One Man Shy

(a.k.a. Peter And The Debutante)

Written by Gerald Gardner, Dee Caruso&Treva Silverman

Directed by James Frawley

Produced by Robert Rafelson&Bert Schneider

Songs: “You Just May Be The One” by Michael Nesmith and

“I’m A Believer” by Neil Diamond

Guest Appearances

                                          Ronnie                    George Furth

                                          Valerie                       Lisa James

Premiered on December 5, 1966

Summary

The Monkees are auditioning for debutante Valerie Cartwright’s coming out party by performing “You Just May Be The One” who hires them on the spot to the disapproval of her suitor, the snobbish Ronnie Farnsworth who doesn’t hesitate to insult their music.  When the guys prepare to leave in the Monkee-mobile, they are shocked to discover Peter who is lovestruck over Valerie has stolen her portrait and in fear the Monkees speed off.

Back at home, Peter continues to admire and fawn over Valerie’s portrait while the other guys try to convince him to talk to her and ask her out.  But Peter is too shy to talk to girls so the other guys come up with an idea by taking him to Valerie’s place.  There, in an imitation of Cyrano De Bergerac, Micky, Davy and Mike take turns shouting out affectionate lines while Peter lyp-synchs to Valerie from below a balcony only to wind up getting punched in the mouth by the gardener.  Later, when Valerie and Ronnie show up at the Monkees pad re-garding the songs they’ll be playing, the foursome hide Valerie’s portrait by putting a glass of mirror over the painting while Mike holds it there.  Ronnie starts bashing their pad on the spot and when Mike briefly loses his grip on the mirror he sees the painting and accusing the guys of stealing it threatening to call the police.  When Peter admits to being the culprit, a friendly Valerie just tells him to return it at the party.  Fed up with Ronnie's snobbery, the guys decide to strike back.  So in different disguises Mike, Micky and Davy appear wherever Ronnie and Valerie go in order to discredit him. 

First, Davy as a French waiter outside a restaurant where the couple is sitting, pounds a cork into a bottle of champagne and Ronnie struggles to open it with great difficulty.  Both Ronnie and Davy managed to get the cork out only to casue an entire building to collapse.  Next, while in the park admiring some art work, Ronnie admires an art of pipes and asks Mike, who’s disguised as a park man about having it to which Mike replies by turning on the faucet causing him to get squirt in the face.  Then Micky disguised as toy salesman comes upon the two and offers to sell Ronnie a new derby doll which is an ugly doll that Micky causes to wet, spit and scream but when Ronnie starts to recognize Micky, he storms off in a hurry leaving Ronnie very suspicious.  Ronnie then realizes who they are and figues out their plot so he sets out to turn the tables on them.  Inviting the Monkees over, Ronnie manages to outshine Davy in skeetshooting, Mike in archery and Micky in badminton which leaves Micky nearly swallowing the badminton bird and Valerie storming off.  Angered by his ploy to prove how low class the Monkees are, Valerie phones Peter to ask him to escort her to the party but Peter is so reluctant because of his shyness and inexperience with girls.  So in the rendition of “I’m  A Believer”, the others try to teach Peter how to treat a lady from sitting her in her seat, to opening the car door for her to lightening her cigarette etc, but Peter fails in all of them.

The guys then bring a lady over to play spin the bottle but Peter always loses since the bottle keeps pointing to Davy and even when Mike sends him out of the room, the bottle flies to the door near Davy.  Then Micky disguised as Sigmund Freud attempts to analyze Peter and states his problem if mother fixation(being to close to his mother) then receives a call from his mother to remind to put his galoshes on leaving “Mr. Freud” nearly hysterical.  Later at the party, the guys offer Peter support as he tries to talk to Valerie discussing music, books and politics but he’s too nervous that he messes up so the other guys  decide to step in and help him.  Disguised as his stockbroker, private English tailor and caption of his yacht they, they set out to make him look important.  But Ronnie enters the scene and exposes their scam then sends Mike, Micky and Davy to perform leaving Peter to explain their intentions to make him look special.  But Valerie tells him he’s already special and that she likes him as he is.  As the Monkees perform “You May Just Be The One” a now confident Peter manages to beat Ronnie in every competition from hopscotch to arm wresting, toy gun duels etc. and wins Valerie over. 

At the end of the show, Peter finally does win spin the bottle and gets kissed by several girls.

Trivia Notes

This was debut of the Monkees hit song “I’m A Believer”

On the August 14, 1967 repeat of this episode, the song “Forget That Girl”

By Chip Douglass replaces “I’m A Believer" which was shown on the 1986 re-runs.

Actor George Furth(Ronnie) appeared on another episode “A Coffin Too Frequent” during its second season.

Two days before this episode was released, the Monkees performed their at

their very first concert in Honolulu, HI at the Internatinal Center Arena.