The program ended in 1968 at the finish of its second season and has received a long afterlife through Saturday morning repeats (CBS from 1969 to 1972 and ABC from 1972 to 1973) and syndication, as well as overseas broadcasts.

[3] It aired on Sunday afternoons on MeTV beginning on February 24, 2019, three days after the death of cast member Peter Tork, and ending on April 26, 2020.

The series centered on the adventures of the Monkees, a struggling rock band from Los Angeles, California consisting of Micky, Davy, Michael, and Peter.

They were inspired by the Beatles' film A Hard Day's Night and decided to develop a television series about a fictional rock and roll group.

[5] Raybert sold the series idea to Screen Gems in April 1965,[6] and Paul Mazursky and Larry Tucker completed a pilot script by August entitled "The Monkeys".

Trade publications Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter ran an ad on September 8, 1965, seeking "Folk & Roll Musicians-Singers for acting roles in new TV series."

[8] Fourteen actors from the audition pool were brought back for screen tests[9] and Raybert chose their final four after audience research.

Rafelson and Schneider also believed strongly in the program's ability to appeal to young people, intentionally framing the kids as heroes and the adults as heavies.

The character types also had much in common with the respective personalities of the Beatles, with Dolenz representing the madcap attitude of John Lennon, Nesmith affecting the deadpan seriousness of George Harrison, Tork depicting the odd-man-out quality of Ringo Starr, and Jones conveying the pin-up appeal of Paul McCartney.

A pilot episode was shot in San Diego and Los Angeles on a shoestring budget — in many scenes, the Monkees wore their own clothes.

In a studio outtake included in the 1990s re-release of Headquarters, Nesmith quips, before launching into "Nine Times Blue": "Only difference between me and Peter is I'm just stone legal.

[citation needed] For the second season, the show used a version of the song "For Pete's Sake" as the closing theme, which appeared on the Monkees' album Headquarters.

In the back, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, was an alcove formed by massive floor-to-ceiling bay windows, where the Monkees kept their instruments and rehearsed songs.

During Season One, the boys also had to contend with their bad-tempered landlord Mr. Babbit, who was always yelling at them about various infractions that he thought they were responsible for or threatening to throw them out for not paying their rent.

Its win for Comedy Series was considered somewhat of an upset, as it bested long-time favorites The Andy Griffith Show, Bewitched, Get Smart and Hogan's Heroes.

However, the public did not realize the show and the band were just a regularly produced television series and the Monkees characters did not write or perform their own studio music except to provide the vocals.

However, NBC responded to the criticism and internal tensions by retooling the show in its second season with the Monkees now writing and performing much of their own music that was much less pop-oriented.

Moreover, Don Kirshner, the producer for the Monkees for their first season and responsible for their first smash hits, was terminated by Colgems Records, resulting in a much less bubblegum rock sound for the band.

The series finale, Dolenz's original story "The Frodis Caper", was written as a satire of the industry and a parting shot thereto: an evil eye resembling the CBS logo is hypnotizing television viewers everywhere and the Monkees trace it to an alien plant being manipulated by a villain seeking world domination.

In many cases, episodes seen in the syndication package featured the updated soundtracks of the Saturday morning run or the earlier summer 1967 repeats.

The popularity led Columbia Pictures to create a "reboot" version of the franchise in 1987, New Monkees, but it flopped and was cancelled after a half season.

Likewise, the Nickelodeon sitcom Big Time Rush followed the same basic format and premise; the producers of that show acknowledged The Monkees as their primary inspiration.

This is reflected numerous times throughout the series, such as in the pilot, where Mike Nesmith is seen throwing darts at a Beatles poster and in the episode "Find the Monkees (The Audition)" where the Monkees struggle to see a famous television producer who is looking for a rock act for use in commercial advertisements; in the episode "I Was a 99-Pound Weakling", Micky is tricked into signing onto a bogus weight-training program, but objects by noting, "Where am I gonna get that kind of money?

It was far better TV than it had to be; during an era of formulaic domestic sitcoms and wacky comedies, it was a stylistically ambitious show, with a distinctive visual style, absurdist sense of humor and unusual story structure.

"[24] Six two-episode VHS volumes of the television series were distributed by Musicvision/RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video between July 15, 1986, and June 25, 1987, taking advantage of the group's 20th anniversary.

Rhino later released individual two-episode VHS volumes of the TV series between March 26, 1996, and April 11, 2000; it would be the last time The Monkees television show would be distributed on videocassette.