The Monkees alternate history

My wife has been slightly obsessed by the Monkees lately and I have listened to an awful lot of their stuff recently.

My idea is that the Monkees were created as an animated series which ran on television for one series in 1966-1967 and that the songs were produced by session musicians with vocals provided by singers and not by the actors voicing the characters of the Monkees in the tv series. With this I will also look at what would become of Mickey Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork and Davy Jones.
 
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My thoughts are the singles would stink and not be as successful. They likely would have gone to Boyce and hart. Watch the monkees original pilot episode for an idea of that. Anyways. It’s remembered as a somewhat successful but ultimately forgotten animated series. Peter Tork still does drugs but eventually gets help. He becomes an English teacher as in OTL and remains there. Mike still, tries to be a musician but fails to do so. His mother dies and leaves him a fortune which he turns into a business of some sort. Mickey becomes a semi successful voice actor who might branch off into directing but might stay in voice acting. Davy Jones returns to jockeying and becomes mildly famous.
 
If you want to stick with the real-life Monkees instead of animation, have NBC agree to the group's proposal to turn the series into a Laugh-In-like fast-paced sketch comedy and music format, with guest stars. It would debut in the fall of 1968 as "The New Monkees Show" or something along those lines. Also make Head a box-office success, and have them in a position to do subsequent movies and TV specials - 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee would be better in this scenario. They would still probably split up around 1970-71, but they might be in a position to transition to more successful solo careers.
 
First Monkees album released late 1966

"(Theme From) The Monkees",
"Let's Dance On",
"This Just Doesn't Seem To Be My Day"
"Take A Giant Step",
"Saturday's Child",
"I'll Be True To You"
"I Wanna Be Free",
"Tomorrow's Gonna Be Another Day"
"Gonna Buy Me A Dog"
"Last Train To Clarksville"
"I Can't Get Her Off My Mind"
"(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone",
 
Second and final album released mid 1967

"Whatever's Right"
"Valleri",
"She"
"Ladies Aid Society",
"Teeny Tiny Gnome"
"Mr. Webster",
"Through The Looking Glass"
"Looking For The Good Times",
"I'll Spend My Life With You",
"Tear Drop City"
"Don't Listen To Linda",
"Apples, Peaches, Bananas and Pears",
"I Never Thought It Peculiar"
 
Let Mike and the others convince the network to allow them to sing and play their songs earlier. Good songs and the boys had talent, I think they could get a bigger following...
 
Let Mike and the others convince the network to allow them to sing and play their songs earlier. Good songs and the boys had talent, I think they could get a bigger following...

That would have been interesting and perhaps Peter wouldn't have gotten so frustrated so early on.
 
Mike Nesmith solo album released late 1966.

"All The King's Horses",
"The Kind Of Girl I Could Love",
"I Don't Think You Know Me"
"So Goes Love",
"Papa Gene's Blues"
"Sweet Young Thing",
"You Just May Be The One",
"I Won't Be The Same Without Her"
"So Goes Love"
"Mary, Mary",
"Of You"
"Do Not Ask For Love"
 
Having Charles Manson or Stephen Stills, both auditioned, in the cast! Being more serious Stills and not Jones, however this would mean no Buffalo Springfield!
 
It’s remembered as a somewhat successful but ultimately forgotten animated series.
In common with the OTL Beatles animated series made at about the same time.
Davy Jones returns to jockeying and becomes mildly famous.
In the early 1990s there was a BBC drama series called Trainer about a racehorse trainer and Davy Jones played one of the jockeys.

The theme tune, "More to Life", was sung by Cliff Richard. According to the Wikipaedia entry David McCallum and Susannah York were in all 23 episodes.
 
Perhaps Peter Tork is part of Buffalo Springfield with Stills being in the Monkees might be an option. Manson was in prison at the time of the auditions as far as I know.
 
So in TTL Mike Nesmith is a solo artist, Mickey Dolenz is a television actor and director, Davy Jones appears in musical theater and also in the odd television series and Peter Tork eventually gives up music and becomes a teacher.
 
Sort of like a 60s Gorillaz, right?

Also, if the Monkees are animated ITTL, should The Archies be musicians dressed as the characters like with The Wombles?
 
Davy Jones could actually play the drums but the studio execs didn't want him hidden behind a kit, he should play the drums ITTL and Mickey Dolenz who learned to play the drums and the synthesizer IOTL after signing on as a Monkee could probably learn to play bass (I think he could play a little Guitar) and or the organ, at least good enough to play on the show and on tour.
 
Weren't the Archies the animated followup to the Monkies when the producers got sick of the actors?

Of course leveraging the existing Archie comics and cartoon.
 
Weren't the Archies the animated followup to the Monkies when the producers got sick of the actors?

Of course leveraging the existing Archie comics and cartoon.

I think it was Don Kirshner who was the link between the two but it may well have been.
 
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