THE ABOVE AD was the start of a rock and roll talent hunt that led to the emergence of the famed Monkees.  The adjective is not used loosely, for one sure-fire definition of fame is this: You're really famous when you get your picture and your vital statistics printed on bubble-gum cards.  This has happened to Mike Nesmith, Peter Tork, Mickey (sic) Dolenz, and Davy Jones.  There's "Flower Power," "Black Power," "WASP Power" (White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant), "Irish Power," and "Jewish Power."  But in popular music, one of the most fabulous success stories of the 60's has been that of the Monkees, a superpop group, built by "TV Power."
    It all started when Screen Gems, a TV subsidary of Columbia Pictures, got excited by the enormous success of the Beatles.  Screen Gems decided to try to develop a top TV teen show, built around a zany, happy-go-lucky, pop group.  Producers Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson announced a talent search in Hollywood trade papers.  More than four hundred and thirty youth who could sing or play rock were auditioned.  Four were chosen to form the group.  Top young pop songwriters were commissioned to write songs for them.
    One writer, skeptical of the whole process, asked: "How can you manufacture a group?  You can't get a group by choosing.  A group happens."
    Picked for the group were: Peter Tork (real name, Peter Halstein (sic) Thorkelson), Robert Michael (Mike) Nesmith, George Michael (Mickey) Dolenz, and David Thomas Jones.  Three were American boys, and one (Jones) was English.  The series went before the TV cameras in Hollywood.
    Don Kirschner, who once watched over Columbia Pictures' music interests, then arranged a recording deal by which a Columbia Screen Gems subsidary, Colgems, would produce recordings of the Monkees which RCA Victor would distribute.  In the summer of 1966 attractive, long, multicolored postcard teasers were sent out by RCA.

    A special TV theme was composed to introduce them:

        Here we come walkin' down the street
        We get the funniest looks from everyone we meet
        Hey, Hey, We're the Monkees!

    The Monkees debuted, in color, on NBC-TV network, on September 12, 1966.  They were instant video clicks and quickly became one of the top superpop groups.  Their first record single, "Last Train to Clarksville," was a smash.  Before long, more singles and LP's flowed from the Monkees and reached the best-seller lists: And to put chocolate sprinkles on the sundae, the quartet won a coveted "Emmy" award in their first season.  The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences cited them  as the best comedy series on TV.
    So to the question, can you manufacture a pop vocal group, the answer turned out to be affirmative, with some qualifications.  Shrewd TV and record men were behind the Monkees.  And a reported $250,000 was invested in promotion and production.  Moreover, both RCA and NBC went all-out.  For the TV show the quartet was given some unusually fine comedy scripting and a new approach to TV photography and editing.  Taking a cue from the humorous, imaginative techniques of Beatle films, such as Help!, the world of the Monkees was portrayed through unmatched film cuts, speeded up and slowed down sequences, overexposed shots contrasted with underlighting in other shots, comic freezes, and a generally madcap pace.  The show delighted most teenagers (and many adults, too).
    And you cannot forget the actors- who all proved to be winning and equal to the task.  An actor who worked with them in TV sequences, funnyman Phil Leeds says, "They're bright and responsive, and quick-studies."
    It's crucial that they were responsive, for the half-hour shows have been produced in a week's shooting schedule, in a sick-green building, which once served as duplex apartments on the Columbia lot.  On the walls of a reception room there are signs such as War Is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Beings.  This is the headquarters, the heart of the multimillion-dollar Monkee operation which embraces TV, concerts, recordings, paperback books, comic books, and bubble gum.
    Mickey Dolenz has said: "If you're looking for an explanation for the success of the Monkees, don't look too deeply.  Our message is to be happy.  We have directors, a script writer, but we depend on ou personalities.  There's a lot of spontaneity on the set."
    Of the quartet, Mickey previously had the most TV experience  He was a child star of the television series Circus Boy.  Prior to the Monkees, he was a member of the Missing Links.  He's 6' tall, weighs around 135, and has three younger sisters, Coco, twenty, Debbie, thirteen, and Gina, nine.  he is fond of homemade pizza, making metal sculpture, and collecting old movie posters.
    Davy is a slim, 5'3" lad.  Once he thought about becoming a racehorse jockey.  He became known in the U.S. when he played the Artful Dodger (Oliver Twist's friend) in the musical Oliver, on Broadway.  Davy collects unusual cuff links and autographs of famous people.  Born in Manchester, England, he explains the groups success this way: "We're not like any other group who get up and do eight songs in a row.  We're an audio-visual act."
    This is quite true.  TV has greatly influenced the "live" concert techniques of the Monkees.  When the group enters for a concert performance, lights stab at you in a sort of psychedelic light show.  They usually sing their record hits and other numbers before a giant canvas screen, which resembles a drive-in movie theatre.  (The screen is above their heads.)  At the Hollywood Bowl, for example, Davy Jones sang the recent hit, "I Want to Be Free," against photographs of freedom marches, antiwar demonstrations, and teenage protests against police regulations on Sunset Strip.
    They sometimes sing against wholly unrelated sequences scissored from their TV shows.  They also play and sing against straight picture postcard photos of themselves.  They also engage in offbeat, humorous antics.  Dolenz once topped off a song by diving into a three-foot kiddie pool onstage.
    The success of the Monkees on both TV and records has brought affluence to MIke Nesmith, a former protest folk singer.  But he has a few complaints.  "You can't go walking in the city [once you're a celebrity]," he says.  Mike is 6'2", weighs about 155 pounds.  He is married, and has a son, Christian Du Val.  He composes as well as sings and acts.  He is also a car enthusiast, and owns a custom Riviera and a British Mini-Cooper.
    When asked whether the Monkees are rock and roll musicians or actors, Mike replies, "Our primary function is as entertainers."
    Peter Tork, was born on February 13, 1942, in Washington, D.C.  His father is an economics professer.  He is 5'10", weighs around 150.  He has two brothers, Nick and Christopher, and one sister, Elizabeth.  His favorite musical groups are the Beatles, the Lovin' Spoonful, and the Buffalo Springfield.  He is fond of reading up on current events and sociology.  To him the new electronic amplification "bag" is providing a revolution in pop music.  He frowns on censorship, particularly of creators and performers.  "The artist's responsibility," he says, "is to do the best he can.  Everything that seems right should go into your art."
    Although the Monkees kid about life, and clown a lot, they reveal serious streaks.  Mickey recently told a press conference, "You go to all different countries and see that all the people are the same.  I can't understand people not getting along.  I really don't understand it."
    On TV, the Monkees portray an unsuccessful rock and roll group scuffling for a dollar, trying to make it.  But they have made it very large indeed.
    Their record sales have been phenomenal.  Among disc jockeys they are as desirable as prime time.  In the Cash Box Disc Jockey Poll for 1967, a poll of more than 10,000 platter-spinners, the Monkees were chosen as "The Most Programmed Vocal Group."  One Monkee record, "I'm a Believer" was named as "The Most Programmed Single."  The Monkees' share of recording royalties has been immense.  There has been a golden flood from merchandising products employing the Monkee name.  As a result, each of the quartet reportedly has a personal manager just to oversee his particular economic interests.
    The collective fame of the superstars is real and unrehearsed.  Their fans are loyal, true-blue, and enthusiastic.  Recently, when the pop music underground heard that the Monkees were coming to New York City for a concert, they moved into action.  They circled the front door and the service entrance of the Hotel Warwick (where the Beatles were once headquartered) like Indians around a wagon train.  But instead of tomahawks, they waved box cameras, Polaroid cameras, lipstick, magic markers, and for some reason, plastic water pistols.  On wooden gray "horses" put up as barricades, the fans were busy pouring out a torrent of love with felt-tipped pens: "Mike I Love You," "Davy I Love You Always," "Monkees 4 Ever, Beatles Never," and "We Luv' You Davy."
    Such affection can be traced mainly to the cathode ray.  For TV's impact on young music fans and on popular music generally has been terrific.  Themes from TV shows have raced up the charts: Route 66, Naked City, the theme from The Munsters.  One of the biggest record sellers of all time, for example, was the Ballad of Davy Crockett, introduced on a Disney program about the early American frontierman.  The video tube has also brought exposure to Andy Williams, Robert Goulet, Steve Lawrence, and Eydie Gorme.  Record artists fight to be seen and heard on The Ed Sullivan Show- for they know that being seen on "The Scowling One's" popular variety program can be a four-minute electronic shortcut to fame.  Similarly, a guest shot on the TV shows of Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin can be most important.  Cash Box once observed that "the great thirst for new ideas, plus the natural association between the two entertainment media, has kept the eyes of the [disc] industry fixed on every move made by the television industry.
    While it's marvelous to secure guest shots, there's something better to those involved in the competitve world of popular music: a weekly program where you can reach millions.  That's exposure.  And that's what the Monkees have.  What's more, they sing songs on their show which later turn up as best-selling records.  On reruns they sometimes insert new songs- which is not difficult to do because often the sound of the Monkees' singing is heard while something else is going on visually.  That's quite a packaging job.  Or, as a fan once put it in a hand-lettered sign: It's Monkee Power.
    Not everything with the Monkees, however, has been sweetness and light or a velvet staircase to the top.  In fact, the boys themselves were most unhappy for quite a while.  It seems that Don Kirschner felt the Monkees couldn't play their instruments or sing well enough to create the kind of Monkees sound he wanted.  So he employed professional rock musicians and singers to produce the original Monkees records and the Monkees sound on TV.  At one point, Kirschner flatly turned down Mike Nesmith as lead singer for the recording of "I'm a Believer."  Stung, Nesmith spoke out candidly.  "The music on our records has nothing to do with us.  It's totally dishonest.  We don't record our own music.  Tell the world we're synthetic because, dammit, we are!  We want to play on our own."
    At an angry confrontation in a Beverly Hills hotel, according to a report in TV Guide, Nesmith told Kirschner that "dubbing" of the Monkees' songs by other, anonymous musicians and singers could not go on.  "We could sing 'Happy Birthday' with a beat and sell a million records," Nesmith said, "because we are the Monkees and we have that incredible TV exposure."
    The story has a happy ending, just like a Monkees TV script.  The boys now sing and play for their own recordings and they sing and play on their own TV show (no more lip-sync to the music of other rock musicians and singers).  The first album, completely made by the Monkees was called Headquarters.  And it skyrocketed right up in the charts.
    A postscript worth noting to the continuing popularity of the Monkees is this question and answer from the syndicated "advice" columnist, Ann Landers"
    "Dear Ann Landers: I am a fourteen-year-old girl who spent six dollars to hear the Monkees give a concert last night.  It was one of the greatest experiences of my whole life.  Something happened at the hall and I need to know if I was right or wrong.  My girl friend and I were screaming a lot which is only natural when the Monkees perform.  A middle-aged woman about thirty was sitting in front of us.  After the second number she turned around and said, 'If you kids don't stop screaming in my ear I am going to scream in yours.'"  It was signed, "Monkee Lover."
    Here's Anne Lander's reply: "Dear Lover: If you screamed in church or at a ballet, I would say that woman had a right to complain.  But screaming at a Monkees concert is not only in order, it is practically compulsory."