{"id":4839,"date":"2013-11-19T05:30:14","date_gmt":"2013-11-19T10:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=4839"},"modified":"2013-11-19T05:30:14","modified_gmt":"2013-11-19T10:30:14","slug":"roger-hart-theres-a-monkee-to-his-madness-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2013\/11\/19\/roger-hart-theres-a-monkee-to-his-madness-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Roger Hart: Monkees to His Madness (Part Two)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One<\/a>…<\/em><\/p>\n

Roger Hart<\/strong> \u2013 manager of <\/em>Paul Revere and the Raiders<\/strong><\/span><\/a> during the 1960s \u2013 picks up his story about developing the treatment <\/em>Madness, an idea that he says was realized as the hit TV show <\/em>The Monkees<\/strong>. \u2013 bk<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cAnd,\u201d he continues, \u201cI gave it to one of the program directors at ABC, in care of another one of their execs. Of course we were already on ABC a lot. And what I consider an honest answer came back: ‘You’re already on television so much that this [idea] isn’t something we would fit in right now. And it would take a long time. So it’s probably nothing we can do anything with right now. But it’s cute.’\u201d So against a backdrop of the Raiders being busy with TV and playing on the road, and having hit records, Hart quietly dropped the idea. \u201cIt was irrelevant,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut,\u201d he continues, \u201csome time \u2013 quite a while \u2013 later, I was having lunch [with someone]. And it was revealed to me…this person said: ‘Just for making you feel good \u2013 nothing more<\/em> \u2013 here’s what happened to your treatment. ABC thought it was cute, and so they sent it over to Columbia Screen Gems. And you can take it from there how it fit, and what happened.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many ideas are picked,\u201d Hart observes, \u201cand you really don’t know how or if you have any rights with [the original idea] or not. I had registered the treatment with the Screen Writers Guild for some reason, paid my fees. But I doubt if that can even be tracked now, because…why would I have wanted to maintain that idea for forty-five or more years? But anyway, my friend at ABC told me, ‘I just wanted you to know.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Hart recalls \u201ca particular individual\u201d from ABC talking to his son in the last couple of years (the unnamed person is now deceased, Hart says), and saying, \u201cI was just a kid at the time. I remember bringing that treatment home and making notes on it.\u201d Hart admits that he hasn’t read any historical account of the era penned by Bob Rafelson<\/strong> or Don Kirshner<\/strong>, but understands that one of them says, in effect, that they got the idea for The Monkees<\/em> \u201cfrom a friend at ABC.\u201d Hart can see the thinking having gone like this: \u201cWe don’t have Paul Revere and the Raiders; maybe we create our own.\u201d But he admits that the Raiders were clearly \u201cinspired by A Hard Day’s Night<\/em>. But I’d add, wasn’t everybody?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nRoger Hart and Derek Taylor<\/center><\/p>\n

I ask him how long this Madness<\/em> treatment of his \u2013 he no longer has a copy \u2013 ran. Surely it was more than a back-of-an-envelope thing? \u201cOh, yes!\u201d Hart assures me. \u201cIt had a title pages and I don’t know how many pages. I do remember the opening scene: five rock’n’rollers, somehow commandeering a plane and barrel-rolling into LAX. It was madness from the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hart doesn’t seem particularly interested in an official credit line for what he sees as his part in creating the idea that would become The Monkees<\/em> TV show, but he wouldn’t mind some recognition. \u201cThe Madness<\/em> story is the sort of thing where you wish you had at least a thank-you letter or something,\u201d he admits. But he remains sanguine about the whole episode: \u201cIt keeps us all humble to realize that we didn’t invent the wheel; we just get to roll with it.\u201d He is justifiably proud of the success that his band enjoyed (an integral part of the band’s operations throughout their prime era, to this day he always speaks of the Raiders as \u201cwe\u201d), he points out that The Raiders \u201cpulled off some things that were novel or unique for their time,\u201d and reminds me that the group had \u201ca string of hits that took us a long way: two years on ABC plus every<\/em> conceivable other show, Batman<\/em> included.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hart ruminates on the idea that \u201cwe all contribute things,\u201d sometimes unknowingly. He recalls the period after Where the Action Is<\/em> had been cancelled, and the band’s core \u201cpower trio\u201d of Phil Volk<\/strong>, Drake Levin<\/strong> and Mike Smith<\/strong> had left to form Brotherhood<\/strong><\/a> (more big news on them soon \u2013 bk). \u201cI can remember suggesting something to one of Dick Clark<\/strong>‘s attorneys, a man who had just left to join a big agency. We were having a conversation about television. And I said, ‘Joe, we need to find another something for Paul and Mark<\/strong> [Lindsay<\/strong>]<\/a>. Some kind of what’s-happening thing, you know. The music scene. Bringing people in.’ And it became Happening ’68<\/em> and later, It’s Happening<\/em>. So right there, the seed was planted. But there were no credits for me. In those days, you usually didn’t think to ask for credits. And,\u201d he adds with a self-deprecating chuckle, \u201cI probably wasn’t bright enough to ask.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center>Roger Hart remains philosophical about the whole Madness<\/em> episode, and indeed of all the ups and down of the 60s and beyond: \u201cThe thing we all have to remember is that we can’t live in the past,\u201d he says. \u201cBut,\u201d he adds with a wink and a grin, \u201cit’s a nice place to visit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow \u201cthe_musoscribe\u201d on \"\" Twitter<\/a> and get notified
\nwhen new features, reviews and essays are published.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One… Roger Hart \u2013 manager of Paul Revere and the Raiders during the 1960s \u2013 picks up his story about developing the treatment Madness, an idea that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,51],"tags":[1507,1667,1668,1874],"class_list":["post-4839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interview","category-pop","tag-monkees","tag-paul-revere-the-raiders","tag-paul-revere-and-the-raiders","tag-roger-hart","cat-41-id","cat-51-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4839\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}