Beside an aquarium in the boys’ beach pad, Micky is immediately kissed by Lady Pleasure.
In The Valley Auditorium, our heroes hustle through multitudes of screaming teenage fans, saddle up their instruments on the “rotating turntable” bandstand
(Michael on guitar, Peter on bass, Micky, drums, and David, maracas/organ), and perform “Circle Sky.” (This electrifying split-screen concert performance is
Back in the ring, David is once again knocked down for the count. Micky shouts “Stay down, dummy!” and Michael counterattacks Micky’s insult: “You are the dummy, dummy!” Enraged, Micky races up to the ring and jumps in. He pushes his way past the referee, makes one giant lunge toward David, and knocks him out
("Stay down, dummy!")!
On the other side, David emerges clad in a white tuxedo, strutting his stuff and singing “Daddy’s Song.” During his performance, his white tuxedo on
As an explorer in a jungle scene, Micky, looking through a magnifying glass, sees a “Manchester midget greenie!” He screams, drops his magnifying glass in horror and, to the strains of Johann Strauss'
Kunstlerleben (Artist's Life), Op. 316
(1867), tumbles downhill—right into the waiting arms of strawskirted native tribesmen, who capture Micky and shackle him to a wall in a dungeon next to Peter and Michael. Before Michael can explain an escape plan, the wall on which the three are chained swerves around, and they find themselves up against the studio lavatory wall, with their
Angry, David unzips and takes off his radiation suit, kicks down the factory door and, in a fierce battle, trounces the Inspector
and his CLICK! More movie clips are being switched from channel to channel on the TV screen by remote control; these featuring Micky, footage of Vietnam war atrocities, a scene from a Loopy DeLoop cartoon, an ad for Platex Cross-Your-Hear Bra, the TV commercial for HEAD featuring John Brockman, Rita Hayworth, and Lord High ‘N’ Low. Switching back to the channel of the
A swarm of the Black Sheik and his Arab horsemen, Inspector Shrink and his workers, Native Americans, the Italian Army, and Private One chase The Monkees all over the desert set, which transforms into another ribbon-cutting ceremony on the same new suspension bridge instigated by Mayor Feedback in Long Beach. Again it is disrupted, this time by all four Monkees and their angry assailants, and the angry mayor, his establishment cronies and the citizens join in on the frantic chase, to the noise of various horns, jackhammers and sirens. At the middle of the bridge, Micky removes his jacket and already leaps over the railing, just as David, Peter and Michael reach his
And they all lived Monkee ever after?
THE BEGINNING!
|
With throngs of citizens, several suited businessmen, some state troopers, members of the press, honking automobiles, policemen and a
steel-helmeted high school championship drill team all waiting in the wings, Mayor Feedback, aided by his establishment cronies, is commencing a ribbon-cutting ceremony on a new suspension bridge in Long Beach, California. As he struggles with his feedback-producing microphone (sic!),
The Mayor proudly dedicates “this magnificent model of modern architecture, one of the largest suspended arch bridges in the world, to the people of the great golden state of... (California),” when, all of a sudden, The Monkees' Micky Dolenz,
from out of nowhere, breaks ruthlessly into the scene, tears the ribbon, and,
pulling the tape with him, carries it down the bridge, leaving behind a stunned procession. Peter Tork,
Michael Nesmith and David Jones bring up the rear, desperately pursuing Micky. The Monkees continue
to dash like crazy along the bridge, to the sound of various horns and sirens. Reaching the railing somewhere near the center, Micky mounts it, and just as the others reach his position, Micky leaps off into space, and Peter, Michael and David watch in horror as their drummer plummets in an excruciatingly long arc into The Back Channel. At the bottom of The Channel, under a
mélange of color solarization effects, Micky does an underwater ballet with a pair of mermaids to the tune of 
She then smooches Michael under a tree of chimes, Peter in a barber’s chair, and David by the
stained-glass window, which opens to reveal sea gulls chirping and flying about
to a strain of beautiful music as they lock lips. At the end of kissing contest, Pleasure pronounces them all "even"; she even goes so far as to rebuff Michael's offer, whispered into her ear. After she leaves, a “storyboard” of 20 TV monitors depicting future happenings in this movie flash on the screen to the tune of 
photographer. He leaps in another foxhole and is senselessly tackled by Private One, a has-been Green Bay Packers player. Peter ducks out of the foxhole just in time to avoid another tackle by Mr. One, who gets so peeved he tosses his helmet at Peter, which he brings back to his foxhole to give to Micky. The Monkees, firing rounds from their rifles, emerge from their foxhole and crouch beside a cave into which David tosses flares; then the four venture inside the cave where they are enveloped by flames and find themselves back in the present 1968, clad in white, racing down the corridor.
repeatedly inter cut with footage of Vietnam.) At the end of the number, as the frenzied teenage girls scramble onto the bandstand, the cool quartet make a strategic exit and leave mannequin replicas of themselves for the girls to rip to shreds.
CLICK! We see clips featuring Bela Lugosi, Rona Barrett, Ralph Williams, Ronald Reagan, and Ann Miller on a TV screen, being switched by remote control from channel to channel, finally stopping
on a channel featuring Micky as a single Allied soldier in the middle of a desert, dying of thirst and driven by his own inner voice. He stops at, puts a quarter in, and attacks a non functioning Coca-Cola machine, with the old Coca-Cola jingle pervading the soundtrack. Shortly thereafter, Micky gets into an argument with his own inner voice and tells it to “Shut up!” It does, and Micky, thinking he has gone deaf, freaks out. Far above the scene, a voice inquires, “Quiet, isn’t it, George Michael Dolenz? I said, ‘Quiet, isn’t it, George Michael Dolenz?” Then, a Black Sheik on horseback arrives to greet Micky, but embarks when he spatters “Psst!” in his face! Then a huge tank arrives, out of which I. Vitteloni, an Italian Army general, emerges, and, handing Micky his gun, surrenders, along with his Italian regiment, as Giuseppe Verdi's
During shooting of a Western at Columbia Pictures Studios, Michael, as a wounded frontiersman, makes
vainglorious speeches to Micky, as a Calvary soldier, while blindly shooting and stabbing attacking
Native Americans. Micky rips a painfully barbed savage’s arrow from his chest and Testy True, as a pioneer woman, lies “dying” from snake venom. Disgusted and unwilling to complete his role in the scene being shot, Micky brushes fake arrows from his chest and stumps off through the painted backdrop, with Michael following him. Nearby on a bowery brownstone set, a small crew films David, in knickerbockers, page boy britches and flowing sleeves, miming a violin to a playback of Antonín Dvořák's
The Columbia-Screen Gems Studio Club, the
studio's commissary. Signals from smoke to gun to mirror abound, and the messenger bursts inside the Studio Club, warning the people of the trio’s arrival. Trying to get inside, Micky, Michael and David squeeze through disgruntled exiting patrons, leaving only Peter, still in Arab gear, who sits dejectedly staring at a strawberry ice cream cone which has already begun to melt in his fist.
Once inside, the three exchange insults with Mr. & Mrs. Ace, an overly-dramatic female impersonator, who declares them "God's gift to the eight year olds." Micky and Michael leave, while David and Peter stays behind. David suggests to Mr./Mrs. Ace that they go someplace where they won’t bump into each other again, and is smacked across the face.
In
a boxing ring, David fakes a bout with an extra but takes a severe beating about
the face. Sitting amongst the medium crowd in the audience is Michael as fight racketeer "Cool" Nesmith -- in suit and hat, disturbed but immobile, who has made a bet on David to take a dive; Sally Silicone as his blonde, Bimbo; and Micky as "Pops", a runner, agitated,
constantly shouting at David to stay down to impress Cool. Struggling to keep on hands and knees, a battered David sees,
squinting through half-closed eyes, Micky whispering to him to "Stay down!", Michael shaking his head in dismay, and then Minnie in the grandstands, crying "Don't Davy! Please don't!" This triggers a flashback to himself in his violin blonde outfit serenading the folks at the brownstone. Inside the
brownstone, Minnie (here called Theresa) begs David not to go, but David, thinking that playing a violin in two bit clubs aren’t up to his standards,
ignores her begging, declaring “at this, I could’ve been champ!” and adding “They pick the round, and I pick the guy!” In a hand-held move, David exits to
a brick wall on a sound stage, and walks to where 15 extras as fighters are standing,
accompanied by the director and a casting girl accompanies him. Walking down the line of suited pugs, David stops at former champ Charles L. "Sonny" Liston and chooses him. David points to his jaw and dares Liston to hit him; Sonny replies by throwing a mock punch.
He knocks the Extra out too! The referee
jumps on his back; Micky KOs him, as well!
He slugs Michael ("'Dummy,' huh?!") and he goes down! The cops, press, etc., are all active in the
crowd. Micky grabs Bimbo and in the same move of escorting her to the ropes, he turns and roundhouses
her in the kisser!! This is all too much to handle! In a flurry of press photographers' flashbulbs, a quintet of policemen intercede and immediately grab and subdue riot-crazed Micky until Peter, David’s second, rises alone through the ropes, looking surprised and hurt. Then, quietly he declares, “I’m the dummy, Micky. I’m
always the dummy!” (owing to his persona on The Monkees' former
television series). An emotional Micky, on his knees and out of breath, sympathizes, agrees and apologizes. This scene transitions back
to The Columbia-Screen Gems Studio Club, which is once again filled with "coffee breakers." Peter
still sits at his table, staring at his unwanted ice cream cone melted in his fist, musing on his dummy ship. He is consoled by Mrs. Ace, who urges him not listen to Micky, Michael and David's insults ("They're wise guys. Punks... all they wanna do is hurt people and abuse them")—and
then he sends the waitress sprawling with a Sunday punch! After
the director yells “Cut!” the actors—including Mrs. Ace, who slowly peels off her wig and becoming Mr. Ace—and crew praise Peter’s performance, but Peter, a non-violent person, feeling what he did would damage the group’s image, decries it. He frustratingly walks off the commissary set and takes a seat, where it starts snowing on him. We then encounter another song sequence, 
The Monkees don protective radiation suits and join Inspector Shrink, chief engineer at Pepton Industries, where they go on a tour of inspection,
during which only David bears witness to a series of mishaps: a man hanging on a hook; two people, a man vaguely supporting the elbow of a girl who seems to be crying, passing by in the background; a cleaver chopping meat; a Lever Secretary’s head falling off; a
worker drinking rusty water; a security guard stepping forward to check his watch and miss being clobbered by boxes falling from a conveyor belt above him; and an injured man being carried out on a stretcher. Inspector Shrink guides the boys inside a dark room and shuts the door on them. Spotlights shine upon the boys,
and they are called by off-camera voices (Bob Rafelson and Jack Nicholson) to step forward, get inside a hag of hair, and jump up and down, as flecks of dandruff for a commercial for Tough Shampoo. The camera pulls back to reveal the countenance of The Big Victor, muscular 1940s motion picture idol—and the boys being sucked up from his hair by a
huge vacuum cleaner! As Micky, Michael and Peter tumble inside the cleaner, David clings onto the tube for his dear life. The three fool around with a button, a needle, and a cigarette, and find David missing. Deducing that he is stuck up the tube, Michael, Peter and Micky clamber on top of each other and Micky shouts into the tube for David. The vibrations of Micky’s shouting prove to be so great that David is thrown out of the vacuum cleaner tube onto the floor. Picking himself from the floor, he sees a strange opening and goes inside.
the black set repeatedly flashes vice-versa, giving a positive- negative effect. (At one point, he can be seen dancing with choreographer Toni Basil!) At the end of his performance, David encounters a group of stage hands, giving him a
standing ovation. Emerging from the sound stage onto the lot, David converses with a critic, who carries a bull on a leash. The critic declares that David’s dancing doesn’t leave much time for his music and that he should spend more time on it because the youth of America depends on him to show the way. “Monkees iss der craziest people!” titters the bull as he and the critic marches off. Nearby, Officer Faye Lapid watches a steel crate rise from the ground and order Michael, Micky and Peter out. Brutally inquired what were they were doing in the box, the boys reel off their experience, the factory, the commercial, and the vacuum cleaner. Thinking they are totally crazy, the officer proceeds to take the boys downtown, when David arrives,
leading the drill team through their paces around the cop and taking The Monkees off with him on the end of the line while the cop
looks on. After they march off, David regroups with his mates and goes inside the studio
lavatory.
In the lav, David throws punches, washes his hands, and opens the mirrored medicine chest to see huge eye peering through the opening at him! David slams the door shut and lurches against the wall, struck speechless and horrified. Just then Peter enters the lav, whistling the chorus to The Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever"
as he crosses to the mirror, squeezes a pimple, washes his hands, and notices David cowering in fear; he points spasmodically at the medicine chest to Peter, unable to speak. Peter
quickly moves to open it and does, but, much to David’s astoundment, sees no eye, but instead, a bottle! Peter walks out, declaring “nobody ever lends any money 
to
a man with a sense of humor!” After Peter leaves, David looks disbelievingly at
the mirror, moves slowly toward it, jerks the door open and the bottle falls out into the sink,
shattering. But there are only shelves instead of an eye. David grins, gives a
sigh of relief and closes the mirror door, but gives a startled response to what he sees behind him in the mirror: a long Gothic vestibule room theremins in behind him! A sinister laugh echoes through the high arched rafters of the room as David fearfully explores this inner sanctum,
stumbling and staggering through things such as cobwebs, an ancient grandfather clock, with chimes,
candelabra [sic] which first burn and then are blown out by the wind and tripping over skeletons, and suits of
armor. David moves down a narrow hallway toward a door, which glows with a
phosphorescent flashing. David slowly turns the knob, and as
the door begins to swing open, he enters the room and is horrifying upon seeing
a huge ant!
hands up, once again facing Officer Faye Lapid. Micky explains that the last time they saw David was inside the john. Believing their story, the officer guarantees they’ll find David and lets them go but warns them of the consequences if they cause any more trouble. After they leave, Lapid executes a fey stripper’s stint, washes his hands—and faints upon seeing Victor Mature behind him in the mirror!
That night, at The Monkees’ beach pad, Michael is awakened out of a sound sleep by the door buzzer. He gets up, amidst floating silver pollows, finds Micky and Peter ignoring the buzzer playing guitars, and yells for one of them to answer it. Peter answers the door, receives a letter from a heraldic messenger (who has a teenage lady handcuffed to him!), opens it and crumples it. Hearing a door slam, Michael dons his robe goes looking out the front door, and calls Peter, but the latter finds himself running down the corridor of the same
long Gothic vestibule room as David; as he reaches for the phosphorescent flashing door, he is beckoned by a voice to “STOP!” At the pad, while Michael reads the crumpled telegram (which, coincidentally, also reads “STOP”), Micky also disappears and reappears as a mannequin in a closet! Michael makes a zombielike stagger out the front door and down the corridor of the Gothic vestibule room. He opens the door and find what appear to be three monks holding candles and chanting a mantra, but are actually Monkees David, Micky and Peter, who whip off their hoods and sing “Happy Birthday To You.” The lights switch on, their friends emerge from behind the walls to pat Michael on the back and shower him with gifts, and
everyone moves and grooves to the tune of 
until they are halted by the sound of gunfire. They look up and find themselves in a Western ghost town, where Lord High ‘n’ Low, surrounded by his henchmen, cocks his sawed off shotgun and bellows “Don’t never, but never, make fun of no cripples!” Micky, Michael and David are locked up in the local jail as a result. In his cot, David is awakened from his sound sleep by a cluttering noise. As Micky and Michael slumber, David gets up from his cot, slumps to the bars, and sees a shimmering image…
In a sauna, as the movie extra (from the boxing scene) looks on, Peter listens to profound superficialities of beliefs and conditioning mouthed from Swami, who reveals he doesn’t know anything. The extra pulls a cord, deluging the sauna with more steam and leaving Peter to search for the nearest exit. Emerging from the sound stage, Peter finds a crowd, along with Micky and Michael, looking up at a bikini-clad lady poised to jump from a high ledge. Peter tries
to tell them what he learned from the Swami, but, too busy making bets on the lady’s fate, they inadvertently brush him away. In the studio lavatory, Peter finds David, looking into the medicine cabinet and swearing to Peter that he saw an eye in it!
As they emerge from the lav, Michael, holding The Jumper, has defeated Micky in the bet, with Micky paying him $10. Michael hands Peter The Jumper and he and Micky and David start off, leaving Peter to call after them. In the factory, Peter catches up with his mates as Inspector Shrink leads them inside the same black box and tries to warn them, but they ignore him, and they are all locked inside. Micky, David and 
Michael bang on the steel door, demanding to be let out, and they turn to see Peter, holding a candle. Figuring what he has to say must retain a way out, the three inadvertently sit down to listen. Peter becomes the Swami’s mouthpiece, philosophically passing on to Micky, Michael and David the nature of conceptual reality—and
concludes that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about!
workers; Michael, Peter and Micky
join in by serving uppercuts to three factory workers who try to
catch them from behind. A hulking security guard tries to block The Monkees' path, but David quickly subdues him with a quick kick to the stomach and a shot in the side of the neck with a karate chop. The four boys escape from the factory, in a proudly-executed stride to the tune of John Philip Sousa's
towering above the action. The boys drift tactfully away, but with a clap of Victor’s hands, they are shut inside yet another big black box—this one lifted and transported by helicopter, the vibrations jarring the four boys as they are carried through the sky. Dropped from a great height, the box shatters in the desert, exposing The Monkees to the Forces of Inhumanity: a line of The Black Sheik and his Arab horsemen, Inspector Shrink and his workers, The Big Victor (polishing a golf club), tribes of Native Americans, the Italian Army (armed with a tank), and the Coca-Cola machine. The mind-blown Arab horsemen swarm around the boys, and the tank chases the four and blasts the Coke machine,
rousing the ire of The Arabs quenching their thirst, who scramble to their feet
spilling half-empty Cokes all over the place. The Big Victor inadvertently swipes The Monkees into the air with his golf club; as they whisk through the sky, they are shot down by the
Native Americans. The boys crash on studio props and equipment in the Columbia lot: David on a bed, Michael in a trash can, Peter on a bull (which 
he rides into
The Columbia-Screen Gems Studio Club and starts a row), and Micky on a sound boom microphone. To dodge the angry studio personnel, The Monkees duck inside a steam-filled sound stage. Lost in the steam, Peter comes face to face with the Swami in the sauna, while his mates are immediately overpowered by workers in the factory.
movie, Micky, Michael and David, in the factory, are strapped to a conveyor belt leading directly into a horrible piece of machinery that will chop them to bits. The whole scene becomes a silent movie
in black-and-white, wherein Peter enters the fray and battles the villainous Inspector Shrink (now with black cloak, top hat and moustache!), each taking turns throwing the switch operating the machine, sending Micky, Michael and David up and down the belt. Peter belts Shrink, knocking him and his cronies downstairs, and rescues Micky, Michael and David
(the latter in drag as a young blonde girl!); Peter carries David in his arms outside to join their fellow Monkees, who have commandeered a dune buggy and drive out, applauded by a crowd of old ladies. Back
in color, the boys
head down the Western street, where 
Lord High 'n' Low is waiting with a lynch mob, preparing to hang The Monkees! They drive right through the scaffolding, leaving High 'n' Low hanging in midair, hanging onto the noose.
Then Michael points at a grip repairing scenery standing on a crosswalk supported by 2 ladders; they drive into one of the ladders, knocking it down and sending the grip riding for a fall. Ahead of them, stagehands shove a huge green telephone out of their way as The Monkees zoom closer and closer towards a white backdrop; tearing through it, they find themselves back on the desert lot, where Peter maneuvers the buggy in circles to avoid him and his mates being stomped underfoot by The Big Victor. Watching the whole thing on TV, Victor becomes fed up and smashes the TV screen with his foot, just as Victor, in 
the movie, kicks over the dune buggy The Monkees are riding in and sends them tumbling down a sand dune.
position. After a brief hesitation, the other three follow suit just as their violent pursuers catch up with them, and this time, all four Monkees plummet into excruciatingly long arcs into The Back Channel one by one, where, under a
mélange of color solarization effects, The Monkees perform an underwater ballet to the tune of 
