CBS had acquired rerun rights to The Monkees after NBC cancelled the series in 1968. Two years later, the band was down to a trio, as Peter Tork had left. Guitarist and songwriter Michael Nesmith would soon follow, but not before finishing the band's contractual obligations with General Foods, at the time the makers of Kool-Aid, Post Cereals, and assorted other things. General Foods had made a deal with Parker Brothers (now part of Hasbro) for a premium mail-in offer linking Kool-Aid with Parker Brothers' newly introduced Nerf Balls.
The commercial was shot in April 1970, and marked the end of the band as we knew it at the time. Tork would ultimately return for an anniversary tour 16 years later, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Even though CBS dropped the series, that wasn't the end of The Monkees on Saturday mornings, as the series would later move to ABC for a run a year or two later before moving into syndication later in the decade.
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Remember the good ol' days when all you needed to get something cool was a serial boxtop (give or take a dozen)?
Mike would remain with the group but he finished the second to last Monkee album from this period, "The Monkees Present" (released in 1969) before leaving. Like Peter Tork, he bought out his contract and went solo. Micky and Davy would complete one final Monkee album from the first wave era called "Changes" which was released in 1970. There had been a joke between them that eventually one of them would be billed as, "The Monkee". By 1970, their contract with Columbia-Screen Gems was up and they went out with a bit of a whimper and some hard feelings between all four for a time.
It was during this time I had fleeting memories of seeing the original series on Saturday mornings, but it wasn't until the show was brought back to MTV in '86 before I remembered what I'd seen!! It's still one of the best shows to have ever aired on TV IMO!
I remember seeing a commercial when ABC picked up the show, and of course I tuned in to MTV in '86.
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