New Monkees (found remake of sitcom "The Monkees"; 1987)

The series' title card.

Status: Found

Date found: 20 Nov 2020

New Monkees was a remake of the 1960s television comedy series The Monkees created by MTV in 1987. The series was cancelled after only 13 episodes because of poor ratings.

Plot

The series followed a different group from the original, but with the same premise of a band looking to become stars. One major difference from the original was that they lived in a mansion so large they'd often become lost, instead of a two-story beach house. The group's members (Larry, Dino, Jared, and Marty) were played by Larry Saltis, Konstantinos Kovas, Jared Chandler, and Marty Ross.

History

On February 23rd, 1986, MTV began a 24-hour marathon of the original Monkees series. The rerun was a massive success and became some of the networks most-watched material.^[1] Other stations followed, airing the series regularly. By the end of the year, public interest in the series was great enough that MTV considered remaking the series, which they did the following year.

MTV went through over 5,000 auditions before deciding the cast members. Matthew Fassberg and Victor Fresco were the executive producers, and the creators of the original series, Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson, were also involved.^[2] All 13 episodes were completed in a period of 3 months.^[3]

According to Splitsider, The Monkees failed to attend MTV's super bowl party, and because of this, MTV and its subsidiary Nickelodeon pulled reruns of the original series. This, combined with the declining popularity of the Monkees' music, led to the loss of interest before series' premiere.^[1]

Availability

The series was never released on home media and wasn't re-aired after its cancellation. On November 20th, 2020, the entire series was uploaded to YouTube by user Dough Hubler.