Synopsis:

While Micky, David and Peter are playing cards with Mr. Schneider, a messenger arrives at their pad about a letter for David. When the messenger demands $1.80 for his services, Michael quickly instructs him over to Mr. Schneider, their pet dummy whom he dubs as their advisor, since “he’s the only one working”. After David reads the letter, his mates express surprise when he tells them he's afraid to meet his grandfather who is arriving from England to visit that night. The reason becomes clear when David informs them he wrote his grandfather that he had become a wealthy star and fears being forced to return to England should he learn the truth. That’s not their only problem when the guys look on as the messenger is arguing with Mr. Schneider over his pay!

The guys decide to help David masquerade as a rich celebrity, with Micky duping a wealthy old man into taking his Rolls Royce and conning the messenger into switching outfits; Michael getting hired and then fired as a chef at an Italian restaurant leaving with the chef’s uniform; and Peter greeting an ice cream man, leaving with the shirt off his back (literally!). With their newly acquired uniforms and accessories, Micky, Michael and Peter masquerade as David’s chauffer, chef and houseboy, respectively; at the airport, they meet his grandfather outside where Michael and Peter take turns disguising themselves as a fan asking for an autograph and a photographer taking pictures. A middle-aged lady observes and, convicnced David is a celebrity approaches for her autograph. However, David thinks it's Michael in disguise until he arrives in goofball gear, which frightens David into splitting the scene! Back at the pad, Grandfather digs into a spaghetti supper, while David is stuck with a rubber meal, as the boys could afford only one serving. After dinner, David mentions he’s so hungry he could eat a horse and almost literally gets his wish! Grandfather is impressed by David's affluence and it seems like the guys pulled it off until a girl next door barges in to borrow some hot dogsthe owners of the uniforms and the Rolls Royce arrive to reclaim their property, and soon all heck breaks loose in the apartment! Finally quieting the crowd down, Grandfather, deploring the gross deception, demands that David must return to England with him.

Michael is unable to convince Grandfather that David posed as a success only to make him proud, while a crushed, crestfallen David takes a final stroll along the beach reminiscing the good times with his mates, over the tune of "I Wanna Be Free". Back at the pad, David, all dressed up and packed, gives a sad farewell to his mates before leaving the country with his grandpa. At the airport, David, lamenting being separated from his mates, tells his grandfather he’ll meet him on the plane and goes in alone; meanwhile, there is not a dry eye amongst the remaining trio at the pad as they soon start bawling over David's departure. They come up with an idea to make David miss his flight and, with less than an hour to spare, leave for the airport too. There, the guys are all disguised as airline personnel with Peter as an passage handler, and Micky, a ticket clerk dubbing a German accent, as the three do everything possible to stop Grandfather from reaching the plane on time, resulting with Michael driving the grandfather all around the airport in a freeway as now winged Peter and Micky are in pursuit causing a whole lot of chaos in their wake!

Grandfather catches up with David and, seeing through Micky, Michael and Peter's diguises, he tells them he's happy David has such loyal friends, and that he feels he can leave him safely in their hands. But he doesn’t leave alone since he’s soon accompanied by the same middle-age lady who asked David for an autograph on the plane. Later on a park bench, Micky mentions instead of doing all those things to impress David's grandfather they should of just played for him and with that they're all soon romping around with a crowd of elderly people to the song “Sweet Young Thing.”

Tag Sequence:

David Jones is interviewed about his first trip back to England since the series' debut.

Production Notes:

Gerald Gardner, Dee Caruso and Bernie Orenstein's Revised Final Draft script for "The Success Story" was compleeted three days after the release of The Monkees' first single, “Last Train To Clarksville” b/w “Take A Giant Step” (Colgems #66-1001). In the original script, The Ice Cream Man was originally Sam The Hot Dog Man. 

"The Success Story" started production on the day which was to see The Beatles' last live concert performance: a 33-minute set at San Francisco's Candlestick Park. On the day before, The Monkees were in attendance of The Fab Four's next-to-last concert at The Dodger Stadium in their home base, Los Angeles, in order to get a feel of what their own concerts would be like. 

The Monkees took time off from filming to commence on a 2-week promotion for their TV series right after finishing "The Success Story". P STYLE="text-align: justify"Writers Gardner, Caruso and Orenstein and director Frawley return to craft Episode No. 11, "Monkees A La Carte."

The writing and directing credits appear at the very beginning of this segment's teaser, making it one of 2 episodes of The Monkees to lack a sub-main title sequence; the other is No. 32, “The Monkees On Tour”, the first-season finale. 

The May 29, 1967 repeat of "The Success Story" saw "Shades Of Grey" replacing "I Wanna Be Free" and CBS and ABC Saturday Afternoon repeats of the episode saw Bill Chadwick's "French Song", in turn, replacing "Shades Of Grey." Rhino has since restored the original firstrun edition of "The Success Story" with its original soundtrack, while the syndicated version still airs the summer 1967 repeat of the episode.

At the end of the the one-minute short interview, Micky turns to the camera and says, "Tune in next week, ladies and gentlemen, when we're another minute short--!". Ironically, in the next episode, “The Monkees In A Ghost Town”, they were!

The Monkees finished its 6-year run on network television with a repeat of "The Success Story" on ABC Saturday Afternoon August 25, 1973. 2 years later, The Monkees television show's 58 half-hour episodes were packaged by Columbia Pictures Television, and premiered in local syndication during the week of Monday, September 8, 1975; the first 7 TV stations to have the honour of carrying the series locally were KBHK-TV in San Francisco, WFLD-TV in Chicago, WKBS-TV in Philadelphia (now defunct), WKBD-TV in Detroit, WLVI-TV in Boston, KDNL-TV in St. Louis, and WDCA-TV in Washington D.C. (Peter Tork's hometown!!). For 9 years the show played on and off these and other local markets until the group's 20th Anniversary in 1986 put them over worldwide. 

The closing romp intersperses clips of The Monkees on the same stage from which they shot the videos to "Last Train To Clarksville" (used in both “Monkee See, Monkee Die” and “Monkee Versus Machine”) and the TV Theme used in the first season's intros. "Sweet Young Thing" was the final song whose video used that particular stage.

Stu Phillips cut musical cues for this episode on Monday, October 3, 1966 from 2:00-7:00 pm.

During the dinner scene, when David says, "I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse!," Michael replies "Well, why didn't you say so?!," and a clip from Episode No. 8, “Don't Look A Gift Horse In The Mouth”, wherein Micky, Michael and Peter try to tug Jeremy the black stallion, is seen.

In the kitchen of the Italian Restaurant, Michael is seen covered in spaghetti. This clip, of course is from Episode No. 11, “Monkees A La Carte.” A brief Italian musical cue heard during this sordid scene was reused twice: in the final seconds of the teaser sequence of Episode No. 37, "Art For Monkee's Sake", and in the scene where Micky himself gets deluged with spaghetti in Episode No. 51, "The Monkee's Paw". 

Continuity Goofs:

“The Success Story” is yet another unsung episode of The Monkees TV series to miscredit a Monkees song in the end titles: here, "I Wanna Be Free" was billed as "I Want To Be Free." A correction was finally made, in the end titles of Episode No. 10, “Here Come The Monkees,” the second episode of The Monkees to feature the Boyce-Hart tune (in 2 different versions, yet!). The song itself appears here in an alternate version, with no zither section.

In the scene where the owners of the uniforms and the Rolls Royce arrive to reclaim their property from Micky, Michael and Peter, the Ice Cream Man (Charles Callas) barges in and demands his jacket back from Peter, despite his already wearing another jacket!

David's grandfather leaves Micky's counter with an armfull of clothes; in the next shot he is running away and the clothes are nowhere to be seen! 

The horse scene is reversed (the sign print is backwards). 

Mr. Schneider misquotes George Bernard Shaw. 

Trivia Notes:

This is the first time David Jones flaunts his new Prince Valiant-esque hairdo throughout the entire length of a Monkees episode. David would also masquerade as a millionaire (along with his mates) in Episode No. 30, “The Monkees In Manhattan” (a.k.a “The Monkees Manhattan Style”); Michael Nesmith would pose as one to fool The Great Oracullo (Monte Landis) in No. 57, "The Monkees Blow Their Minds"; Micky, David and Michael would disguise themselves to make Peter appear rich in No. 13, “One Man Shy” (a.k.a. "Peter And The Debutante"). 

Also in the teaser, you may recognize those gnarly beach threads The Monkees are wearing...you guessed it! The boys donned this beach gear in Episode No. 31, "The Monkees At The Movies," which, naturally, was shot prior to "The Success Story."

A couple of brief snippets from the original unaired pilot of “Here Come The Monkees,” those which feature David sitting by the beach and Peter wearing a black wet-suit carrying his surfboard onto the beach, and a wide-angle shot of the “The Kind Of Girl I Could Love” discotheque sequence from the previous episode, “The Spy Who Came In From The Cool” (onto which its submain credit titles were superimposed), are adapted into “The Success Story”.

David's grandfather is given mention in Episode No. 53, "The Monkees Race Again" (a.k.a. "Leave The Driving To Us").

The dummy Mr. Schneider, with Micky's pull of the string on his chest, utters his first words of dialogue on The Monkees TV series in this episode (courtesy of director Jim Frawley): "It's a shame to waste youth on children." It is a misquote of George Bernard Shaw: "Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children." Listen for Schneider to speak in Episode No. 9, “The Chaperone”, No. 26, “Monkee Chow Mein”, and No. 38, "I Was A 99-lb. Weakling". 

Another episode of The Monkees to feature fictional Monkee relatives is No. 45, "The Monkees In Texas".

David Pearl appears as an Old Man in a wheelchair.

Guest Cast Notes:

The late Donald Foster (seen here as The Rolls Owner) portrayed Herbert Johnson on Hazel (NBC/CBS, 1961-66); he makes 2 other appearances on The Monkees: as the walking cane-breaking Courier in Episode No. 21, "The Prince And The Paupers," and as Mr. Thomas, the VP of The Ninth National Bank in Episode No. 34, "The Picture Frame."

The late Ben Wright (Grandfather) voiced several Disney movie characters, including Roger Radcliffe in 101 Dalmatians (Buena Vista, 1961), a Wolf in The Jungle Book (Buena Vista, 1967), and Grimsby in The Little Mermaid (Buena Vista, 1989). Wright was best known for playing many supporting and leading roles in radio, including Sherlock Holmes from Sept. 1949 to June 1960, and Tulku, faithful Tibetan aide to The Green Llama in summer 1949. Wright was also notable for a great many guest shots in both the 1958-60 CBS Radio and 1957-63 CBS-TV versions of the Western Have Gun Will Travel, and fans of Hogan's Heroes (CBS, 1965-71) will remember him as Major Feldcamp in the episodes "The Kommandant Dies At Dawn" (#5784-127, 10/31/69) and "The Big Gamble" (#5784-129, 11/21/69).

Ceil Cabot (seen here as The Old Woman) was previously seen as The Chambermaid in the premiere episode, "The Royal Flush." She even shared a birthday with Micky Dolenz: March 8. 

<< Previous Episode!|The First Season!|Next Episode! >>