Royal Flush (Monkees episode)

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“The Royal Flush”
The Monkees episode
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 1
Guest stars	Theo Marcuse, Vincent Beck, Katherine Walsh, Ceil Cabot
Written by	Peter Meyerson, Robert Schlitt
Directed by	James Frawley
Production no.	4701
Original airdate	September 12, 1966 (NBC)
Episode chronology
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"--"	"Monkee See, Monkee Die"

"The Royal Flush" was the first episode of The Monkees to air on NBC, first broadcast on September 12, 1966 and repeated on May 8, 1967. During its Saturday Afternoon run it reaired February 13, 1971 and February 12, 1972 on CBS and December 23, 1972 and July 28, 1973 on ABC.

Contents 1 Plot Summary 2 Interview Segment 3 Dream Sequences/Quick-Change Costume Play 4 Featured Songs 5 Production Notes 6 Trivia Notes

[edit] Plot Summary

The Monkees become hip to a corrupt archduke's plot to 86 his niece, a beautiful princess, right after a ball commemorating her 18th birthday 24 hours later (on which she is to become queen) at a Swank hotel. The Cool Quartet spirit her away from the hotel and attempt to keep her out of sight until after midnight, when she turns 18 - so, as queen, she can thwart her ruthless uncle.

[edit] Interview Segment

The Monkees discuss their feelings about this episode.

[edit] Dream Sequences/Quick-Change Costume Play

• The Monkees decked out in army geat at bogus army briefing
• The Monkees as building inspectors/throne salesmen
• Peter as a construction worker
• David as a swordsman

[edit] Featured Songs

• First-run: "This Just Doesn't Seem to Be My Day" (Tommy Boyce/Bobby Hart), "Take a Giant Step" (Gerry Goffin/Carole King)
• NBC repeat: "You Told Me" (Michael Nesmith), "The Girl I Knew Somewhere" (Michael Nesmith)
• CBS repeat: "Apples, Peaches, Bananas and Pears" (Tommy Boyce/Bobby Hart), "Good Clean Fun" (Michael Nesmith)

[edit] Production Notes

• A table-read and rehearsal of "The Royal Flush" occurred at SG Studios Stage 7, on Monday, June 6, 1966, the day prior to the beginning of shooting.
• Underscore composer Stu Phillips recorded background cues for "The Royal Flush" at RCA Studio A in Hollywood from 3:00-7:00pm on Tuesday, July 26, 1966.
• This was the only episode in the entire series not to have a reasonably full listing of songs in the end titles, which, in this case, were Boyce & Hart's "This Just Doesn’t Seem to Be My Day" and Goffin & King's "Take a Giant Step." It showed the names of the composers (under an intricate "Songs by" credit), but not the titles of the songs they wrote.
• |This Just Doesn’t Seem to Be My Day" appears here and in episode 9, "The Chaperone," in a alternate take, with an extra minute of music during the instrumental bridge not heard in the take on The Monkees' first album.
• The third Monkees episode to be filmed, "The Royal Flush" was the first to be helmed by James Frawley, an initial member of innovative NYC comedy troupe The Premise, who would go on to direct the bulk of The Monkees' 58 half-hour segments (32 to be exact). Frawley would soon be greatly rewarded for his efforts on "The Royal Flush"; it won the Emmy for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in a Comedy Series for 1966-67.
• The harpsichord rendition of The Monkees' theme (arranged by Stu Phillips) first appears here.
• The concept of the little tag sequence where David, Micky, Peter and Michael sat and chatted (at the end of this and eleven more episodes of The Monkees) came about when director Jim Frawley found that "The Royal Flush" was very long in its original director's cut. He trimmed it very tight to accommodate tight airtime space for NBC, resulting in it being two minutes short. Instead of putting back those two minutes (six frames at a time), Frawley opted to put the Monkees in front of the camera and improvise a little tag. (The particular interview seen here was most likely shot during production on the musical numbers of "Last Train to Clarksville ," "[I'm Not Your] Steppin' Stone," and "Sweet Young Thing," which surface in future episodes, and that of the "[Theme from] The Monkees", which appears in the first-season opening titles.)
• An alternate ending to "The Royal Flush" has the Chambermaid (Ceil Cabot) forcing Michael and Micky to clean up the battle-scarred ballroom.
• A technique dubbed the "double-guitar iris" transition was first used here. It featured an outer guitar (shown in red, orange, light green, light blue, or black) slanted at an approximate 180-degree angle, zooming into the screen (taking us out of the previous scene), followed by an inner guitar, which introduces the next scene. Other Monkees episodes to employ this technique were "Monkee See, Monkee Die", "Your Friendly Neighborhood Kidnappers”, "The Spy Who Came in From the Cool", "Don't Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth", "The Chaperone", "Monkees a La Carte", and "One Man Shy".
• The end credits for "The Royal Flush" and all further Kellogg's-sponsored NBC-TV telecasts of The Monkees sported package faces of Kellogg's popular cereals: Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, Sugar Frosted Flakes, Apple Jacks, Special K, Variety-Pak, and Pop Tarts.
• An alternate print of "The Royal Flush" features a clip of the Monkees performing “Last Train to Clarksville" replacing the tag interview segment.
• A distinct musical sting composed by Stu Phillips can be heard in the scene where David and Bettina converse with each other on the beach, just prior to the start of the "This Just Doesn’t Seem to Be My Day" chase sequence. In the May 8, 1967 repeat of "The Royal Flush" on NBC (in which the song "You Told Me" replaces "This Just Doesn’t Seem to Be My Day"), the cue is no longer heard.
• The Monkees started sessions for their first album after finishing production on "The Royal Flush."
• Three vital portions of "The Royal Flush"'s end-credit sequence---specifically the Producers, the Developers and the Script & Story Editors---are arranged much differently than they are in later Monkees installments.

[edit] Trivia Notes

• The 309 Usurper throne, which "throne merchant" Micky pitches to Otto, was reused thrice: in "The Prince and the Paupers", "A Coffin Too Frequent", and "The Devil and Peter Tork". The Usurper throne can also be briefly seen in the Monkees' 1968 movie Head, immediately following the "Long Title: Do I Have to Do This All Over Again?" birthday party boogie sequence.
• Note a certain incision on David Jones' lower left abdomen, which is due to an appendetomy he had years back. He refers to it in "Here Come the Monkees" (Original Pilot Film).
• Theodore Marcuse (Otto) had numerous villainous stints, including the diabolical Dr. Gamma on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (ABC, 1964-68), and Lescaux in the November 11, 1966 episode of The Time Tunnel (ABC, 1966-67), "Devil's Island," which also featured future Monkee villain Oscar Beregi ("The Prince and the Paupers"). His appearance as Korob in the October 27, 1967 episode of Star Trek (NBC, 1966-69), "Catspaw", turned out to be his last, as it aired one month before his tragic death.
• Among the few projects of the late Katherine Walsh (Bettina) was a role as Lulu in the 1967 American International release The Trip, written by Jack Nicholson (future co-writer/co-producer of the movie Head) and starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper (who cameoed in Head); all three would later star in the Monkee-financed film Easy Rider (Columbia, 1969).
• Four years after she guest-starred in this premiere installment of the Monkees, Ceil Cabot would also appear in the debut episode of another Screen Gems TV series revolving around a rock band, The Partridge Family (ABC, 1970-74): "What? and Get Out of Show Business?".
• The signs used by Peter for his digging project: "Danger Hole Started," "Watch Out Half a Hole," and "Caution Whole Hole."
• A close-up shot from this episode of David clad in his swordsman refinery a la Erroll Flynn with a sword (dueling with Otto next to the buffet table in the ballroom during the "Take a Giant Step" romp) is edited into the first season main title sequence for The Monkees.
• The 1986 Colex syndicated edition of "The Royal Flush" featured the soundtrack from its May 8, 1967 repeat on NBC (featuring the songs "You Told Me" and "The Girl I Knew Somewhere") and the end credits augmented from its February 13, 1971 (Peter Tork's twenty-ninth birthday) repeat on CBS Saturday Afternoon (which lists the songs "Apples, Peaches, Bananas and Pears" and "Good Clean Fun"). Rhino set the record straight on both counts for its 1995 inclusion in the Monkees Video Box Set, and the syndication package now uses the upgraded print of the episode with the original songs (though the CBS end credits remain intact).
• In the interview, when told by Micky to stand up and show the audience how tall he is, David retorts, jokingly, "I am standing up!" This gag would be repeated in "The Son of a Gypsy", "Captain Crocodile", "I Was a 99-lb. Weakling", and "The Monkees on the Wheel".
• David renews his fencing prowess (first displayed here in the swordsman climax with Otto set to the tune of "Take a Giant Step") in episode 21, "The Prince and the Paupers" (in a fencing lesson with Max [Joe Higgins]), "Hitting the High Seas" (engaging Micky, Peter and the crew in mad swordplay in the romp set to "Daydream Believer"), and in "The Monkees Mind Their Manor" (in a duel with Sir Twiggly Toppin-Middlebottom [Bernard Fox], which he loses). In episode 13, "One Man Shy" (a.k.a. "Peter and the Debutante"), Peter can be briefly seen fencing with Ronnie Farnsworth (George Furth) in the romp set to "You Just May Be the One".
• In Rhino's restoration of the original first-run edition of "The Royal Flush" for its release as part of the 1995 Deluxe Limited Edition Box Set and the 1996 individual select release, its end credits has a beat missing where researcher Andrew Sandoval had to edit together two separate sets of end credits to get the proper song listing. That "beat" was, in fact, the portion of the credits which features the caption "Music Supervision DON KIRSHNER"; this is a native of the NBC repeat of the episode from May 8, 1967 (Kirshner was long gone by that point).
• Both Otto and Bettina know David's name, despite never having heard it - Otto calls him Mr. Jones, while Bettina calls him Davy.
• In the scene where the Monkees rig the front door for the villains, Micky boasts, "They have about as much chance of finding us here as I do becoming Miss America!" Sure enough, three loud knocks ring out, and Michael uses this opportunity to sing "There she is, Miss America!," the first line of that popular Bernie Wayne-composed tune which has become an American institution, heard each and every year of the annual Miss America Pageant.
• Further royalty-themed Monkees episodes are No. 21, "The Prince and the Paupers", "Everywhere a Sheik Sheik", and "Fairytale".
• Prior to the airing of this debut episode, David Bordon of United Artists and David Yarnell of RKO sued Screen Gems to the tune of $6,850,000, claiming they unwittingly duplicated the idea of The Monkees from them (Liverpool U.S.A.). They tried unsuccessfully to stop the series from being telecast until the suit was settled, and the case was resolved, out of court, for an undisclosed amount.
• This episode is one of David Jones' favorites, along with "Hitting the High Seas", "Mijacogeo" (a.k.a. "The Frodis Caper").