{"id":5411,"date":"2009-08-12T11:04:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-12T18:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alleewillis.com\/blog\/?p=5411"},"modified":"2009-08-12T11:04:00","modified_gmt":"2009-08-12T18:04:00","slug":"allee-willis-kitsch-o-the-day-talking-monkees-doll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/allee-willis-kitsch-o-the-day-talking-monkees-doll\/","title":{"rendered":"Allee Willis&#8217; Kitsch O&#8217; The Day &#8211; Talking Monkees Doll"},"content":{"rendered":"<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5413\" title=\"monkees-doll_3062\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/monkees-doll_3062.jpg\" alt=\"monkees-doll_3062\" width=\"375\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/monkees-doll_3062.jpg 375w, https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/monkees-doll_3062-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 375px) 100vw, 375px\" \/>\n<p>I&#8217;ve never seen one of these that worked properly or where the heads stood up straight but still it&#8217;s one of the most prized collectibles of &nbsp;Monkees memorabilia. Although I loved the just-ingested-mushrooms quality of their TV show and the supreme popiness of the records, I never had a favorite Monkee as my head was buried so deeply in Motown.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>When I co-wrote The Friends theme song, &#8220;I&#8217;ll Be There For You&#8221;, we were told to write something Monkees-ish. The Last Train To Clarksville definitely pulled into the station during those sessions.<\/p>\n<p>Made by Mattel in 1966, this pull string doll was part of a flood of Monkees merchandising that included small rubber dolls with weird pajama feet, hard and soft lunch boxes, games, Monkee Mobiles, cufflinks, comic books and more. Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork and Davy Jones were everywhere that year, not the least of which was on the shelves in my bedroom.<\/p>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5415\" title=\"monkees-doll_3061\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/monkees-doll_3061.jpg\" alt=\"monkees-doll_3061\" width=\"450\" height=\"338\" srcset=\"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/monkees-doll_3061.jpg 450w, https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/monkees-doll_3061-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/>\n<p>Not sure what the hand stitched surgery was meant to heal but probably involved efforts to restore vocal cords.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5417\" title=\"monkees-doll_3063\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/monkees-doll_3063.jpg\" alt=\"monkees-doll_3063\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/monkees-doll_3063.jpg 300w, https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/monkees-doll_3063-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5419\" title=\"monkees-doll_3064\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/monkees-doll_3064.jpg\" alt=\"monkees-doll_3064\" width=\"400\" height=\"246\" srcset=\"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/monkees-doll_3064.jpg 400w, https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/monkees-doll_3064-300x184.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"_mcePaste\" style=\"position: absolute; left: -10000px; top: 0px; width: 1px; height: 1px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden;\">I&#8217;ve never seen one of these that worked or where the heads stood up straight but still it&#8217;s one of the most prized collectibles among Monkees memorabilia. Although I loved the just-ingested-mushrooms quality of their TV show and the supreme popiness of the records, I never had a favorite Monkee as my head was buried so deeply in Motown.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div id=\"_mcePaste\" style=\"position: absolute; left: -10000px; top: 0px; width: 1px; height: 1px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden;\">When I co-wrote The Friends theme song, &#8220;I&#8217;ll Be There For You&#8221;, we were told to write something Monkees-like. The Last Train To Clarksville definitely pulled into the station.<\/div>\n<div id=\"_mcePaste\" style=\"position: absolute; left: -10000px; top: 0px; width: 1px; height: 1px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden;\">Made by Mattel in 1966 this pull string doll was part of a flood of Monkees merchandising that included small rubber dolls with weird pajama feet, hard and soft lunch boxes, games, Monkee Mobiles, cufflinks, comic books and more. Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork, and Englishman Davy Jones were everywhere, not the least of which were the shelves in my bedroom.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve never seen one of these that worked properly or where the heads stood up straight but still it&#8217;s one of the most prized collectibles of &nbsp;Monkees memorabilia. Although I loved the just-ingested-mushrooms quality of their TV show and the supreme popiness of the records, I never had a favorite Monkee as my head was &hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/allee-willis-kitsch-o-the-day-talking-monkees-doll\/\">read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[413,159,87,193,167,13,115],"tags":[61,3232,3245,533,535],"class_list":["post-5411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebrity","category-dolls","category-kitsch","category-kitsch-o-the-day","category-memorabilia","category-music","category-tv-radio","tag-allee-willis","tag-kitsch","tag-kitsch-o-the-day","tag-monkees-doll","tag-monkees-merchandise"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5411\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}