Sitcom: The Monkees
Episode: The Christmas Show
Year: 1967
Story line: The boys teach a cynical lad the meaning of Christmas.
Details: Straight up, this sucked. Totally sucked. Not even mildly amusing. Lots of not-very-good slapstick and an extended slow motion sequence toward the end where you get the feeling they were out of ideas, had time to fill and used slow motion to make the most of it. There’s also an odd coda where the cast comes out and walks around on the set and then the Monkees sing a version of the 16th century Spanish carol Riu Chiu that’s actually pretty nice. In short, the Monkees get stuck baby-sitting a cynical little rich brat named Melvin. We learn that he’s been given everything … but love. I guess love is all you need. Where have we heard that before … One interesting aside: Melvin morphs into a computer in several spots, when he’s being particularly cold and heartless. Harkens back to the Beverly Hillbillies episode that Tivo mistakenly grabbed instead of the Christmas episode. I still find it interesting to note how freaked out people were by computers …
Killer quote: “Boy, this kid needs some lessons on Christmas.” Peter Tork after an encounter with Melvin. Yup. That’s the best quote I could glean from this mess, though there was one spot where the Monkees did a need vamp on the word “gay” in “Don we now our gay apparel.”
Ebenezer alert: Melvin, the precocious kid the Monkees are baby-sitting. Melvin, by the way, was played by Butch Patrick of Eddie Munster fame. I knew he looked familiar but didn’t realize who he was until the credits rolled.
Childhood memory: I have no recollection of this episode, but I loved the Monkees as a kid. I remember playing Monkees with my cousin John, strumming brooms in his basement and falling all over each other in slapstick bliss.