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Un-Reality TV Classic Rockers

No matter how hard I try to hold on, summer’s over and we’ve moved into a new season.

And thanks to the mega-bucks networks that stay in business with the mega-bucks thrown their way by commercial advertising, we’re programmed to not even call this season fall anymore.

It’s the Fall Television Season.

I’m not knocking it – I’m just sayin’ it. I’m as handy with a television remote control as any other guy who hides in the basement with his finger on the mute button while his wife mans a rake in the backyard.

But like Bruce Springsteen once forewarned us:

“There’s 57 channels and nothin’ on.”

Actually, that’s not true according to the mega-bucks networks.

There’s plenty on if you’re into reality television.

The broadcasting roots for reality TV stretch back to the 50’s with This Is Your Life when stunned has-been celebrities were pulled on stage in front of live audiences to relive past glories and for a ratings boost, past embarrassments.

The 60’s classics, The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game, evolved into primetime with The Bachelor and The Bachelorette where viewers have an intimate seat through the alcohol-induced meeting, dating, arguing, crying, making-up and engagement process.

Supermarket tabloids announce the break-up and we can watch them lose again on Dancing With The Stars.

Jerry Springer and Maury Povich set the bar for high profile public meltdowns and along with The Real Housewives of… well, name a city… they’ve finally proven Big Time Wrestling is fake. The steroid, tattooed masters of the ring never got hurt as much as these combatants on reality TV.

I’ll admit a certain fondness for the reality music shows The Voice and American Idol. Not that they’ve stirred me into downloading the latest batch of primetime approved singers, but it’s a great way to be reminded of classic rock songs when contestants mine the gold of past generations in hopes of sticking around to sing another week.

After watching the shows, I download the originals.

Reality TV is mega today, but who wants to live in reality when it’s not all that entertaining? I don’t care if my wife gave me a million seconds to clean my basement, the reality is its still gonna look like Keith Moon’s hotel room after a late check out minus the car in the swimming pool. And if I was ever surprised with an invitation to sing on The Voice, all it would do is cut the volume of illegal free downloads for a week.

But it didn’t used to be that way. Once upon a time if you sang in a primetime television series it was because you were an actor hired to play the part of a singer. Studio techniques and editing could make (almost) anyone look and sound good. It was unreality TV at full-tilt boogie and high ratings could lead to actual rock star fame and rock star cash.

Okay, it didn’t always work as planned. Most of us have forgotten John Travolta’s pre-Grease crooning disaster when his head Sweathog role on Welcome Back, Kotter got him a record deal in 1976 for Let Her In and Dick Clark’s parental approval to sing it on American Bandstand.

We all know Dick couldn’t get Led Zeppelin, but seriously – Vinnie Barbarino?

Our musical senses were also hacked that same year when David Soul scored on Starsky and Hutch and came out with Don’t Give Up On Us Baby. Yeah, I know the song hit No.1, but there were more than a few baby boomin’ rockers stripping AM radios out of their cars and installing 8 track players so they wouldn’t have to deal with it anymore. That defensive move worked until 2004 when Owen Wilson picked up his guitar in the Starsky and Hutch movie and at least gave us a reason to laugh about it.

But there were a few unreality TV stars that turned primetime exposure into the reality of rock stars. As long as I still have prime time until my wife uses the rake to chase me out of the basement, here are the top three sitcom actors and songs that are still classic rock favorites on vinyl, 8-track and VHS tape.

3. Ricky Nelson – Hello Mary Lou

Call him Elvis-lite if you want, but Ricky eventually became Rick and brought a dose of glorious black and white rock’n roll into family living rooms as resident teen star of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriett. Very different than the tabloid reality based Adventures of Ozzie and Sharon, episodes usually focused around Ricky’s apparently jobless dad solving problems over a double chocolate at the malt shop. Reality parents watched to see how Ricky’s unreality parents would handle their rambunctious son with movie star looks and greasy kids’ stuff slicking back his hair. But even without the sideburns or need to film him only from the waist up, kids watched and bought enough records for Ricky set the stage for future television sitcom rock stars.

Hello Mary Lou was a double-sided hit with Travelin’ Man in 1961. The guitar break was played by future Rock’n Roll Hall of Famer James Burton, who also played with the not-so-lite Elvis. After his mom and dad’s television show was cancelled, Ricky had a few more adventures in primetime, but rose again to rock star fame with The Stone Canyon Band and Garden Party in 1972.

2. David Cassidy – I Think I Love You

Go ahead and laugh classic rocker guys. Go ahead – I dare you. But before you get too strung-out on the yucks, realize there are just as many and probably more classic rock gals – right now – remembering their teenage bedrooms decorated with David Cassidy posters and sold-out, scream-filled concerts that left them as hoarse as their older sisters during Beatlemania.

Keith Partridge might have had better hair than his sister on their TV show The Partridge Family, but for every jealous guy who wanted to strangle him with his puca shell beads, there were thousands of girls who had other things in mind. And one of them was to buy his latest records, which they did by the millions.

I Think I Love You saved the The Partridge Family from being cancelled before it even aired. Preview reviews (say that fast ten times – I dare you) had producers thinking about recasting Keith as a clean cut, sweater-wearing teen who could carry a tune. The mega-bucks network thought it would give them a better shot at mega-bucks primetime success.

But then faster than you can pass a psychedelic painted second hand bus on the freeway, this new kid on the block with a grown out shag and stepmom with major Broadway musical credits playing his television mom suddenly became the bridge between The Beatles and The Bay City Rollers.

Bet you’ve never seen that description anywhere else before – right?

With Shirley Jones actually singing background, and Susan Dey, Danny Bonaduce and some other kids faking musical expertise, Cassidy rode primetime exposure to international fame, millions in sales and sold-out concert tours.

On a downer note, his popularity peaked and he voluntarily cancelled himself from an Elvis-lite jumpsuit wearing career after stampeding fans during a concert in London resulted in the death of two girls. This was ten years before The Who tragedy in Cincinnati that effectively ended festival seating at major rock concerts.

1. The Monkees – Last Train To Clarksville 

The primetimes were changing in 1966 when Elvis-lite went out of style and Beatles-lite became the latest unreality TV fad. Davy, Micky, Mike and Peter were four actors cast to play four pop musicians who lived in a beach house, drove a Monkeemobile (a red Batmobile without the bat-perks), and lip-synced hit songs every week for two years.

The soundtrack for the Monkees’ TV series and best-selling records was controlled by Don Kirshner, whose on screen persona made Ed Sullivan seem almost hyper in comparison when he hosted Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert in the 1970’s. He hired some of the best young songwriters in the biz, including Neil Diamond and Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, to pen Monkees hits that out-sold both The Beatles and The Rolling Stones combined in ’66 and ’67.

During breaks in filming, the four actors rehearsed enough to become four musicians and toured in late ’66 with Jimi Hendrix as their opening act. The foursome filled the void left when the reality Beatles stopped touring, but Jimi quit when teens screaming for Davy overpowered his Marshall amps.

The Monkees TV show resembled color outtakes from A Hard Day’s Night and Last Train To Clarksville was the song that put them on the charts. Each episode included a music video that usually showed them Monkee’ing around like long haired Charlie Chaplin’s and wondering where their next gig was coming from. Eventually the gigs dried up when they decided to be more Sgt. Pepper than The Fab Four and told Kirshner to take another train to Hitsville. He did with their next planned single, Sugar Sugar, and rode it all the way to No.1 with The Archies.

It took almost two decades, but their next mega gig happened in 1986 when MTV aired a weekend Monkees marathon and brought in a new generation of fans and sold-out concerts. It’s called the power of TV and even today, unfortunately minus the late Davy Jones singing Daydream Believer, Micky, Mike and Peter are still riding the Monkee train.

As for me, I’m gonna stop this nonsense and hit the mute button. I think someone opened the basement door and she’s carrying a rake. Keep rockin’!

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