Monkees Watch Their Feet

Written by Coslough Johnson

Directed by Alex Singer

Produced by Ward Sylvester

Song: “Star Collector” by Gerry Goffin& Carole King

Guest Appearances

Secretary                                            Pat Paulsen

Captain                                          Stuart Margolin

Assistant                                               Nita Talbot

Premiered on January 15, 1968

Summary

In this episode, Mike introduces the Secretary for the Department of USO Information who gives a documented report about alien invasion and spends the entire episode showing footages of the Monkees as a film report.

In the film, Micky, Davy and Peter are in their pad preparing for a gig when Micky’s tum tums, the shirt and pants that he was wearing suddenly disappear.   Somewhere on the beach, the Captain and his assistant, aliens from the planet Zlotnik have landed on their spaceship.  They have caused Micky’s things to disappear as they prepare for plan D: disposing of the Earthlings through various means of destruction at their command.  Later that day, Micky dressed in a robe finds his things on the beach which is a trap set by the Zlotnikans and as he collects his things they zap him in their spaceship.  Micky is clueless about his whereabouts, but the Zlotnikans think he’s on to them and when Micky pulls a handle he winds up caged as the aliens plan to duplicate him and at first wind up with a gorilla.  After some adjustments with a machine by reducing the brain tissue and lowering the IQ, they managed to duplicate him successfully with a robot who’s a dead ringer for Micky.  They send the rebot out to spy on the Earthlings and report everything back to them.  The fake Micky appears on the beach where Davy and Peter find him and prepare to take him back to their pad not noticing that is feet are backwards.  On their way back home, they see the spaceship but the Robot Micky convinces them it isn't so they assume it’s just a new drive in.  Back at the pad, the Robot Micky reports back to his masters by talking in his thumb as he mistakenly details a guitar Peter is playing to be a harmonic destructor and the phone that Davy answers to be a cat that he’s torturing.  Davy and Peter notice that Micky is acting strange and it’s further confirmed when he mistakes the refrigerator to be lady and starts chatting her up and they think he’s losing his mind.  Later Robot Micky, convinced they are spying on him, decides to blow them up by using dynamite and the guys have to restrain him.  While having him strapped down, they do an inspection on him and discover that his feet are backwards and realize that’s he’s from outer space. 

They head for the USO Headquarters where the kooky Captain at first mistakes Peter as a Martian.   Then the Captain tries to convince them it’s all just a figment of their imagination but Davy and Peter mistake the Captain as another alien when they think they see his feet are backwards (It was just his shoes) and end up tying him up before fleeing.  Back at the pad, Davy and Peter try to interrogate the robot under some lights and accidentally blow his mind.  Peter offers him some water and squirts him seltzer water  which hits a nerve causing the robot to freeze.  Then Davy and Peter look in his eye and discover he’s a robot.  While operating on him, they find his truth wire and the robot tells them the real Micky is in the spaceship being questioned by the aliens.  They ask him to take them to it so they all head for the beach wher the spaceship is.  Then they are all beamed up inside where they find the real Micky with some head gear on him.  When the Zlotnikans and robot Micky threaten them with laser guns, Everyone flees and soon there’s a wild chase to the song “Star Collector” where Davy, Micky and Peter take on the aliens with motorcycles, lasers and seltzer water which ends in the Zlotnikans passing out from dizziness.

Robot Micky tells the guys that it his job to warn them when they wake up and warns them to leave the spaceship since it’s programmed to take off in five minutes.  The Monkees invite the robot to come with them but he refuses because he has a blender waiting for him back on their home planet.  The Secretary for the Dept. of USO Information gives a closing statement while continued to be bothered by a fly throughout the episode.

Trivia Notes

Mike only appears in the opening teaser of this episode due to

being away receiving a tonsillectomy.  This would be the last episode

he didn’t appear in.

This episode was the last two to have the laugh track the other being

“The Devil and Peter Tork”.

This was the second episode where Micky played a duel role the first being

“Alias Micky Dolenz from the first season.

Executive Producer Ward Sylvester took over as producer replacing co-

creators Robert Rafelson and Bert Schneider throughout the rest of the series.

Actor Stuart Margolin (The Captain) is best known as Evelyn “Angel” Martin

on NBC’s “The Rockford Files” winning two Emmys.

The late actor Pat Paulsen (The Secretary) appeared on CBS’s “Smothers Brothers

Comedy Hour”.

Actress Nita Talbot (The Assistant) appeared in several films and is known

as a recurring role on CBS’s sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes” as Russian spy Marya.

The Sept. 9, 1968 repeat of this episode would be the farewell appearance

of the series on NBC Monday nights which would then be replaced by

“I Dream Of Jeannie”.

There are a few deleted scenes from this episode which includes Peter

squirting the aliens with seltzer water each time freezing them briefly and

then stopping all of them by squirting them all at once.  Also the Captain

gets into the duplicating machine duplicating himself four times. 

The Aliens’ planet was originally called Spritz.