Outré Intro: The Monkees (1966 - 1968)

Due to the ubiquitous nature of TV reruns in the 1970s, I grew up knowing all about The Monkees (1966 - 1968) before I knew anything at all about The Beatles. 

My sister and I shared a Monkees album when I couldn't have been but six or seven. We both loved it.  I mean...loved it.  We put the album on the record player for hours and danced around our family room.  My favorite Monkee was Micky.

I didn't finally discover the Beatles till I was about ten years old, when I started listening to the group's albums on cassette, on a cross-country trip.  

And I didn't see A Hard Day's Night (1964) -- arguably the tonal and visual inspiration for The Monkees TV program -- until I was fifteen or so.

It's sort of weird to think about all this today: encountering these 1960s music acts in what is, undeniably, the wrong order. 

Today I judge The Monkees with a sense of warm nostalgia. The TV series and albums are a part of a golden childhood, I guess you could say.  

The Beatles, meanwhile, are a group that I encountered in my own way, and learned about on my own initiative (with a little help from my Dad).  Therefore I feel confident (in a critical and historical sense) about their value as artists.

But I still get a kick out of and love The Monkees on TV. 

It does sting a little, having seen and admired A Hard Day's Night -- probably one of the ten or fifteen greatest films of the 20th century -- and realizing that The Monkees, at least at first, was a corporate-created knock-off, designed to capitalize on George, Paul, John and Ringo's success on a weekly basis. 

The derivative aspect of the series -- four sixties era young guys in a band, going on irrationally exuberant comedic adventures -- is so craven that it's tough for me to overlook when assessing the episodes today.

I'm sure other fans of The Monkees feel differently, and I respect that.

The following introductory montage to The Monkees reveals a bit of what I'm talking about. The imagery is absurd and irreverent; a bit surreal and a bit whimsical. It showcases the four members of the band in all kinds of costumes, in all kinds of scrapes.

The band-mates ride in cars, on bikes, on motorcycles and even a skateboard. They dress as cowboys, as cave-men, as matadors and so forth.  

The montage is a colorful, kinetic display of unfettered, un-repressed, imaginative youth.  

Indeed, the montage could easily pass as an early-1980s music video, for all the linear sense it makes. There's a surreal angle (like the first shot, of Davy's head hitting a bell...) to it as well.

So, in short order, we meet each of the Monkees.  First up is Davy.

Then Micky.

Now we're back to the group doing zany things...

And we meet Peter, next.

And finally, Mike.

Here's the montage in living color:

Outré Intro: Get Smart (1965-1970)

Following the premiere of Goldfinger in 1964, the pop culture world launched into a 007 or James Bond craze. 

American television promptly jumped on board with the trend, offering such prime-time TV series as The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964 - 1968), Mission: Impossible (1966 - 1972), and the great parody series from Buck Henry and Mel Brooks: Get Smart (1965-1970).

Get Smart focused on the mis-adventures of Agent 86, Maxwell Smart (Don Adams) of CONTROL. This hapless and over-confident agent was assigned missions from The Chief (Edward Platt) and partnered with the beautiful, sensible, and frequently life-saving agent, 99 (Barbara Feldon).  One recurring enemy was the nefarious KAOS.

The laughs on the series emerged from a couple of inspirations. 

One was Don Adams' act, which resulted in his catch-phrases appearing again and again ("would you believe?" "and loving it...," and others). 

 The other source was the spy milieu, and that milieu as used by the Bond films. In particular, Get Smart often used Bondian gags, but always pushed them one step into absurdity.

The series opening montage plays on that very idea, of the normal lapsing into the unusual, lapsing into the absurd (through repetition and then, finally, exaggeration).  

This montage is so famous that it actually appeared (with Homer in the Maxwell Smart role) as a couch gag on The Simpsons (1989 - ). It is probably one of the best-known, best-loved and most familiar introductions in TV history.

The intro begins with a staple of the 007 movies: a fast, stylish car.  

The car races into view and parks in front of a large, non-descript building. A well-dressed man (Smart, not 007, in this case), exits the vehicle and races into the building.

As he moves urgently (responding to a call from his secret HQ, perhaps), the series title flashes on the screen.

Next we're inside, and Max appears, coming out of a staircase that appears (from the signage above) to be an elevator, not a staircase.  

Already, we are getting into secret agent territory.  There is a secret truth under every day life.

We meet our star, Don Adams, as he looks around.  And walks through...another door.

Then, he sees giant steel doors...and goes through them (as we are introduced to the actress who portrays 99.)

Then, Max approaches sliding doors (as we are introduced to the actor who portrays the chief.)

We meet the series creators -- Mel Brooks and Buck Henry -- as  another door appears. This door recedes into the ceiling.

Then, another door, and you start to get the idea of exaggeration. at play here.  We're not only into the terrain of secrecy, but super-secrecy!  

We are not only moving into a secure location, but a super-secure location. And, you might rightly ask yourself, how would you get to CONTROL HQ...quickly?

Finally, Max Smart is through the seemingly-endless series of doors, and he arrives at a phone booth where he places a call.  

Once more, the idea here is of Bondian gadgetry, but also items that aren't really what they seem. A shoe that's a phone, for instance, or a wrist-watch houses a laser. The common is the extraordinary. The extraordinary is...silly.

Finally, Max reaches his final stop on the way to CONTROL.

By dialing a code on the rotary phone, the bottom drops out of the telephone booth, and he falls -- presumably -- to his destination, CONTROL HQ.

What organization in its right mind would feature an entrance like this one? 

That's the joke. 

We get several doors (repetition), and then a joke (a telephone booth with no floor). It captures perfectly the nature of this classic TV series.

Here are several variations of the Get Smart theme song and introduction.

Outré Intro: Kung Fu (1972 - 1975)

When I was a young boy in kindergarten, everyone in my age group was an avid watcher and fan of Kung Fu (1972 - 1975), a contemplative action/Western series that aired on ABC for three seasons and 63 hour-long episodes. 

Created by Ed Spielman, the series began with an ABC pilot that aired as a "Movie of the Week."

The series focused on a memorable character named Kwai Chang Caine (David Carradine), the orphan of an American father and Chinese mother. 

Caine was raised by Shaolin monks, and in the pilot story, his master, Po (Keye Luke) was murdered by a relative of the Chinese Emperor.

After executing his master's assassin, Caine fled to the United States, and began to search the American West of the 19th century for his surviving family, in particular his grandfather and brother.

In installment after installment, Caine would help unfortunate or imperiled strangers on his travels, and universally adhere to the tenets of Taoist philosophy, which stressed "the way" or the "path" (the source behind all existence), wu-wei (action through non-action), and also "natural-ness."

Kung Fu was beautifully photographed, and today each episode closely resembles a 1970s feature film, bolstered by expressive visuals and accomplished photography.  The action scenes, involving martial arts, were often highlighted in dramatic slow-motion.

The opening montage of the series transmitted beautifully the core concepts of the program.  

The imagery commences with a setting sun, and a lone figure before it.  The conjunction of the sun and Caine suggests, possibly, the idea of unity: that the two forces are one, joined.  Caine is alone, like the sun, in a sense, standing apart from all others.  He is both an exile and an outcast.  But he "shines" a light on all those he encounters, illuminating the darkness of their lives with wisdom, and that too is a reflection of the sun's qualities.

Next, our lovely title card appears.

Once more, consider how Caine is linked with the sun in the following imagery. Lens flare light connects him to the sun again, and explicitly, as he wanders alone, out in the wilderness, until he is able to reconnect with his family, and with the human race.

We get our first close look at Caine (Carradine) in the imagery below, and come to understand that his "mind" and his "philosophy" are singular, and quite different.  

Caine is a hero, unlike many TV protagonists, who is driven from internal sources; by memories and adherence to philosophy.  

Every week on the series, the opening montage gives way to a pertinent flashback, one expressing a lesson he has learned and that he not only re-learns in the course of an hour, but imparts to those who are in trouble.

Here is the Kung Fu opener in live-action.