“The Spy Who Came In
From The Cool”
Foreign agents mistake The Monkees for spy contacts when
David buys microfilm-containing maracas at a music store.
Episode No. 5
“The Spy Who Came In
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Production No. 4702
Filmed At: Screen Gems Studios, Hollywood, CA.
Filming Dates: June 27-30, July 1, 1966.
Original Air Date: October 10, 1966.
Rating: 15.8 rating/28.1 share (8,670,000 viewers)
© Raybert Productions; 10-10-66; LP37610
Sponsor This Week: Kellogg’s™
Rerun Dates: June 12, 1967 (NBC); September 26, 1970, April 3, 1971, July1, 1972 (CBS); October 7, 1972, May 19, 1973 (ABC). Written by Gerald Gardner and Dee Caruso.
Directed by Robert Rafelson.
Produced by Robert Rafelson and Bert Schneider.
Associate Producer: Ward Sylvester.
Music Supervision: Don Kirshner.
Background Music Composed and Conducted by Stu Phillips.
Musical numbers produced by Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart.
“Last Train To Clarksville” by Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart.
“I’m Not Your Stepping Stone” by Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart.
“The Kind Of Girl I Could Love” by Michael Nesmith.
Guest cast:
The Chief..............................................................Booth Coleman Midget.........................................................................Billy Curtis Genie.....................................................................Arlene Charles Yakimoto......................................................................Lee Kolima Jacques Aubuchon as Boris
Arlene Martel as Madame
and Don Penny as Honeywell
Home Video Releases:
- The Monkees: The Collector's Edition - VHS Tape #5 (Columbia House #13227, May 22, 1995)
- The Monkees Deluxe Limited Edition Boxed Set - VHS Tape #5 (Rhino R3 2960, October 17, 1995)
- Rhino VHS R3 2244 (September 17, 1996)
- The Monkees - Season 1 DVD Boxed Set - Disc 1 (Rhino RetroVision DVD R2 976076, May 13, 2003).
After a drive in the city in The Monkeemobile, David insists on buying a new pair of maracas at the nearby store, even though his mates insist he has a pair of maracas already. On their way there, David notices an ice cream man talking to a popsicle (who is actually top Central Intelligence Service [CIS] operative Honeywell, incognito as an ice cream vendor, reporting back to his chief via a popsicle-microphone). At the music store which is really a front for enemy spies, Russian spy agent Madame Olinsky gives instructions to her sidekick Boris who just placed microfilm into one of a pair of red maracas. She tells him his contact will be a short man who will ask for a pair of red maracas and he’s to tell the man he’ll give him some for $6.00 where as the contact will reply he only has $0.50 and he’ll tell him there his. After noticing the ice cream man outside, she decides to exit through the secret door since the guy is a CIS agent (after all, he is talking to a popsicle!) and departs through a harp case. The Monkees enter the store where David asks for a pair of red maracas and Boris mistaking him as the contact repeats what Madame instructed and when David winds up answering correct Boris gives him the maracas and sends them through the secret door too. Then a midget shows up asking for the red maracas and Boris realizes he got Olinsky’s instructions crossed.
Later at the discotheque, The Monkees are on stage performing “The Kind Of Girl I Could Love” when David notices one the maracas has a microfilm inside and he puts it in his pocket. Having tracked The Monkees to the discotheque, Madame and Boris arrive dressed as hippies and confronts the band at gunpoint after their performance demanding the microfilm which leaves Peter in tears. For a diversion, Michael introduces the agents as a famous folk singing duo “Honey and The Bear” who will sing a protest song. The agents are soon shoved onstage where they reluctantly sing off key and Micky starts the crowd booing and hurling objects and pillows at them in which the foursome make their escape. At the CIS (Central Intelligence Service) headquarters, CIS operative Honeywell shows the chief a secret filming of each Monkee whom he interviews on different topics. First, with Michael and Peter outside questioning them about politics, then Micky at the front door about responses to many faces and then David at a news stand where he winds up singing and dancing to the song “Swanee River” leading a chorus. The Monkees are called into the HQ where the chief enlist their help in capturing the two spies warning them of the dangers, and informs them of a dedicated CIS man, Harold B. Schwartz, who just a week ago nabbed a whole nest of spies. Back at the pad, as The Monkees tool around on their unicycles with training wheels, Michael disapproves of this, since music is more their bag than espionage, but Micky tells him that there’s nothing to it, since they’ve seen every spy movie, and The Monkees engage in a fantasy sequence as trainees in a spy school, under the tutelage of Micky. First he briefs them on different gadgets: for Peter about cufflinks that has a hidden tape recorder inside, David, a tie pin that has a pill he takes when captured, and Michael, a lighter that has a secret camera inside along with Yamashida, a tiny Japanese cameraman! And later teaching karate moves using Yakimoto, a large Japanese man with whom Micky demonstrates two karate chops on who then retaliates by using karate chops on Micky’s stick, pencil and a board while he’s briefing them on weapons.
Realizing they have to meet Honeywell in a half hour, The Monkees then travel by unicycles to the briefing at the discotheque where the Agent Honeywell tells them of a secret microphone inside a lamp on a table. They are to get the Russian agents to make a confession in hopes of making an arrest. He then leads the guys to another room when a genie appears in a puff of smoke out of the lamp before David (wrong show!). In another room, Honeywell shows them a tape recorder where he will be recording the confession. Madame and Boris return during The Monkees’ performance of “I’m Not Your Stepping Stone” and after the song they all gather around the table where the agents ask for the microfilm in exchange for $380. (At first, she intended to pay $400, but Boris used $1.90 for cabfare.) But at first, the quartet attempts to get a confession is ruined with a nod, accidently knocking the wire out, and loud laughing from a couple nearby. When they finally get their confession an angry, impatient Mme. Olinsky demands the microfilm at gunpoint, Michael turns over a roll of film and starts a wild dance to the tune of “All The King’s Horses.” Micky and Peter try to grab Boris who overpowers them leaving them sprawled on the floor out cold while David tries to contact Honeywell on the lamp. Then Madame Olinsky lays Michael out with a karate chop, snatches the film, and escapes with Honeywell in a hot pursuit. The dancers, thinking something new has been added, begin using Karate on each other while Boris gets mobbed first by teenage girls dancing then by David jumping on his back while Peter grabs his leg and Micky tries to crash into him but he's finally pinched in the ear by Michael, and the wild dance ends with him on the floor with Michael holding his ear and the other Monkees on his back. Honeywell returns without Madame who escaped but at least Boris is captured.
Somewhere in Red China at a spy headquarters, Madame Olinsky presents the film to a group as containing America’s latest weapon that will change the course of modern warfare. As she starts showing the film, she’s shocked when the film turns out to be just a sequence to the song “Saturday’s Child” of The Monkees in their maddest capering: from on the beach in bathing suits to riding on camels, dressed in scuba diving outfits on lawn and dancing with Honeywell and the teenyboppers back in the discotheque, which leaves the humiliated Madame bound and gagged in a chair in return.
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