50 Years of the Monkees

“Hey hey we’re the Monkee’s and people say we monkey around…” is a line from the wildly popular Monkees TV show from the 60s. The Monkees were Mike Nesmith, Mickey Dolenz, Peter Tork and the late British Broadway star Davy Jones.

Here are five fun facts about the Monkees in celebration of their 50th anniversary.

The Hollywood Reporter ran an ad looking for young male musicians between the ages of 17 and 21 for roles as musicians on TV to cast the upcoming show.

The Monkees did not initially play their own music, but convinced the producers that they were talented musicians and could pull it off.

In the 90s, Mickey Dolenz and Peter Tork had minor roles on the TV show ‘Boy Meets World.’

The Monkees were fairly talented musicians in their own right, but the producers of the how enlisted songwriters and studio musicians to record the early Monkee music, and the boys struggled with not performing their own songs.


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