might still have it in a box in my garage…
I was crazy about the Monkees when I was a kid. I wanted the 45 rpm of Last Train to Clarksville, but the local store in Chelan WA didn’t have the 45, but they did have the full album, so I broke into my piggy bank and bought the album. The first of thousands of albums I bought over the years. My exwife now has that Monkees album, the bitch, but I digress.
Thanks for the reminder.
I heard that Mike Nesmith doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to do because his mother left him wealthy. The other guys do an oldies tour now and then.
It’s a shame Harper didn’t really know the Monkees. That would be impressive.
