"Must come down for interview"

"Be strong and silent.. Now be a girl... Mike, they're the same thing."
 "Well, I mean that's your hang up, man."

 It's fascinating watching the power dynamic at work in this call for "4 insane boys" to leave their mod hang-out "Ben Frank's" and screen test to be a Monkee on the set of a TV show apparently called "The Farmers Daughter". When is it not interesting watching a power dynamic at work though? This is magic.

 Charles Manson was in prison at the time these tests were made in 1966, so his audition for the Monkees is just an urban myth. (But he did collaborate with the Beach Boys.) And according to Bob Rafaelson the "Must come down" in the ad was "a sly reference to being high". Here's Davey Jones and Toni Basil in an astonishing musical number from "Head" which wouldn't seem out of place in "Bojack Horseman". "Head", I've just learnt, was made in 1968. Two years after the screen tests. I don't think I realised their span was so short. That is insane.

"A song and dance? You must be joking"