New Monkees (found remake of sitcom "The Monkees"; 1987)
The series' title card.
Status: Partially Found
New Monkees was a remake of the 1960s television comedy series The Monkees that was created by MTV in 1987, the series was cancelled after only 13 episodes due to the fact that it was garnering ratings lower than what was predicted for the series[1].
Plot
The series followed a different group from that of the original's but still had the same basic premise, is that a band of musicians is looking to become stars, one major difference from the original being that they lived in a mansion so large that they often become lost instead of a 2 story beach house. The group's members(Larry, Dino, Jared, and Marty ) were played by Larry Saltis, Konstantinos Kovas, Jared Chandler, and Marty Ross
Background
On February 23, 1986, MTV began a 24 hour marathon of the original Monkees series, the rerun was met with massive success, so much so that the reruns were among the most watched material to ever air on the network up to that point[2] and other stations followed airing the series regularly. By the end of the year, public interest in the series was great enough that MTV conceptualized remaking the series, which they did in the following year.
Production
MTV had gone through over 5000 auditions by the time the decision was made on who would play the band members, Matthew Fassberg and Victor Fresco were the executive producers, the creators of the original series, Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson, were also involved.[3]. All 13 episodes were completed in a time span 3 months[4]
Failure
According to Splitsider, The Monkees had failed to attend MTV's super bowl party, and because of this, MTV and its subsidiary Nickelodeon pulled reruns of the original series, with this and the aging of the Monkees music, interest had died out in the band prior to the series premiere [2]
Availability
The series was never released on any forms of home media and wasn't re-aired after its cancellation. Only one episode survives in full along with musical segments from other episodes.
References
- ↑ The series' Wikipedia page. 03 Dec '17
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Splitsider article on the series Retrieved 03 Dec '17
- ↑ the show's unofficial website. Retrieved 03 Dec '17
- ↑ List of the series' directors. Retrieved 03 Dec '17