....if it weren't for the alternate sponsorship of Kellogg's of Battle Creek and Yardley Of London, the series wouldn't have returned for a second season.
Personally, I think NBC was just about ready to cancel it when, I believe, the two sponsors insisted The Monkees return for another season....and who was the network to object to two of their major advertisers? Case in point: when "I DREAM OF JEANNIE" lost Colgate-Palmolive as their primary sponsor after the 1966-'67 season, the show had NO primary (or alternate) sponsors to fall back on. This was when NBC started to renew the show every 13 weeks or so...nobody, from Sidney Sheldon to Barbara Eden and Larry Hagman or anyone connected with "JEANNIE" was sure they were going to continue for another half-season or "next" season. Somehow, the show "hung on", despite it being moved from Monday, to Tuesday...and back to Monday, and so forth. THEY were lucky---The Monkees weren't. NBC finally had their way after the second season.

....if it weren't for the alternate sponsorship of Kellogg's of Battle Creek and Yardley Of London, the series wouldn't have returned for a second season.

Personally, I think NBC was just about ready to cancel it when, I believe, the two sponsors insisted The Monkees return for another season....and who was the network to object to two of their major advertisers? Case in point: when "I DREAM OF JEANNIE" lost Colgate-Palmolive as their primary sponsor after the 1966-'67 season, the show had NO primary (or alternate) sponsors to fall back on. This was when NBC started to renew the show every 13 weeks or so...nobody, from Sidney Sheldon to Barbara Eden and Larry Hagman or anyone connected with "JEANNIE" was sure they were going to continue for another half-season or "next" season. Somehow, the show "hung on", despite it being moved from Monday, to Tuesday...and back to Monday, and so forth. THEY were lucky---The Monkees weren't. NBC finally had their way after the second season.


Actually, The Monkees' disapproval of continuing for another season of the same old scripts was the major factor of their TV series' cancellation. http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/emoticons7/26.gif

The sponsorship theory is interesting. I wonder how much it was a mix of that and of what Aaron suggested? I've read accounts of Mickey wanting to direct more in a proposed third season, so there was at least some interest in continuing at some point.

Actually, there was interest in the Monkees continuing for a third season, but the guys didn't want to do another season of the same old format (the guys stumble onto some kind of trouble, get hopelessly tangled up into it, and then manage to solve everything). They were interested in doing a laugh-in, saturday night live type format with sketches and guest stars but NBC was only willing to continue with what was already successful. And, I don't know anything about NBC wanting to cancel the show but for the sponsors. As for as I understand it, the show was pretty popular right from the first airing.

peacesign: i agree with a lot of you on that one....and i wish the monkees would have carried on with a another season but they all wanted to do head so thats one of the many reasons that there show got canceled but hey they returned much later with a another little tv specail! i have it on tape! i think it would have been nice if nbc would have let them do what they wanted i think in my opinon anyway that they just didn't let them do it cause they weren't a "real" band i mean maybe if someone like the beatles would have wanted to do that then probley fine but they weren't the beatles so there you go huh!

Just to set the record straight: by their third album, "Headquarters," The
Monkees WERE a real band. They won the fight to play their own instruments.
(In fact, Mike and Peter were professional musicians before becoming Monkees.)
And, surprisingly, at one point The Monkees' records were actually outselling
The Beatles'!

:p yeah we all know that! and i'm glad that they all got the right to play on there own but all i'm saying is they should have had that right in the frist place! if it wasn't for all that then maybe they would have gotton along a lot better and they wouldn't have broken up the way they all did :) i just think they derserved a lot more than they got thats all!