As I wrote the episode reviews that formed the chapters of the book Monkee Magic, I was often puzzled about how the episodes were made. Speculation was the rule of the day, as I had no inside information and chose to maintain an outsider’s perspective.
After the book was published, I started to seek out copies of episode scripts, in the hopes that the scripts would shed light on the creative process. Knowing that the producers did encourage spontaneity in their actors and directors, I fully expected to find differences between the written words and the broadcast episodes. But in many cases I found massive changes: scenes added, characters deleted, plot points completely rearranged, emotional subtleties left buried in the background.
In these script-to-screen analyses, I have borrowed screencaps from the excellent Sunshine Factory site.
Monkee Magic: a Book about a TV Show about a Band 