When it debuted on NBC 50 years ago today, The Monkees was something very new in primetime television. There had been comedies about teenagers before, including The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis, as well as youth-oriented music shows like Shindig and Hullabaloo. But this was something else: an anarchic quasi-sitcom that employed surrealism and absurdity as well as fast-paced music segments that were produced well ahead of the music video curve. It’s only fitting that the series would find a second life on MTV in the 1980s. Paradoxically, even though The Monkees was a product of the burgeoning counterculture, it was as prefabricated and calculated as anything else on the NBC schedule. The multi-media phenomenon was the brainchild of a pair of producers, Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider. Rafelson has occasionally claimed that the series was inspired by his own days as a musician and not directly by The Beatles. Clearly, though, the box office success of 1964’s A Hard Day’s Night encouraged NBC to take a gamble on the project. That film’s stylistic influence on the series can’t be denied. See how it all started here!