Why isn't The Monkees TV show in syndication anymore?

I watched it in the 80's when it aired on Nickelodeon. The last I saw of it was as part of the Screen Gems Network syndication package in the early 2000's (maybe late 90's?). Are there music rights issues, or do they just not think it will do well in the ratings?

 

I'll go with the opinion that few people under 35 would know who the hell they were, let alone would watch a 45-year-old kids show. Sorry.

 

The Monkees was not a kid's show. It was a comedy show that had teen appeal. It won two Emmy Awards in 1967 for Best Outstanding Comedy Series and for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Comedy, acknowledging director James Frawley's contributions to the series. When the series went into syndication it got airplay on Saturday mornings, in which it gained a more younger audience that never saw the series during it's original network evening time slot, and that includes Nickelodeon.

 

Yeah. They were very lucky to get a resurgence back in 1986 or so. I started watching them in 1977 and they were outdated then.

 

Because in retrospect, they just weren't that good.

I loved it when it first came out. Even have the VHS box set.

 

It was perfect for someone in their early to mid teens. In the later years, the music has held up better than the show. Still love both but, yeah...weird, huh?

 

I loved watching reruns of the show growing up and even watched the reruns on the Family Channel in the 2000s, still loved the show.

 

Most TV shows aren't that good, so your reasoning is just a wee bit faulty.

 

How many shows from the sixties do you see regularly on TV these days anyways? "Andy Griffith Show" and "Twilight Zone" are about it...

 

Bonanza and Gunsmoke have run in the 60s and are still rerun on TV.

 

Plenty of shows from the 60's run in both local and national syndication.

 

Bingo.

I think there should be a channel for shows like this, but for whatever reason, all the nostalgia channels seem to think they make more money showing infomercials for 12 hours a day.

Hell, I'd like to see a "1960s/1970s" rock channel that does nothing but play concert films, beach movies, psychedelic flicks, concert appearances, rock variety-show clips, music videos, and TV shows, all catering to the rock/pop crowd. Sort of what VH1 used to be but only for the nostalgia crowd -- "BBMC," the Baby Boomer Music Channel.

Anybody who wants to invest a coupla hundred million of venture capital in this, let me know.

 

Yes they're available, but getting harder to find...besides the two shows I mentioned, there's only a handful that get run anywhere (Star Trek, Gilligan's Island, Beverly Hillbillies, Bonanza, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie); but so many more that used to be mainstays that have all but disappeared (Dick Van Dyke, Get Smart, Green Acres, Hogan's Heroes, Perry Mason). Unfortunately, "The Monkees" falls in the latter cateory...

 

They did an extremely short run on ION like three years ago, but they didn't even finish the entire series run. It was like 6 or 7 episodes then they started showing "Welcome Back, Kotter".

 

Yeah, maybe because it was horrible? When it was on MTV in 1986, I was embarrassed that my childhood self ever found anything funny about it.

 

I just got out of high school, and a lot of people knew who the Monkees were, but scoffed at them. The Beatles, Doors, Stones, and Who are cool for high school kids, but The Monkees, unfortunately, are not. I had one friend who liked the Turtles, I was surprised he knew who they were!

 

I'm a huge fan yet have a real hard time watching many episodes these days.

 

As a kid in the '80s who remembers the great "Monkee resurgence" of 1986, I'd have to agree with many other posters in that it's just not a show that's going to appeal to much of anyone except baby-boomers who recall it from its initial run. Even as a kid with a fascination for all things 50s/60s/70s when the shows were being rerun and the 20th anniversary hype was going on, I just couldn't get into it. Liked some of the songs, but the show was too silly even for my not-that-discriminating-at-the-time tastes.

It's getting hard to find reruns of even most 70s/80s shows these days, so something so very '60s and with such a rather niche audience probably doesn't stand a chance.

That said, I can see it having a life on one of those specialty "retro" channels that live on the OTA digital subchannels (though not in my area...grr...), but that's about it - and it's probably out of the price range of those networks. VH1 Classic maybe...

 

Agreed. Love the music still but the show is unwatchable. I loved it in 1966 when I was 9 but unfortunately I'm not 9 anymore.

 

It was a corny show then, even as kids we knew the show was not as hilarious as the laugh track tried to suggest. But we were fascinated with them anyway, their music was the main appeal but the idea of being in a band and encapsulating the Hard Days Night lifestyle further was fun, and they did kind of catch kids who were a few too years young to totally get the beatle invasion, but were a good age when the Monkees hit.

Seeing it as an adult is pure nostalgia, and I squirm at the 60s excuse for 'hip' and 'comedy', etc. with a few exceptions. The show did have its highlights but it was mainly eye bubble gum for the kiddies and it never rose above that.

 

I still enjoy the second season episodes...particularly the later ones when it got somewhat esoteric, pointing the way towards "Head".

 

When MTV first started re-running the original episodes, I was thrilled. I hadn't seen the show since it was first aired. In fact, I still remember watching the debut episode, lying on the couch in the living room, fascinated.

I will say that when that first episode came on MTV, I thought: WOW, cool colors, good tunes, great nostalgia.

But by the second or third episode, I was already thinking that the shows weren't all that interesting--outside of the music segments.

I pretty much gave up watching after a few more episodes.

I keep thinking I should play a few of them for my daughter and see what she thinks. I mean, it can't be any less funny than The Suite Life on Deck, and the music's a lot better. But maybe she'll just see them as kind of lame.

 

Like other folks here have said it just isnt that great a show.

I watched a couple a few years ago and they were painful to watch. Really terrible.

Any TV exec over the age of well...7, looking at them would just say "I'm not paying for that garbage!"

Filed under "Of its time. Do not broadcast again."

 

I'm not a baby boomer, but I'd love a channel like that. VH1 Classic is probably the closes thing to it.

 

Thought one of the main reasons it wasn't being re-ran is that Sony charges a ridiculous amount of money to license it's airing on TV. I know I read in the MBF years ago that Rhino tried to get it aired (possibly on Nickelodeon) to help with promotion with Justus but couldn't afford the airing fees.

It would be nice to see it on TV Land. Always thought it would be cool to see a Monkees reunion on the TV Land Awards.