Presumably those are the demos submitted by Boyce & Hart. Isn't that Paul Mazursky playing the street interviewer five minutes in?
Re: The Monkees 1965 Unaired Pilot
Posted: Mon Sep 23, 2013 1:56 am
by Geoff Lucas
Sorry, I'm late to the game on this one. Finally, a topic that I can offer some useful knowledge on.
This is technically not the original pilot. It is a revised version of the pilot that, I believe, was taken from a 16mm print owned by Bobby Hart. It's probably the version that sold the show to NBC. The first version of the pilot featured a manager character that had a considerable role in the show. He was the missing father/authority figure that the show ultimately didn't need. He is only seen briefly in this version, specifically in the record store scene. The screen tests at the beginning of the show were not part of the original version of the pilot either. These sequences were added in response to negative test audience response to the initial pilot. It was an attempt to help the test audience relate to the relatively unknown actors playing the Monkees. I guess their strategy worked.
The original pilot hasn't surfaced publicly, but a private collector claimed to have a print several years ago. Some cut footage from the original version of the pilot appears in the season one opening credits for the show, as well as during a few of the "musical romps" from a few of the early episodes. The detailed original script is available and confirms much of what I've described above.