Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / Chipmunks & Beatles & Monkees with Charles Manson? Oh My! Getting Animated with Author Mark Arnold [Episode 171]

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Chipmunks & Beatles & Monkees with Charles Manson? Oh My! Getting Animated with Author Mark Arnold [Episode 171] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

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There is a spider Man rock n roll album out there. It came out
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the seventies. Yeah, even DCA Batman. Yeah, everybody knows the Batman
0:08
theme. Batman. We found out years later that's the inspiration for George Harrison's
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tax Man. So it's like then you go, oh yeah, I'm li
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I know. Dialogue. How's a fountain? The conversation round, that's a
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geyser. Interesting, Interesting, It's provocative. Caddy Man, back Man,
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Rock and Roll. Welcome to booke Don Rock, the podcast For those about
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to read and rock. Find the podcast at booked on rock dot com.
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Find every episode there, along with links to your favorite listening platforms, exclusive
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videos, blogs, links to all of the social media sites, and the
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latest rock book releases. It's another chapter in the Dialogue series, a chill
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and chat with authors, fellow podcasters, musicians, and more. Our guest
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is pop culture historian Mark Arnold. He's the author of several books about comic
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books, music, animation, and more. Among the books he's released,
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the Best of the Harveyville Fun Times, focused on the comic book publisher Harvey
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Comics, created and produced by Total Television Productions. The story of Underdog Tennessee,
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Tuxedo and the Rest. If You're Cracked, You're Happy, The History
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of Cracked Magazine. A two volume set followed in twenty eleven. More recently,
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Arnold wrote Mark Arnold Picks on the Beatles and Frozen in Ice, The
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Story of Walt Disney Productions nineteen sixty six to nineteen eighty five. Along with
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a book on the Beatles, he's published books on the Monkeys, including long
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title Looking for the Good Times, Examining the Monkeys songs one by one,
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and Headquartered a Timeline of the Monkeys solo years. Mark and I talk about
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the Chipmunks, the Beatles, the Monkeys, some of Mark's other favorite classic
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rock bands and artists, and we detour into our favorite comic books, Disney
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Pass, Present and Future, our love of the Three Stooges, and a
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whole lot more So. Get ready for an animated discussion with Mark Arnold.
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Hey, Mark, welcome to the podcast. Great to be here. Thank
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you boy. You've had quite the career man. You've written several books about
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comic, books about music, animation. Tell us where all this began.
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When did you become a fan of pop culture and what led you to a
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career as a writer. Jeez. Probably my whole life started off with cartoons
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and TV shows and things like that, and then eventually evolved into music and
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movies and anything else on general pop culture. No aspirations per se of writing
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about this stuff. I just as a kid, I'd keep lists of things,
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like I'd keep lists of Beatles albums or Rolling Stones albums or whatever,
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and yeah, just for my own private use. And then over time after
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college and everything like that. Fanzines are a big thing in the eighties and
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nineties, not so much now. And I had a friend that did a
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Rocky and Bullwinkle fancy and I go, oh, that's it's kind of neat.
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How do you do that? And I asked him all these questions,
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and then I said, what can I do with fansy? Now? I
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thought about Disney. I thought about a few others things, and I kept
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thinking, if I do something big like Disney or Beatles or something, then
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probably sue me or something. I was pretty young and naive and everything,
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so I didn't know. So my first wife said, you like Harvey comics,
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why don't you do that? And I go, well, there is
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anything written about Harvey comics and then I thought about it and go, well,
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that might make it better because it's not like I can make it up.
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But at the same time, I can't be chastised if I got it
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wrong. You know. It's like I'm learning over time. You know,
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like if I start with Beatles people, it's say, that's not what John
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did that day, and Paul didn't do that. You know. It's like
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the Beatles trivia. Yeah, so Harvey for people who don't know Harvey Comics
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or the Cast or the Richie rich those type of comic books for children,
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and I just grew to love them. And then I became like their major
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historian after doing the fansy for so long, and I eventually wrote a book
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about It wasn't the original plan, but eventually I said, you know,
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I know all this knowledge, and I did two books in Harvey. One
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was the best of the fanzine and the second one was the Hervey Comics Companion.
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It's literally the entire history of the company. Yeah, Harvey's had quitey.
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I want to ask you about that. I want to ask you about
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your books on the Monkeys, and there's one on the Beatles, but I
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figured i'd pick out a few of the other books that you've written that really
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stand up for me around this time of year, of course, we hear
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the Chipmunk Song released on December first, nineteen fifty eight, and in twenty
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nineteen you released that book there titled Alvin. A long title with the album
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is they Thing The story of Ross Bagnusian Senior. That's him Liberty Records,
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which is a label he mainly recorded for Format Films, which is the animation
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studio that did the album Show and the album Show itself, which did these
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versions of the Chipmunks, unlike later ones which are done by his son and
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his wife. He had a record labeled Liberty Records that was about ready to
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go belly up. And the long story short I suppose, is he invested
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like two hundred dollars of the family's money, which is a lot in the
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fifties for a multi speed reel to real tape recorders so he could vury speed
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and speak slowly and play it back faster, which gives you that chipmunk voice.
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And the initial thing wasn't the Chipmunks. The initial thing he did was
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this item that actually was a big hit too, called witch Doctor. And
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the only bit that he did that was kind of sped up. Was the
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catchphrase of ooh e uh ting tang dang, you know, and it was
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done sped up, which sounds kind of chipmunk like. And of course,
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since that was a major hit and to help Liberty out of the hole,
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they said, do more, do more and more, you know. The
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next record immediately after wasn't the Chipmunks Again. He did other records and everything,
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but probably about three or four records later he hit set upon the idea
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of doing the Chipmunk song and writing an actual authentic Christmas song that has been
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covered, not chipmunk wise, but it's actually a decent song, and did
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three voices in his own voices, you know, one was kind of high,
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one was kind of low, and when it was in the middle,
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and then at a different speed, he did his own voice yelling at them
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and history was born. And he considered doing grasshoppers and other different creatures,
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but he settled upon chipmunks. And there's two different stories about One is that
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he was driving his car and there's a chipmunk in the road that was kind
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of daring him to run over him. That's the more, But I don't
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know I think it's a little more basic than that. It just was like,
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oh, well, Disney had like Chip and Dale, and they had
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kind of sped up voices, and that's probably what sounded like, let's do
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that not only saved his career, I mean he made a fortune, didn't
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he. Oh yeah, from that point on. If he didn't do any
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more records with those two, he would have been set for life. But
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he continued and they did a number of Chipmunks albums and singles and everything thing.
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Some were big hits also, like Alvin's harmonica, Alvin's orchestra, and
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he even met up with Brian Epstein and agreed to do a Beatles album and
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that was the success too. The Chimmucks sing the Beatles hits, So I
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remember that. I don't know where I think the album's gone, But when
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I was a little kid, I remember my older brother playing that and my
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dad my older brother playing that album, and it was all Beatles songs,
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I believe, Yeah, it was the whole album. It was pretty straight.
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It wasn't as silly or whatever is The other one is about the only
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time there was any humor is I think at one play, he says,
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Alvin you're wigs slipping a little, you know, and that was it.
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But for the most part, there are pretty straight covers and not badly sung
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or orchestrated. So is it still available or is it currently? Probably not,
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but I mean it's been on CD, it's been on vinyl for years,
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so I mean it's not that hard to come by. Man, that's
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a blast from the past. I mean, I tell you, I can't
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remember Spotify. I don't know. It might be I'm going to look it
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up now, but man, that takes me back to when I was really
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young and I remember that particular album. Now. Was he part of all
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any of the future cartoon series anything like that? Was he? Well,
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the issue was he passed away pretty young. In nineteen seventy two. He
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had a sudden heart attack, strangely enough, during the Super Bowl. He
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kind of retired the Chipmunks act about nineteen sixty nine. Anyway, it kind
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of run its course throughout the sixties and that was it. His son,
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Ross Junior took up the slack and said, there's got to be more mileage
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out of this stuff. But it took him almost a decade to kind of
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get anybody interested in doing a new animated series and doing a new album and
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things like that. And what finally kind of clicked is there was a radio
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station in Los Angeles that played I think it was Blondie's Call Me at the
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Wrong Speed, and the DJ jokingly said, that's the new Chipmunks record.
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People hauled in think he really was, and it wasn't. But since the
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seed had been planted, he'd been chopping it around to different labels and everything.
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They called him back and they said, can you do a Chipmunk's album
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with different current rock songs? Yeah? Sure, And when he came back
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with was Chipmunk Punk, although not all the songs on it were really punk,
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they were just kind of standard rock and roll songs from the late seventies.
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But it launched it all over again. And by the way, the
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Chipmunks sing the Beatles' hits Yeah, nineteen sixty four, yep, nineteen sixty
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four. Wow. All Music gives it four out of five stars. Well,
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like I said, it's not badly sung unless you just cannot stand sped
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up Chipmunk's voices. And it's also not badly performed. I forgot the band
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it's listed in the book. Yeah, and actually it's a singing group,
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which has mentioned in the book. By this point, when that album came
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out, Ross did not do the singing himself. He figured he should lend
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it out to professionals who actually could sing, and so that's why it sounds
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ah man, I love it. Let's talk about Harvey Comics. You published
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the book in twenty seventeen titled The Harvey Comics Companion, and the promo for
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the book reads, quote Harvey Comics. The name conjures up images of characters
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such as Casper the Friendly Ghost and Richie rich the poor little rich Boy,
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adorning small TV sets alongside the spine of their comic books. But the Harvey
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story was much much more. Tell us a little bit about Alfred Harvey and
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his amazing company, The Harvey Comics Companion. Alfred Harvey was born Alfred Harvey
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Weernikoff. The family came from Russia and came through Ellis Island. There was
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an older brother that came with the parents, named Robert, and they arrived
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in the early nineteen hundreds on going way back. But this is in the
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book, and the two twin younger brothers were Alfred and Leon. Alfred was
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always interested in publishing and worked for newspapers, did little spot illustrations and editorial
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cartoons and things like that. Eventually landed into the comic book industry and worked
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for a number of other publishers for a bit one called Fox and a couple
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others, and then decided to step out on his own in the late thirties
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early forties and acquired some other comics like Speed Comics and Champ Comics, just
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standard superhero titles of the day, nothing remarkable about any of the characters in
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him, although he created a character that was probably their most successful superhero character
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character named the Black Cat. It was a female superhero kind of daredevil type
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person and could perform acrobatics and things like that. That really kind of launched
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the company, along with acquiring licenses for characters such as the Green Hornet,
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Joe Paluko, which is a newspaper strip, lots of other newspaper strips.
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Eventually they got Blondie, Blondie and Dagwood and that Dick Tracy L. Labner,
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all sorts of newspapers. They would branch off into different genres. They
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did romance for a while, war titles and horror titles, and if you
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know your comic book history. By the early nineteen fifties are starting to clamp
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down on too much horror and crime and things and comic books. And fortunately
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Alfred Harvey was able to secure the license for the animated cartoons by Famous Studios,
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which Paramount Picture Zone, and they did the Caster, the Friendly Ghost,
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and the Laundry Baby Huey, things like that, and so they just
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put out comic books of those along with the rest of their lineup. As
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they started clamping down on horror comics, those ceased publication, and over time
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those other Harvey characters just took over and were like their main success. And
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then they added ones that they created, like Ritchie Rich, little lot of
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few others. So they had a stable of like little kid characters and ghosts
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and witch characters and characters that kind of lived in the Harvey land and kind
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of made its own world and basically published straight through the early nineties. Then
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they sold the company, they made feature films. It goes through every phase
13:13
in this book through two and two. The book itself goes all the way
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to twenty seventeen when it came out. But as far as Harvey Comics didn't
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go the comics. They published straight through till ninety four, but they did
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occasional movie tie ins and things. Probably about even as recently as even after
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my book is published, there is this other company licensing it out. I
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mean, it's been bought and sold by a few different companies since, and
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it's now owned by NBC Universal all those characters, and the most recent publisher,
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which they're not publishing now, they had like a three year license,
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was American Mythology. So here's a small world story. My dad's uncle,
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Mike Senich, was one of the artists for the Cats Jam. Do you
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remember that that strip? Yeah, and Harvey did publish it for a time,
14:05
did it really Okay? Yeah, not too long, but it was
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mainly published by another publisher, Dell, for a number of years and things
14:11
like that, and it was mainly a newspaper strip. I didn't do incredibly
14:16
well in comic books, sometimes filler in the back of it. He was
14:20
in the late seventies, and my dad used to tell me stories. I
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think he would go visit him in New York and he had all his boards
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out there and really cool. Yeah. Well, that strip has an incredible
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longevity. It was over one hundred years old at one point. I think
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they are total reference now. They don't do anymore now, but it lasted
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for over one hundred years before they stopped making new ones. That's a cool,
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incredible run. Another pop culture mind blow. My dad's cousin was Bob
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Grain Colonel Hogan. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. They looked just like
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each other too. It was pretty wild, small world. Are you a
14:54
fan of superhero comics? I am. I don't really follow the current stuff.
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What do you think of the movies? I like the original marvel ones
15:01
that went all the way through, like when they had the Avengers one that
15:07
kind of that was kind of the conclusion for me, And I know they
15:09
put out more recent ones. I did see Guardian the Galaxy three, but
15:13
a lot of the most recent ones, like the Marvels that just came out
15:18
and a few others. I've tried to keep up with them, but it's
15:20
it's harder for me to kind of maintain the momentum of it all. I
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don't. I mean, I'm not obligated to see him, so I mean
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I see what I can, but I've seen a goodly amount of them.
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I'll say the same here. But there's a burnout factor. Now, yeah,
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for me, it's okay. I think the last one that just came
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out there was a headline is that it actually didn't do that well in the
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box office. Well, I think it was the Marvels the one that I
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was saying, that's and then there's Aquaman too, But that's on DC though,
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So that's on DC. Are you a Marvel or DC Comics guy?
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As a kid, I always preferred Marvel because I thought it was a little
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more hip, and I was a kid more than the seventies and eighties.
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I thought it was a little more hip. But over the time I've grown
16:02
to appreciate DC's stuff. But I would buy almost anything on the stands growing
16:06
up, you know. So I always regularly bought Superman and Batman, as
16:08
well as Spider Man and Fantastic Four. Those were like the four main ones
16:14
of superhero stuff, and then every so often I'd grab Daredevil or Captain America
16:18
or whatever. But they didn't thrill me as much as the ones I just
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mentioned. So I always love Marvel. I've always found there was a distinct
16:27
difference in the storylines between DC and Marvel. There was a difference in the
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writing style well. Traditionally, they were also very self contained too. Marvel
16:37
was the one that kind of introduced like the the soap opera element where continued
16:41
dext issue or you know, it's like you're reading X Men, this will
16:45
be continued in thor you know, or something like that. It's like this
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one big universe. Yeah, yeah, I'm just I'm just pulling out my
16:52
old my old Spider Man's here. These are pretty wild. These are from
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nineteen eighty six. Yeah, yeah, summer of eighty six, I bought
16:59
a of Spider Man. I was still buying Man. I probably bought regularly,
17:04
probably until about twenty years ago. And now the weird thing. I
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still go to the comic stories and I got back issues or whatever. But
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they are doing a lot of reprints of key issues from the past, and
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they have the original advertising, and that's on a better paper stock. Sometimes
17:22
it costs more than twelve cents or whatever the original price was, but there's
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still a bargain then going back through time and buying some gold or silver age
17:30
thing for a thousand bucks, it's nice to get for four to six bucks
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somewhere around there. Stan Lee, he was like the Alfred Hitchcock of comic
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book movies. He was in everyone. Yeah, but he had there was
17:45
a partner. You would know this more than me, and I know there
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was another guy who was part of the history of Spider Man that well,
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there's more than just one other guy, but the main ones. There was
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a little resentment towards stan because he was getting all the credit. Yeah,
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one's Jack Kirby, and he did most of the illustration. That's probably who
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you're thinking of. He did. He typically illustrated Fantastic Four and Captain America
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and a few others. The other one, Steve Ditko, did Spider Man,
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Doctor Strange. Those are the ones that quibbled the most about stan hogging
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all the credit. I try to keep out of arguments like that. There's
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a lot of people who claim that Kirby and didco did everything, and the
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other people did everything. Stan did absolutely nothing. I don't think that's absolutely
18:30
correct. Did Stanley take advantage of his situation? Well, yeah, probably,
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but I don't think that if it's just like in any other situation.
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I keep mentioning Beatles. If any one of the Beatles was out of that
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group, I don't think they would have been as successful without all four of
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them. So it's the same thing with these Marvel comics. I mean,
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Jack Kirby went On did a number of titles for DC. They were nowhere
18:56
nearly as successful than anything he at Marvel. So stan Lee, I feel,
19:03
had something to do with that. I can't believe he was just sitting
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there and there raking all the profits and the glory and everything and not doing
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a darn thing. So it's like he had a great personality. When I
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was a kid, I loved watching the cartoon series This is stan Lee.
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You know, you get a voiceover. I love that. Yeah, And
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if anything, some people poop poo that. It's like, well, if
19:25
that's what it took to get us all interested in it, Hey they're true
19:29
believers. This is stan Lee. Well if you do all that and that
19:33
works to get you interested, well he did something to put it into perspective.
19:37
Because this is a classic black podcast. It's like having a super talented
19:41
band, but you don't have anybody in the band to go out and promote
19:45
it, Like you got to have that great frontman to go out there and
19:47
do all the interviews and say, hey, this is my band. You
19:48
got to check us out. It's in a certain respects. Stan Lee was
19:52
a rock star, I mean, and they did Devil in rock and Roll.
19:55
I mean, there is a spider Man rock and roll album out there.
19:57
It came out the seventies. Yeah, they did occasional songs that were
20:03
kind of rock oriented. I think there's a Hulk song and the various theme
20:07
songs of the TV shows and stuff like that. So that's awesome, even
20:11
DC did you know it was Batman? Yeah, everybody knows the Batman theme.
20:14
No Batman, Yes, And we found out years later that's the inspiration
20:18
for George Harrison's tax Man. So it's like then you go, oh yeah,
20:23
so that you have a great podcast. You had a guest on who
20:29
wrote a book on Shemp of the Three Stooges, and I love Shemp,
20:33
so let's talk Three Stooges. You released a comic book on the Three Stooges,
20:38
Mary Stooge, Miss, Yeah, that was I mentioned the comic book
20:41
publisher, American Mythology earlier in the show. They weren't just publishing Harvey books.
20:48
They also licensed other books, and one of the licensees is Three Stooges.
20:52
I was writing for that company four time and managed to get a few
20:56
scripts published. One of them was the Three Stooges one. It was it's
21:00
just difficult getting things published because everything had to pass through certain levels. It
21:04
had to go through C three Entertainment, which is the company that represents the
21:08
Stooges today. Just all these hurdles and everything. So I'm happy I got
21:14
a few stories published, but man, it was a lot of work for
21:17
not so much pay. So, you know, I like the thing.
21:19
At least I got a Three Stuges story. At least I got a Pink
21:22
Panther story going. At least I got a couple others going. You know.
21:26
It's like, I had a friend in high school. He was recording
21:30
all of the Three Stooges episodes on vhs and then he sold them. Was
21:34
there a Three Stooges fan newsletter or something? I think, and he,
21:38
oh, yeah, there's still advertise him in the back. Not the smartest
21:42
thing to do. And he was selling them and he got a cease and
21:45
desist and he was shitless. It's like, Okay, this is serious.
21:51
Are there family members that have Yeah, well, the company that owns them
21:55
is run by the descendants of the Three Stooges. Actually the two heads kind
22:00
of ironic because during most of their career, Moe was like the leader,
22:04
you know. But strangely enough, over time just of how organizational and who
22:10
wants to work on it and everything, they created C three Entertainment. I
22:14
think the Stooges themselves actually created first, if memory serves, and then when
22:18
they passed on it went to their errors and now the descendants of Curly Joe
22:23
wasn't even original three Stooges. They are the actual people who run the company,
22:29
and they go through all the licensing deals. They have to approve anything
22:33
that comes out, whether it's a little glass jar or you know, a
22:37
comic book story or whatever, anything with the images of the Stooges on it
22:44
has to pass through them to approve that this is something we want Stooges being
22:49
represented by it, Like you couldn't put it on some adult entertainment thing or
22:53
something. Yeah, right, Well, at least it's the family name,
22:56
because I saw that Bob Ross documentary Netflix, and yeah, Bob Ross's son.
23:02
That poor guy, he has no say in any he doesn't get any
23:04
money from so at least it's in good hands. But Shemp was always my
23:08
favorite because he was I could relate to him so much, like it's just
23:11
a worry war always nervous, always afraid he's gonna screw something up. You
23:15
had Jeff Dale, who wrote a book called Shemp howered much more than a
23:19
stooge. He was on your The Fun Ideas podcast we Gotta Get It Right
23:23
Plugged. So I want to know who your favorite stooge is and why it
23:27
is Shemp Now, I think I think what it is is. You know,
23:32
I think most people do this, I mean not everyone. But if
23:34
you like Shemp now, you may or may not have always liked him,
23:40
because it seems like when you're really young and you first experienced stooges, Curly
23:42
is the one because he's he's like a big kid, kidding himself and and
23:48
all that stuff. And then but over time it's not like Shemp was more
23:52
sophisticated, but he was different and he kind of He had many years were
24:00
in this Shim book actually talks about it. He had many years working as
24:03
a solo act working with Avenue Costello and a bunch of other people W.
24:07
C. Fields and all that stuff. So he had quite a few years
24:11
of honing his own talent, and fortunately when he came back to those Stuges,
24:17
he was allowed to do things his own way, not just imitate Curly.
24:22
And I think that's why he's become beloved, just because he's kind of
24:27
his own thing and here's a great physical comic. Yeah, Curly, of
24:33
course, I mean he was the man. You know, he was the
24:36
star. But that's the thing about the Stooges. Not much as known about
24:40
them off camera and other books and documentaries on them, but well, Moe
24:45
was a serious one because, like you say, he was the guy that
24:47
handled the business affairs. Larry just did whatever Mo asked. Yeah, but
24:51
I know, Curly he lived to excess, and he had a stroke fairly
24:56
young, right, I mean, I don't even think he was fifty by
24:59
the time it actually passed away. Before he was fifty, it was like
25:03
forty eight, I think. Apparently he had a series of smaller strokes when
25:07
he was in his early forties, but they just kind of ignored it because
25:11
the studios thing was kind of like a machine once they got started with Columbia
25:15
Pictures that just kept churning them out like a TV series. And then when
25:18
they weren't filming the shorts they were on tour. And on one of my
25:23
other podcast episodes, I had Gary Lasson, who's president of the Three Stooges
25:29
Fan Club and the Stooges Museum, and he wrote this excellent book that talks
25:33
about all their touring years. And you see some years in the late thirties
25:37
and early forties, I mean, they're on stage every single day of the
25:41
year practically, it's like howd they have time to film the movies and everything
25:47
like that. And then after Curly got sick, you see the first of
25:51
all appearance is starting to go down to like nothing, and then Shemp came
25:55
in and then they started going back up, and then it went back down
25:57
again, and then they had Curly Joe later on and once again arise and
26:00
then well Shoe when they made money, right, they yeah, weren't getting
26:06
much of a cut on profits until with the fifties or sixties when was Curly
26:11
Joe. That was the sixth fifty nine is when he came in, and
26:14
that was a big year where it's all changed where you know, they're barely
26:18
scraping by well, mainly because they had the same contract from nineteen thirty four
26:23
to nineteen fifty seven. They just renew it annually. They didn't give him
26:26
raises or anything. It is crazy. And Harry Cone, the head of
26:30
Columbia Pictures, he had them under a tight grip. He didn't want him
26:34
going out there make it feature films and stuff like that, to just still
26:38
what they're doing. You know. Meanwhile, Aboda, Costello, Laurel and
26:42
Party all these other people, they're graduating to feature film status and becoming big
26:47
stars, and they're still making shorts way into the late fifties. And there's
26:51
that wild piece of Stooges trivia that Curly is in an episode post stroke and
26:56
he's on a train and you proba will be what's the title of the episode,
27:02
lying on the the name of the U, but it's it's it's just
27:06
surreal to see because he's on a train and his hat is down over his
27:08
eyes, and he's not Curly like he's just supposed to be just some regular
27:14
dude on the train. But he's doing his you know, he's right,
27:18
but it's it's so bizarre because that's the most he was able to do at
27:23
that time. And I guess they're trying to encourage him to come back.
27:27
You know, nobody knows officially why, but they thought, I guess they
27:30
always thought he would get back to normal and Chimp would go on his merry
27:33
way and Curly would come back into the act. But he couldn't talk right
27:37
at the I don't know, but I don't think he I think he slurred
27:42
a lot what I've read in later years. And then of course he had
27:45
a couple of major strokes that just turned him into a vegetable basically to say,
27:52
so he had to go into what they used to call an asylum,
27:56
sanitarium and things like that, and eventually they didn't have this turn back then
28:02
and he was an auspice and things like that. So that's a big excruciating
28:07
watching him deteriorate while they had to keep going on making new films. Sure
28:11
you mentioned Disney. Quickly, Let's talk about Disney because another book that you
28:15
wrote twenty thirteen's Frozen in Ice, the Story of Walt Disney Productions nineteen sixty
28:21
six to nineteen eighty five, and you explore the major accomplishments of Walt Disney
28:26
Productions during those years. And it was in the mid seventies when ideas start
28:30
to run thin and repetition sets in the box office numbers start to drop.
28:36
By the eighties, threats of corporate takeover were knocking at their door, so
28:41
things had to change. Can you talk about the changes that took place and
28:45
why Disney is the empire that it is today? The seeds is that were
28:48
so then. Had Disney just kind of remained reasonably successful and not susceptible to
28:57
corporate buyout like the way things work these days with capitalism and everything, they
29:03
probably would just continue on just as a second rate studio in later years because
29:07
they didn't have that guiding force of Walt Disney and turning out lightweight comedies and
29:12
musicals and cartoons. The problem was they kept going at that pace for twenty
29:21
years, and by the end of it they were prying for the picking that
29:25
there's people wanting to buy Disney lock stock and barrel and then piece meal it
29:30
out. So the thought was, you buy Disney, you sell the animation
29:34
off to one person, you sell the park stuff to somebody else, you
29:38
sell the live action part to somebody else, and the TV stuff to somebody
29:42
else, and that's the end of Disney. That kind of is what happened
29:47
with Harvey. Since we talked about Harvey, you know, it's like it
29:48
just kind of got gobbled up by some other entity. So Disney fought back,
29:53
and there's a lengthy book story about all the corporate rating and it thing
30:00
that I reference in my book. It's called Storming the Magic Kingdom. That
30:03
really goes into the story well of what happened there. But basically Disney had
30:10
to do what needed to be done because for the longest time, Disney just
30:14
kind of rested on Us Laurels. They were making successful films, even kind
30:18
of lame stuff was still being successful until the main thing that kind of changed
30:23
everything, which now forty years later is rather ironic a is Star Wars because
30:29
Star Wars are the game changer for everything for what was considered children's or family
30:34
entertainment if you prefer, or even young adult entertainment. When Disney tried to
30:40
keep up, they released things like The Black Hole, which are kind of
30:44
bad imitations of when it went down, And so they're in serious trouble at
30:48
that point because they were no longer a leader trying new things. They were
30:52
a follower. So eventually Michael Eisner came in. There there's a length the
30:57
situation of how they brought him in. Eisner had a track record of working
31:03
for ABC Television and also at Paramount Pictures. I always like to say jokingly,
31:07
but it is kind of true. He kind of turned Disney into Paramount
31:11
instead of doing everything in house, where you do all your pictures on the
31:15
back lot and they all kind of look the same and they had the same
31:18
actors and everything like that. He just changed around to like any other studio
31:22
where they had more pictures coming out per year with any actor you could sign.
31:29
And they no longer were afraid to put out r rated films that they
31:33
needed to and get the big name stars that they needed to, and they
31:37
sacrificed the little, homey atmosphere of Disney, but it was far more successful
31:44
monetarily. One of the fortunate byproducts is that they also turned around their animation.
31:48
There's a great documentary called Waking Sleeping Beauty that talks about that, where
31:52
they're making kind of random, bad animated pictures by the mid eighties, and
31:59
then they got some musical songwriters in there. That their first big success.
32:04
Well, they did Little Shop off Horters for another studio, and then the
32:07
big success at Disney was a little Mermaid and that kind of turned everything around.
32:12
That. They did Beauty and the Bees, Lion King, Pocahontas,
32:15
all these different ones, Tarzan, whatever, and they were all a big
32:19
run of successful animated films and turned all that around. Over time, they
32:23
turned everything around. The parks got bigger, they opened more theme parks,
32:28
they started a cruise line, They did more and more live action films,
32:31
more sequels and things like that, so then they had the clout and the
32:35
money to go after the things like Star Wars. Originally, George Lucas actually
32:39
went to Disney say hey, would you put out my film? And they
32:44
ba back in the mid seventies. And the reason why Lucas walked away with
32:49
it and went to twentieth Century Fox eventually is because Disney wanted to produce it
32:54
all in house. They wanted to use their own talent, They wanted to
32:57
use their own engineers and whatever, imagineers, whatever. But Lucas wanted to
33:01
do his own thing. He eventually formed what became ILM. That's what he
33:06
wanted to do, and Disney was like, no, no, no,
33:07
we do it all here, we don't do it out there. Big mistake.
33:12
Fortunately, I guess the good part and bad part is that now Disney
33:15
owns Star Wars, but Lucas went back and offered it to Disney and that's
33:21
what happened. And then they eventually got Indiana Jones, and they eventually got
33:23
Marvel, and they eventually got all this other stuff. But they're also in
33:28
trouble because they've been acquiring, acquiring, acquiring. The problem is that they
33:34
aren't putting out a lot of original type films anymore. They're just remaking live
33:38
action versions of their animated hits, and a few of those are all right,
33:43
but not everybody wants to see that. So you think they might be
33:45
headed back to where they were back in the mid eighties. Well, that's
33:51
the most recent thing I've heard about, is that there's talks that they might
33:54
buy another studio or something like that. It's like, wow, how could
33:58
you get even bigger? There probably needs to be some sort of change in
34:01
management. Bob Ayger has been in there a while, and it seems to
34:06
happen with all the managers since Walt himself. Is if they're in there too
34:09
long, they tend to distort what the Disney brand is. I don't know
34:15
why Eisner did it too, and it no longer is like growing. It's
34:21
just stagnating, and they start making odd choices that don't make any sense.
34:27
It probably needs some sort of shakeup. I don't know if Disney needs to
34:30
keep all the different things that they might be good to sell off. Marvel
34:35
comics. There's no real reason they need them. I mean, especially if
34:37
the movies aren't making money for them again. But it's hard to tell right
34:42
now. They're still successful enough, but who knows, But that might be
34:45
the first thing to go. I doubt they get rid of Star Wars right
34:49
away. They might actually piece me on it out, like was the plan
34:52
in the eighties. They could sell the parts to somebody else, so they
34:54
could sell off the cruise line and could sell off the movies. You know
34:59
who knows the book Don Rock Podcasts will be back after this. Mark Arnold
35:06
is our guest. He is a pop culture historian, the hosts of the
35:07
podcast called The Fun Ideas Podcast, and the author of many many books,
35:13
including ones on the Monkeys and the Beatles, which I want to ask you
35:15
about. But let's get into some of the books on rock that you've read
35:19
and you want to read about and what you'd like to see written. You've
35:22
read many music books, autobiographies and biographies from some of the best. Pete
35:27
Townsend, Roger Daltrey, Keith Richards, Frank Zappa, Chuck Negron, Led
35:31
Zeppelin, The Doors Countless. About the Beatles, is there one book that
35:36
stands out above the rest? I know the Keith Richards one is I believe
35:39
the best selling of them all. But you have one that really stands out.
35:43
I think that two from the Who. That's probably why I listened first,
35:45
the Pete Townsend autobiography and the Roger Daltrey autobiography. They're both fun reads,
35:52
interesting twists and turns in their life, especially with Townsend because he was
35:57
accused of child pornography at one point and odd things like that, and he
36:01
discusses it very bluntly. There's a lot of good ones. I can't I
36:05
can't really think of bad ones because they really If it's really bad, I
36:07
stop reading, I'll continue, Or no Beatles are but you know who's up
36:15
there. They wrote well. The books are written well, so that's what
36:19
they're funny and everything. So that's that's what blues me in is if it's
36:22
funny and good stories and things like that. What's fascinating is that Roger Daltrey
36:27
pe Townshend relationship, the creative relationship. There do they get into the dynamics
36:31
between the two, because that whole songwriting process is like Townshend comes in with
36:36
the music. Daltrey's the voice that Townshend always wanted. The funny thing is
36:40
the Townshend book came out first, So when Daltrey's book came out, he
36:45
had a chance. He had read Towns's book, so he got to respond
36:50
to some of the things that Townsend said. Now, they weren't really nasty,
36:53
it's just that Daltrey remembered them differently. So yeah, they had some
36:59
nasty moments. Yeah, they did have nasty moments, and it was you
37:01
know, and Doultrey bended himself saying why he did a certain thing at his
37:07
time, and yeah when they were young, Yeah he was prone to punch
37:10
people. Yeah, yeah, anything there either. I Mean, that's one
37:17
thing I like too, is where they don't mind owning up to what they
37:21
did. You know. It's like so that makes for a good read too.
37:23
So well, what about the Beatles of tons of Beatles books? Is
37:27
there one of the Beatles really stand out to you, strangely enough. Other
37:30
than that big Beatles anthology, oversized one, none of the books written by
37:36
any of the Beatles themselves are really that good. I mean, mine by
37:39
George comes closest to being a decent book. The rest of them are kind
37:43
of frivolous and silly to being Lenin's in his own right and Spaniard and the
37:47
worst, which is just silly poetry and stuff like that. It's fun to
37:52
read. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but if Lenin stayed living,
37:54
he might have done an autobiography. Who knows even McCartney mc cartney lyrics.
38:00
I just actually got that book and read through it, and there was
38:05
some news stories that I had not heard before. But he explains the most
38:07
interesting part of the book is the forward introduction or whatever that he writes.
38:13
Why have I never done an autobiography? You'd think Paul McCartney would love to
38:16
write about his whole career and set the record straight and say his side of
38:21
everything, but he just kind of like not really interested, fair enough.
38:24
But it's just kind of odd. Well, Mick Jacket just recently said the
38:29
same thing. Somebody asked him, did you ever want to write a book?
38:31
Keith wrote one, would you? And he just has no interest.
38:35
So the best books about the Beatles are written by other people. Probably the
38:38
best bio might be The Love You Make by Peter Brown. George Martin's books
38:45
decent for his side of things, as far as author's overall of just the
38:51
whole Beatles experience. I like anything Mark Lewison has written, like anything Bruce
38:55
Spiser has written. It kind of goes from there. Certain books are like
39:00
Pete Best wrote a book, you know, things like that. Ken Wollmack
39:04
was just on to talk about the book on mal Evan's really good book on
39:07
malth Yeah yeah, I like that book. I don't have it, yeah
39:09
yeah, And I know about the ending yeah yeah yeah, but yeah,
39:14
really good book, really good. But there's so many Beatles books and it's
39:16
amazing. There's so many more that will be coming out, you just know.
39:19
I mean, it's just the endless fascination with the Beatles that continues.
39:22
Books you want to read, You'd love to read about the cow Hills,
39:27
which is interesting. Cow Sills. There's a Harvey Comics connection, there isn't
39:30
there. Yes, yeah, the Sons of Alfred Harvey. He had four
39:35
sons in the mid sixties, huge, huge cow Sills fans, and they
39:39
knew Archie was successful with their comic books and stuff and doing the Archie's band
39:45
and stuff like that. It's like, why can't we have a band at
39:49
Harvey Comics. And their dad, who is older, was like totally not
39:52
into rock and roll or music or anything like that. He was probably more
39:57
into like Sinatra or something like that. Well, I guess to throw their
40:00
kids a bone, managed to secure a license to do one issue of a
40:06
cow Sill's comic book. It's not a bad comic book. I mean,
40:09
if you've seen other comic books based on pop bands, like The Monkey's Comic
40:15
Book, it's kind of silly. I mean later A Harvey, not Alfred
40:17
Harvey, but the Harvey successors did a number of comic books on New Kids
40:22
on the Block, and there's a Partridge Family comic book. They inspired the
40:27
Partridge Family TV sh Yes, definitely. Yeah. There is a good documentary
40:31
on the Cosciles. I just haven't read the book yet, but the documentary
40:36
is very tragic, unfortunately, but it's very good. I don't know the
40:39
exact name of it. But it came out about ten years ago or something
40:43
like, Yeah, one book you want to read that. I was hoping
40:45
to have him on. It didn't happen. They sent me the book Mark
40:50
Vohman's new book about the Turtles. When we were working on having him come
40:54
on. He was just about to go out on tour, so he couldn't
40:57
do it. You're toying with the idea of a book about three Dog Night,
41:01
is that? Well? Yeah? Can I say my Turtles book?
41:04
Though? Oh oh, well, let's talk about that one. That one.
41:07
Let's back up and talk about that first. Yeah, the Turtles,
41:09
But tell us about this one. I had this friend named Charles Roseney.
41:14
He's a big Beatles guy. Yeah, he's from Connecticut. Okay, he's
41:17
been on the show. Yeah, but we both went to the same college
41:20
together. We were laughing. Oh, okay. I knew of Charles way
41:23
back in the early eighties when he started Good Day Sunshine, his fancye But
41:28
back then I was in my teen's, early twenties whatever, and I just
41:30
subscribed to it. I wasn't even trying to become his friend or anything.
41:35
But he seemed like a likable enough fellow. But I just never talked to
41:37
him. I was on the West coast still am he's on the East Coast,
41:40
and you know, just read his fanzine and everything like that. Then
41:45
years later, with all this zoom and podcast during the pandemic and everything,
41:49
we had this mutual friend who's in Australia. It goes by the name of
41:52
plastic Ep and he has both of us on there talking about the monkeys and
41:58
we just hit it off, justacking jokes and everything at the expense of everyone
42:02
else on the show. And so he says, Hey, Mark, can
42:07
I call you after the podcast? And I go sure, And so we
42:08
talked for like three hours afterwards, and I said, man, I should
42:12
have recorded it. That would have been a great podcast. But and he
42:15
has been on my podcast since. But we're just getting to know each other
42:19
and we just became fast friends and eventually got around to discussion of writing books.
42:24
How do you do it? He's never written a book before, he'd
42:28
only published the fanzine and stuff like that. He eventually got his top ten
42:32
Horror List book out in his Top ten Beatles list. And then I collaborated
42:37
on my two Monkeys books with a man named Michael Avent Trella, and we
42:43
all three became friends. And then Charles asked me, well, if you
42:46
could do another book, what would you want to do, because you've done
42:49
Beatles and Monkeys, And I go, you know, actually, my favorite
42:52
group apart from those is the Turtles. But nobody seems to know him other
42:55
than happy Together, you know, and he goes, I love that girl.
43:00
But it's like, well, do you know them well enough that you
43:02
could write about it? Because liking them and actually knowing about And it turned
43:07
out to work well, and we did a number of interviews on my podcast
43:14
that he arranged with various people that were either in the Turtles, like Chip
43:17
Douglas or John Barbata, things like that, and Howard Kaylin, or there
43:22
are people that were around the Turtles, like the founder of Woodstock. In
43:28
later years, the Turtles came back when they did various reunion tours, I
43:31
mean even now, and so we've interviewed people that were like the drummer and
43:36
the group and different people like that that weren't in the original sixties band,
43:39
but they were in these later touring incarnations so they still had stories to tell.
43:44
So those are all interviews in this book. So eventually we reviewed all
43:49
the songs we went, not just Turtles songs, but also there are alter
43:52
egos of Flo and Eddie and the stuff they did with Frank Zappa, and
43:55
even the children's records that they did. They did some children resrections of the
44:00
Strawberry Shortcake and Gi Joe, and we got pretty much anybody we could get.
44:06
The holdouts, unfortunately, were Mark Fullman, we found out because he
44:10
was working on his book, so we couldn't get him, but we secured
44:15
the rights to an interview he did a few years back with these two women
44:19
that interviewed him specifically about the children's albums, and they said, yeah,
44:23
you can reprint that, so we used their interview in that case. The
44:28
only other person that was kind of mia and still is and nobody seems again,
44:31
it's Al Nickel, who was the guitarist throughout the original Turtles run.
44:37
But he's very He didn't even appear in the Turtles documentary that Rhino Records made
44:42
years ago. He's still around, but he doesn't do interviews, he doesn't
44:45
perform even anymore. So oh well, but we tried to talk to as
44:51
many people. We talked to people like I said, know him, like
44:53
the Spanky McFarland from Spanky and Our Gang, the music group, Nothing film
45:00
series and things like that, and Jerry Yester who was in The Love and
45:05
Spoonful in the later years and actually was producing the Turtles last album before they
45:09
broke up and never got released at the time but got released later. Things
45:14
like that. But the book, it has not come out yet. It's
45:16
not come out as of this moment. When we're recording this this coming weekend,
45:22
I have to go through final edits of it, meaning they've placed all
45:27
the photos in and there's a few missing or something, or we're going to
45:30
rearrange it. But it's just like the final edits, just to catch mistakes
45:35
and change a few photos and then it should go to press if I can
45:37
get done quickly enough, sometime early next year. I don't have an exact
45:42
date yet, but it's through Genius Publishing is OK, and they publish other
45:46
music books. Do you have a place to plug it? You're welcome back
45:51
in January or whatever it comes. Well, that's something I can hold up.
45:53
Yet. I do have the We did get Henry Diltz, who is
45:57
a photographer from the sixties or photographed everyone. It seemed like his most famous
46:01
thing probably was the Crosby Stills Nash cover where they're sitting on the couch on
46:06
the front. But he did a number of Turtle's photo shoots where he took
46:09
him out in the field, and some of the shots were used on one
46:13
of their albums called Turtle Soup and stuff like that. But there's like rolls
46:15
and rolls of photos he never used and they're just in his archive. So
46:21
we got a couple photos to use, one for the back and one for
46:22
the front that has never been published anywhere before. So with his blessing now
46:28
Three Dog Night. You're a big fan of Three Dog Night. Yeah,
46:30
yeah, And that was one thing Charles and I were considering doing as a
46:34
follow up. It might not be an immediate follow up, but I always
46:37
kind of liked Three Dog Night. In fact, I mentioned to somebody earlier
46:39
today about the same thing. Three Dog Night was kind of like the Tailor
46:44
Swift of their day. You know, there's time in the early seventies where
46:49
they were always on every record they put out, was a big hit for
46:52
about five years there and then it all went away. One of the books
46:55
I mentioned that I read is Chuck Negron's book. He really goes in depth
47:01
of what happened with that group, and it's a pretty dicey, scary story.
47:07
Lots of drugs, lots of sex, lots of excess that basically helped
47:12
that group to solve. That's unfortunate, but at least we have the years
47:15
they were together. You released the book on the Beatles Mark Arnold Picks on
47:20
the Beatles in twenty sixteen. You review every song ever recorded by the Beatles
47:24
group and solo released and unreleased, and an interesting comment in the book you
47:30
read about the album Abbey Road nineteen sixty nine. You write, quote one
47:35
of the classic Beatles LPs and actually their true swan song, despite being released
47:39
before Let It Be, it was actually recorded after. This was the first
47:45
Beatles LP I ever heard, and I have often wondered what would have happened
47:51
if I didn't get introduced to the Beatles this way. There are a lot
47:53
of great Beatles albums, as you know, what is it about this one
47:57
that stands out to you? My comment mainly was that was what my first
48:00
exposure where I knowingly knew this is the Beatles, and I was wondering,
48:06
you know, have I started out like with I Want to Hold your Hand
48:08
like most people did in the US, or even being in England starting off
48:13
with love Me Do or whatever. You know. It's like, so I
48:15
hear their final masterpiece before everything else, was everything else letdown? And it
48:22
wasn't really, it was just the odd. I will say though, When
48:25
I first became a Beatles fan in the late seventies, I tended to gravitate
48:30
towards the post nineteen sixty six albums. So I was looking at the Sergeant
48:35
Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, White Album and Abbey Road Let It Be and
48:39
stuff like that, and then later I went back to the ones I Meet
48:43
the Beatles and all the different US variants that were around at the time.
48:47
It took me a while to kind of warm up to it because I thought
48:51
they were kind of dated, little two minute, fifteen second pup ditties early
48:57
songs. Yeah. Yeah, But now, in fact, I've been listening
49:00
to him again lately the first few albums, and it's like, yeah,
49:04
they did some good stuff here, it's just different, That's all that he
49:07
can be said. I think what had happened is they had from sixty two
49:10
to sixty six, they basically mastered the three minute records to the point where
49:17
they did it all there wasn't anything left to do, and Revolver kind of
49:23
was the first time where they kind of said, let's expand it a little
49:27
bit more. I mean there was previous dabblings prior to that, Rubber Soul
49:30
and stuff like that, but they mean, when you get to tomorrow,
49:34
never knows. It's like, that's no longer a three minute record. That's
49:37
just three guitars and a drums and it's done, you know. Yeah,
49:40
that album they always say is the beginning of the classic rock era. Yeah,
49:45
the album was the sound of classic rock. The Monkeys, let's talk
49:50
the Monkey. You and Michael A Ventrella the So Michael Ventrella, he's like
49:55
Charles and me. He published a fancy in about animation years ago called Animato,
50:01
and again I didn't know who it was. I just like getting it
50:04
because it was about the latest animation news in those days before the Internet.
50:08
Years later he pointed out that he had purchased my Beatles book and I go,
50:14
thanks very much. He goes, would you like to do a book
50:16
on the Monkeys? And at first I balked because I said, I like
50:21
the Monkeys, and other people like the Monkeys, But I mean, do
50:23
they really want to know our opinions about the Monkeys. I don't know if
50:27
people really want to know the opinions about the Beatles. But in the case
50:30
of me doing the Beatles book, that was kind of an experiment just to
50:32
see if I could write something about the Beatles that would be wildly successful.
50:37
I'll have to say it wasn't. It sold decently, but it's not like,
50:42
oh, this is my New York Times bestseller. Strangely enough, the
50:45
Monkeys books probably are, if they're not my most successful books, are probably
50:51
close to the top. So it was a wise choice. Michael convinced me.
50:57
He says, I'm really into the albums, especially stuff that did during
51:00
the sixties, like a lot of fans are. I convinced him to do
51:04
everything he just wanted to do, like the big songs and everything like that,
51:07
and I said, I got to do everything. Turned out to be
51:10
the best thing to do because they eventually released everything. There's very little left
51:16
in the vaults now. So I mean the fact that we basically cover everything
51:21
in the book. I could show the book here. Yeah, all the
51:22
songs one by the title of the book, by the way, Yeah,
51:25
the title of the book is long title Looking for the Good Times, Examining
51:30
the Monkeys songs one by one. Yeah, And if you've ordered it before,
51:34
I will say to this, this is the second edition because the first
51:38
one looks a little bit different. Why did we redo it? A couple
51:42
errors in the first one, not too bad. But the main thing is
51:45
after we put out the first edition, Monkeys did one final album as the
51:49
Christmas Party Album, so it wasn't covered in the book. And then unfortunately
51:53
David had already passed, then Peter, and then Michael passed, and so
51:58
Michael Nesmith and so now with Mickey as a solo and that everything has pretty
52:05
much been released out of the vaults, we said, let's revise it and
52:07
update it and correct a few errors and everything, and that'll be the definitive
52:12
version. Unless there's something somewhere that Chip Douglas has claimed he has some tapes
52:19
that nobody's ever heard. If he unders them someday and his vault in Hawaii,
52:22
maybe maybe there might be one long Lost Monkeys out. But we're kind
52:29
of thinking this is probably all that they wrote. So we revised the book
52:32
so anybody who's bought before us and want the complete story and want the Christmas
52:37
album in there too, that's out there. But yeah, we went through
52:38
everything and talk about it. Most of the time we agree, like Pleasant
52:44
Valley Sunday or the Big Hits, whatever, Last Train to Clarksville. Occasionally
52:47
we're widely differing in our opinions, but that's what makes the fun read so
52:52
well. The promo for the book includes a statement I found interesting. It
52:55
reads, quote, discover the secrets of their recordings. Which of the Monkey
53:00
he's played, what instruments on each song? How much of what we hear
53:02
on those classic songs like I'm a Believer, Last String of Clarksville and Daydream
53:07
Believer is performed and sung by the band. I believe it was Mike Nessmith
53:10
who really pushed hard to make what started out as a fake band real.
53:15
Yeah, well, that's one thing we did cover. If you get the
53:20
CDs and the final records that have come out in recent times, they'll list
53:23
every person who played on every record, even non Monkey people, how Blaine
53:29
doing the drums or whatever, the rerecord crew people, you know. Yeah,
53:32
but we don't list those people. We just assume you know about that.
53:36
We talk about in the introduction. We only list monkey involvement on any
53:39
record. Now, granted there are a lot of monkeys items that were the
53:45
backing track was recorded and there was never vocals recorded. We understand that.
53:50
So there's a few words. It's just about seven or eight tracks lumped together
53:53
and they say this was the instrumental backings that were recorded on such date.
53:59
Never had a vocal recorded on it, so there is no monkey involvement.
54:04
But like I said, we cover everything. It's arranged chronologically by recording date.
54:09
So the earliest stuff there's little monkey involvement other than vocals. Slowly,
54:15
over time and especially about the third album, you get songwriting credits, you
54:20
get instrumentation. Peter Torque was kind of like Brian Jones and the Rolling Stones.
54:24
He could play anything. He plays banjo, he plays obo, he
54:29
plays piano, he plays with this and that and the other. So over
54:31
time you see kind of an evolution of since we did it chronological by song
54:36
rather than album, just an evolution of how their recordings went on, especially
54:42
after they became independent and did Headquarters the Pisces album, and did the band
54:47
members become more and more involved as time went on. Did you start out
54:52
as studio musicians helping and then they became the band? Yeah. Originally it
54:57
was all studio stuff, the Wrecking Crew, and then they had their writers
55:00
like Tommy Boyce, Bobby Hart, Neil Sadaka, Neil Diamond, Carl King,
55:06
Jerry Goffin, things like that writing the songs for them. They even
55:10
told Peter Tork on an early recording session he brought in his guitar to play
55:15
and they said, no, we don't want you to play. And Mickey
55:20
singing the lead on this, so we don't even want you just sing on
55:22
this. So he's gone on record since saying that. That's what kind of
55:27
soured him on the whole monkey singing right at the beginning. Fortunately, later
55:30
on because they asserted their independence and got rid of producer Don Kirshner and started
55:37
to produce their own things, or bringing Chip Douglas to produce, then they
55:42
produced some really fantastic stuff and wrote some fantastic stuff that was under their own
55:46
personal control. And is it true Stephen Still's audition, but they said you
55:52
can't have the gig because your teeth, Yeah, you don't have good teeth.
55:57
Yeah, So he says, well, I know somebody that has better
56:00
teeth that looks a lot like me, and that was Peter Tork. Yeah.
56:05
Now, the one that's not true, the one that's not true but
56:07
it's always rumored, is Charles Manson. That's legend. The reality was Charles
56:13
Manson actually was in jail during the time that that auditioning process was going on,
56:19
so he wouldn't have been able to and by the time he got out,
56:22
Monkeys was already on the air. Oh, Charlie. Yeah, But
56:29
they like to say that because, I mean, Manson honestly did have connections
56:31
with beach boys and things like that. There's a whole long involved thing like
56:35
that. So sure, why not the Monkeys, you know, but not
56:38
true. So let's give a chance to promote. I know you have a
56:42
website, Fun Ideas, dot fifty webs dot com, but yeah, go
56:45
ahead and plug the podcast. Where can people find you online? Well,
56:49
I mean I'm on Facebook, I'm on YouTube, I'm on every social media.
56:53
I've done a few things on IMDb because I've done some commentaries on some
56:58
animated DVD releases and things like that. Have a Wikipedia page. Whor is
57:01
the easiest way to contact me is probably Facebook, where you want to email
57:07
me at fun Ideas dot market, Gmail dot com. But other than that,
57:12
you can always listen to by podcasts. They're all on YouTube or they're
57:15
available to audio versions through iTunes and the usual places. A lot of great
57:19
guests on there, and the most recent one is the kid from the last
57:22
ETV show, Yeah, John Trovos. How I got him was his wife,
57:27
Lori Jacobson, also wrote a Beatles book. She wrote a book about
57:30
Chase Stadium, the Chase Stadium Concert, the first one mainly I had,
57:36
and yeah, she was a great interview, and somewhere along the line,
57:39
I said, can I get your husband John Trovos, Oh, yeah,
57:42
we'll talk about it. It took about a year because he's busy doing convention
57:45
things and stuff like that. But I met up with him again in a
57:49
convention last summer and she goes, yeah, we could do it probably near
57:52
the end of the year. So yeah, I got him on recently.
57:55
And he's hesitant sometimes to come on the show because some people don't know anything
58:02
about them and ask dumb questions what's your favorite episode of Lassie or something like
58:07
that, And I decided, well, first of all, He's written a
58:09
book called Timmy's in the Well. I did the smart thing of actually reading
58:14
through the book and taking notes. Can ask good questions, and I try
58:17
to do good research. I don't want to just ask the same questions everybody
58:22
else asks. My inspiration is always Johnny Carson of how to do an interview.
58:27
Listen to the guest, let them talk, don't interrupt, and do
58:30
your homework ahead of time. And if you can do all that, you're
58:34
halfway there. The rest has to do with the guest hopefully saying something and
58:38
not just saying yes or no answers. And you probably know this from doing
58:43
this podcast. Is like, there's some guests that are more difficult than others.
58:46
But I try to make it look easy, you know, but there's
58:50
some I'm like, it's only been fifteen minutes. I got pulling teeth.
58:54
Yeah, but everybody's got a great story. You just got to pull it
58:59
out of them. And some of them just offer it up and you know,
59:00
all you got to do is ask one question and off they go.
59:05
It depends on the guest. But I enjoyed the podcast. I love it,
59:08
and you're welcome back. Let's have you back on for the Turtles book
59:10
when that comes out. Man, you're welcome back on. Keep you posted,
59:15
you know how to reach me. Maybe you would come on with Charles
59:17
on that one. That'd be great to have Charles back on again. Thanks
59:21
Mark, Okay, thank you very much here. No, no, that
59:28
was an adventure. I was quite assure you put on the day. Well,
59:32
let me just close this conversation by saying you are one unique individual.