The Monkees Second Season - Episode No. 54:

“THE MONKEES IN PARIS”
(a.k.a. “THE PARIS SHOW”)

Irritated with copy-and-paste scripts, The Monkees take a vacation to
The French Capital where they're chased by girls and gendarmes.

Technical & Telecast Info:

Production No.4771
Filmed At:Screen Gems Studio 6, Hollywood, CA, and on location in Paris, France.
Filming Dates:June 26 (6:30 a.m.) - 28, 1967 (Paris), December 24, 1967 (Hollywood)
Background Cues Recorded:January 4, 1968 in Hollywood (from 1pm to 4pm)
Original Air Date:February 19, 1968
Ratings:17.1 rating/26.9 share (9,580,000 viewers)
© Raybert Productions; 2-19-68; LP37625
Sponsor This Week:
Yardley Of London™
Rerun Dates:August 12, 1968 (NBC); August 12, 1972 (CBS)

Production Credits:

Written & Directed byRobert Rafelson.
Executive Producers:Robert Rafelson & Bert Schnieder.
Story Editor: Neil Burstyn.
Associate Producer:Michael Burns.
Produced byWard Sylvester.
Background Music Composed and Conducted byHugo Montenegro.
"Star Collector":Written by Jerry Goffin & Carole King; Produced by Chip Douglas.
"Love Is Only Sleeping":Written by Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil; Produced by Chip Douglas.
"Don't Call On Me":Written by Michael Nesmith & John London; Produced by Chip Douglas.
"Goin' Down":Written by Diane Hilderbrand, P. Tork, M. Nesmith, M. Dolenz & D. Jones; Produced by Chip Douglas.
Tell Me Love” (August 12, 1972 Repeat):Written by Jeff Barry.
"Don't Call On Me" (August 12, 1972 Repeat):Written by Mike Nesmith.
"Star Collector" (August 12, 1972 Repeat):Written by Gerry Goffin & Carole King.
I Love You Better” (August 12, 1972 Repeat):Written by Jeff Barry & Andy Kim.
Music Assistant (August 12, 1972 Repeat):Brendan Cahill.

Releases On Home Video:

  • The Monkees TV Show 10 (VAP Video VHS Tape VPVU-63094 [Japan], December 1, 1992)
  • The Monkees - Special TV Collection - Disc 10 - Side 2 (VAP Video VPLU-70215 [Japan], December 1, 1992)
  • The Monkees: The Collector's Edition - VHS Tape #19 (Columbia House #19944, May 22, 1995)
  • The Monkees Deluxe Limited Edition Boxed Set - VHS Tape #18 (Rhino R3 2960, October 17, 1995)
  • The Monkees - Season 2 DVD Boxed Set - Disc 4 (Rhino RetroVision DVD R2 970128, November 18, 2003)
  • The Monkees - Season 2 DVD Boxed Set - Disc 4 (Eagle Rock Entertainment DVD EM351369, September 27, 2011)
  • The Monkees - The Complete Series - Blu-Ray Disc 7 (Rhino BD2-552705, July 8, 2016)

Synopsis:

As the camera pulls back from a toy chimp to reveal Micky and David playing checkers and Michael engaging in a round of Chutes And Ladders, Peter rushes in reading a ultimatum and warning, in deliberately overblown fashion, telling them to give up the secret microfilm and get off the ranch or they will be killed. Micky replies that there is nothing to worry about when stock villain Artie enters the scene with a phony Russian accent demanding the microfilm. The boys react unenthusiastically, and key director, James Frawley cuts the shoot to talk to the boys, who express their frustration and exhaustion with the wash-rinse-repeat pattern of the scripts the show is now filming after over fifty episodes. Frawley calls another take, but the second take goes nowhere. The Monkees object because the show's jokes have become stale, the clichés unbearable (David in particular objects to the tall heavy and short heavy that permeate every episode now), and Frawley's urging of the boys to keep going falls on deaf ears. Michael then decisively tells Jim that they're going on a vacation and to work on new plot twists in the script, and Micky decides they should go to Paris, so the boys walk off the set, to the consternation of Frawley, who nonetheless calls for a closeup of the set's toy monkey, the kind of directorial cliche Michael had just gotten through complaining about, as the scene shifts to them getting off the plane upon their arrival in Paris.

The Monkees ride around the streets of Paris on motorcycles when they are spotted by Veronique, Karine, Carole and Francoise four beautiful French women. The pace becomes as frantic as The Beatles' hardest day's night as a mad musical chase to the song "Love Is Only Sleeping" is given through the meat and vegetable markets and all over the street as the quartet try futilely to dodge the pursuing beauties while confused onlookers watch on. They finally manage to ditch them by jumping on the back of a minibus. Meanwhile back on the set, James is explaining over the phone to series co-creator/executive producer Bob Rafelson on the phone that The Monkees just walked off the set and suggest that they put on another episode but Bob isn’t pleased. Back in Gay Paree, Micky, Michael, Peter and David escape pursuit on a truck and pile onto a canal barge which sails on the River Seine and as the waterfall flows Peter shows off with his hand gestures to the classical tune of Richard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries”. The girls follow and it seems they have the boys trapped, but they immediately leap onto the mainland, leaving the ladies stranded on the barge. Soon, The Monkees are at the amusement park where they are engaged in toy cars and tricycles but the four girls are after them once more and then each Monkee is enjoying the rides with each girl next to them.

Later, each Monkee pairs off with each girl as they stroll romantically through a beautiful garden to the song "Don't Call On Me." At the Les Halles Flea Market, through a rendition of "Star Collector", The Monkees are back on motorcycles strolling through a crowd when once again they are being pursued by Veronique, Karine, Carole and Francoise. Now on their feet, a chase continues through the crowd as they try to dodge the women with hilarious results, posing as vendors and musicians, but they give in and type letters and hand them to the girls, who slap them. They type some more, and the girls, won over, hug and kiss our heroes. Next to the tune of "Goin' Down", The Monkees are hounded through downtown Paris' Champs-Elysses by crowds led by the 4 girls, with gendarmes bringing up the rear as they pull every trick in the book to avoid them from climbing a flagpole, hiding under a bench, inside an old brownstone and climbing onto a balcony...but all, alas and alack, to no avail. At one point, Micky is mobbed by the fans leaving him half shirtless! When David and Micky enter the Montparnasse cemetery, the tune is quickly interrupted by the strains of Johahn Sebastian Bach’s Toccatta and Fugue in D minor as they stroll through the site, but returns to "Goin' Down" forcibly takes over again when they rejoin Michael and Peter back on the street. They continue to elude pursuit on bicycles, motorcycles and then a small truck as the mob surrounds them but then backs off when the guys remove their shirts and jackets. They are finally able to escape but not before pulling the four ladies onto the truck with as it takes off.

Next, The Monkees, chased once again (!!!!) by the girls, romp all over a tour boat where Micky fools around with lifesavers and the wheel wearing the captain’s hat, and Peter and David are being pursued by two of the girls all dressed in old fashioned bathing suits at a swimming pool where they wind up toppling into the pool. Next, to a reprise of "Don't Call On Me," the group are all riding in a broken-down station with the women through Paris admiring the scenery when the buggy ceases functioning at The Arc De Triomphe, causing a gargantuan traffic jam. Back at the Monkees set, director James Frawley tells Artie the guest villain about new twists in the weekly script, insisting that the phony moustache and accent is out and the secret microfilm is now the secret apple but Artie fails to notice the differences. Meanwhile, The Monkees are now riding the elevator at the Eiffel Tower and (you guessed it!) once again are plagued by the pursuing women as they are chased around the tower and continue to try to hide from them. During the pursuit, a solo Davy pulls one of the girls in with him in a booth and soon all eight of them flee from the booth. While monkeeing around, they climb up the tower and all wind up in on sprawled on the ground in a "dead" heap in a surprisingly harrowing ending!

A while later, back at the pad, as the camera once more pulls back from the toy chimp to again reveal Micky and David playing checkers and Michael engaging in a round of Chutes And Ladders, Peter runs in with another ultimatum, this one telling them to give up the secret apple and get off the base or they will be killed. The boys again unenthusiastically react to Artie, when they recognize that they walked into the exact same episode they'd quit before! They angrily balk to director Jim Frawley and want to leave, but he settles them down. The Monkees ask the audience to stick around until next week; they'll try to think of something by then. Frawley again orders a close up of the monkey, and the boys find themselves back in the French capital, romping to the strains of Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky's War Of 1812 Overture.

Production Notes:

Strangely enough, during filming of “The Monkees In Paris,” The Fun Four were virtually unknown in France as the stars they were in America (or even England!), for The Monkees TV show did not air in France! The French would later on, however, instantly embrace the group's unconventional feature film HEAD, whose production coincidentally commenced (more or less) the very same day “The Monkees In Paris” (a.k.a. “The Paris Show”) aired first-run on NBC; it remains the only episode of The Monkees TV series to be filmed on location overseas.

Noted composer Hugo Montenegro (Hurry Sundown [Paramount, 1967], I Dream Of Jeannie [NBC, 1965-70]) is the author of this episode's incidental soundtrack. A cue from this soundtrack heard during The Monkees' romp around the Eiffel Tower is reused in The Monkees' series finale, Episode No. 58, "Mijacogeo" (a.k.a. "The Frodis Caper"), in the scene where Micky, Michael and David, with the aid of Nyles Brown, discover the door to the Frodis Room. A snippet from Montenegro's greatest piece, the theme music from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (United Artists, 1968), is heard in the scene where the girls appear to have The Monkees trapped on the barge.

2 days after “The Monkees In Paris” first aired on NBC, Rafelson, The Monkees and the rest of the cast and crew of the movie HEAD (at the time called Untitled) headed for Bronson Canyon to shoot the war sequence, the first location for the film. (The same day, NBC pulled the plug on 6 of its programs, amongst them The Monkees.)

The wraparound segments of “The Monkees In Paris” were shot in Screen Gems' Studio 7 during the "Fairy Tale"/"The Monkee's Paw" closing interview sessions on Christmas Eve, 1967. These were the last portions of The Monkees television series Raybert Productions saw to compleetion. Notice in these segments the boys' ill feelings about being saddled with the same old Monkee scripts, which was an unfortunate reality (hence their decision to halt the series).

“The Monkees In Paris” (a.k.a. “The Paris Show”), filmed during a short vacation in The French Capital in the week prior to the start of The Monkees' summer tour, was the 11th and last episode finished during Phase 1 of production on Monkees episodes for the second season, and the first second-season Monkees epsiode to be produced from fresher, more original material, and well suited to second-season standards. This came about when The Monkees balked at having to contend with filming first-season rejects; more fresher scripts were presented to the group when filming for their TV series resumed in September 1967. (Probably why Coslough Johnson's "Monkees Toy Around" was never used...)

Michael Burns, who was associate producer of “The Monkees In Paris,” was one of the actors tested for a role on The Monkees TV series in 1965. In late 1963, Burns joined the cast of Wagon Train (NBC/ABC, 1957-65), playing Barnaby West, a 13 year old who has walked from Virginia in search of his father. Billed as "Snrub Ekim" ("Mike Burns" in reverse), he had a brief role as "Gnihton" ("Nothing") in the movie HEAD.

For the lone Saturday Afternoon repeat of “The Monkees In Paris” on CBS August 12, 1972 (a full 4 years after its NBC repeat!), 2 of its musical romps were altered to feature tracks from The Monkees' last LP, Changes (COS-119, May 1970): Jeff Barry & Andy Kim's "I Love You Better," and Jeff Barry's "Tell Me Love." (Surprisingly, only Mike Nesmith was credited for "Don't Call On Me" for its CBS repeat whereas both he and John London received screen credit in its initial telecasts on NBC.) “The Monkees In Paris” (a.k.a. “The Paris Show”) was one of 4 episodes of The Monkees to see onetime airings on CBS Saturday, along with No. 22, “The Monkees At The Circus” (Jul. 17, 1971), No. 32, “The Monkees On Tour” (Dec. 18, 1971), and No. 33, "It's A Nice Place To Visit..." (a.k.a. "The Monkees In Mexico") (Nov. 22, 1969). 

Trivia Notes:

This was the only episode of The Monkees in its entire second season with Bob Rafelson at the director's helm, as well as the sixth overall and last; its first-run NBC telecast fell 2 days short of his 35th birthday.  

This was the last episode of The Monkees to be filmed with Micky Dolenz and his straight hair. Micky grew tired of having to comb it, and so, during the course of the summer tour and recording sessions for Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd., he allowed it to grow wildly, resulting in the curly "afro" he adorned for the rest of the series' production. 

“The Monkees In Paris” is the second episode of The Monkees to feature a record four songs; the first was Episode No. 5, “The Spy Who Came In From The Cool.” 

This episode aired on composer Bobby Hart's 29th birthday.

Unlike most of its previous appearances, Mann and Weil's "Love Is Only Sleeping" makes its only appearance on The Monkees TV show in this episode in its mono mix heard on the mono version of Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd., whereas Nesmith and London's "Don't Call On Me" (another cut from PAC&J, Ltd.) makes its only appearance on the series here altogether.

“The Monkees In Paris” (a.k.a. “The Paris Show”)'s initial NBC telecasts saw composer Gerry Goffin's Christian name misspelled as "Jerry" in its screen credits; this was corrected in the end credits song listing of this episode's August 12, 1972 repeat on CBS.

TV Guide featured a Close-Up on “The Monkees In Paris” for its August 12, 1968 repeat; it was the only TV Guide Close-Up on The Monkees ever printed.

Trivia Footnote: “The Monkees In Paris,” as we well know, was not “filmed during a 1967 concert appearance,” as implied by its TV Guide Close-Up description. 

3 classical music pieces can be heard in “The Monkees In Paris”: Richard Wagner's Ride Of The Valkyries and the aforementioned Toccatta and Fugue in D minor by Johann Sebastian Bach and Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky's War Of 1812 Overture. In Episode No. 35, "Everywhere A Sheik Sheik", Stu Phillips' own rendition of Tchaikovsky's War Of 1812 Overture was heard during Micky's hilarious Napoleonic speech ("And the dreaded Nahudi Camel Corps marches straight to Moscow!").

Toccatta and Fugue in D minor is one of 2 Bach pieces utilized for a Monkees TV project; in the 1969 TV special 33⅓ Revolutions Per Monkee, Peter Tork can be seen playing an harpsichord rendition of Solfeggietto, by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788), second son of the great Johann Sebastian Bach.

In the romps filmed at Les Halles and The Eiffel Tower, David Jones can be seen wearing an outfit closely resembling that of The Artful Dodger...an affectionate nod to the role which he played in 1964 on Broadway in Oliver!.

In this and the previous episode, No. 53, "The Monkees Race Again" (a.k.a. "Leave The Driving To Us"), Peter expresses his distaste of guns and violence...yet in No. 10, “Here Come The Monkees” (Original Pilot Film), No. 11, “The Monkees A La Carte”, No. 13, “One Man Shy” (a.k.a. "Peter And The Debutante") and No. 33, "It's A Nice Place To Visit..." (a.k.a. "The Monkees In Mexico"), he has a gun!

This is also the only episode in The Monkees' second season to display this shot of David Jones doffing his kooky hat during the end credits. This shot was presented briefly in the first season, during the end credits for the first four shows and Episode No. 6, “The Success Story”.

The Monkees also played checkers in Episode No. 12, “I've Got A Little Song Here”, and No. 31, “The Monkees At The Movies”.

The Paris chase sequences at The Les Halles Flea Market, The Arc De Triomphe and The Eiffel Tower see Micky Dolenz wearing a Nehru shirt for the only time ever on the entire Monkees television series.

Guest Cast Notes:

The girls chasing The Monkees throughout this segment are models Carine, Carole Andre, Francoise Dorelac and Veronique Duval.

Sad Trivia Footnote: Francoise Dorelac, the elder sister of French film star Catherine Deneuve, was killed at age 25 when her rental car flipped and burned on a roadway in Nice, France on June 26, 1967, the first day of production on “The Monkees In Paris” (a.k.a. “The Paris Show”). She was near completion of the film Billion Dollar Brain (United Artists, 1967) at the time the accident occurred.

The gendarmes here are portrayed by Bill Chadwick, David Price, Charles Rockett and Richard Klein. Price and Klein are both Monkee stunt doubles.

Keep a sharp lookout for Micky's future wife, BBC television host Samantha Juste, who makes a quick cameo during a particular short scene of this episode.

Extra Color/B&W Episode Photo Stills:


Click to view a larger size.

Original TV Guide Close-Up (for August 12, 1968 repeat):


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