David Thomas " Davy " Jones ( 30 December 1945 – 29 February 2012 ) was an English recording artist, actor, and businessman, best known as a member of the musical group The Monkees and star of the TV series of the same name.

From 1966 to 1971, Jones was a member of The Monkees, a pop-rock group formed expressly for a television show of the same name.

The NBC television series The Monkees was popular, and remained so in syndication.

It was the last time all four Monkees performed together.

The final single, " Road to Love ," was poorly received. Jones and Maureen McCormick in 1971 during The Brady Bunch episode in which he was a guest star Jones also continued acting after the Monkees, either as himself or another character.

In a feature on Inside Edition, host Deborah Norville related that she was once president of a Monkees ' fan club.

" In a 8 March 2012 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Nesmith stated " For me, David was The Monkees.

" Dolenz was gratified by the public affection expressed for both Jones and the Monkees in the wake of his bandmate's death.

Whatever Jones and The Monkees were meant to be, they became creative artists in their own right, and Jones's chipper Brit-pop presence was a big reason they were able to produce work that was commercial, wholesome and yet impressively weird.

He referred to his Liverpudlian son-in-law as " Shirley Temple " or a " randy Scouse git " ( Randy Scouse Git as a phrase caught the ear of Micky Dolenz of The Monkees who heard it while on tour in the UK-and who co-opted it as the title of the group's next single-though their record label renamed it " Alternate Title " in the UK market to avoid controversy ) and to his wife as a " silly moo " ( a substitute for " cow " which was vetoed by the BBC's head of comedy Frank Muir ).

He was attending college in Los Angeles when hired for the " drummer " role in The Monkees.

In 1965, Dolenz was cast in the television sitcom The Monkees and became the drummer and a lead vocalist in the band created for the show.

By the time The Monkees went on tour in late 1966, Dolenz was competent enough to play the drums himself.

According to Mike Nesmith, it was Dolenz's voice that made the Monkees ' sound distinctive, and even during tension-filled times Nesmith and Peter Tork voluntarily turned over lead vocal duties to Dolenz on their own compositions, such as Tork's " For Pete's Sake ", which became the closing title theme for the second season of the TV show.

) His performance on the Monkees song " Daily Nightly " ( written by Michael Nesmith ) from the LP Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. was the first use of a synthesizer on a rock recording.

Although he was born in 1942, many news articles incorrectly report him as born in 1944 in New York City, as this was the date and place given on early Monkees press releases.

" Grams " was one of his most ardent supporters and managed his fan club, often writing personal letters to members, and visiting music stores to make sure they carried Monkees records.

The band finished a Far East tour in December 1968 ( where his copy of Naked Lunch was confiscated by Australian Customs ) and then filmed an NBC television special, 33⅓ Revolutions Per Monkee, which rehashed many of the ideas from Head, only with the Monkees playing a strangely second-string role.

Newton-John was recruited for the group Toomorrow formed by American producer Don Kirshner, who was also the music consultant for the earliest recordings of the Monkees.

Cooder's spot was eventually filled for a short spell by Gerry McGee, who had played with The Monkees.

Even though the sitcom's ratings had fallen out of the top thirty programs, during the last few weeks of its third season, the series was still doing very well and more than holding its own against its chief competitor, The Monkees, which aired at the same time on NBC-TV.

He portrayed eccentric characters in guest appearances on such TV shows as Batman ( where he played The Archer's henchman Crier Tuck ), Land of the Giants, Dragnet 1967, and The Monkees.

He worked before on counterculture comedy as in the Monkees TV show and their famous cult film Head.

All of The Monkees became instant teen idols in the late 1960s after their TV show became an over night success, especially Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones.

It was the direct model for the successful US TV series The Monkees ( 1966 – 1968 ) which similarly consisted of film segments that were created to accompany various Monkees songs.

In 2007, Canadian network TVtropolis aired a series called " TV Match Up " which pitted classic television shows against each other ; one particular episode featured The Monkees versus S Club 7.

In the TV show The Monkees episode 33 " A Nice Place To Visit " ( 1967 ), Micky Dolenz copied the line as " Badges?

Dolenz sees Till Death Us Do Part on British TV and uses the term " Randy Scouse Git " from the programme for the title of The Monkees ' next single release " Randy Scouse Git ", not realising it is an offensive term.

Michael Nesmith of The Monkees also wore this hat in his television series, as did Jay in the films of the View Askewniverse, Robert Clothier's character " Relic " in the long-running Canadian TV series The Beachcombers, and Hanna-Barbera's character Loopy de Loop wore a tuque as well.

The band ended 2003 with a nomination at Record of the Year for " Year 3000 " ( they lost out to Westlife, who won with their No. 1 " Mandy "), the announcement of an arena tour for February the following year, and a Monkees style Christmas TV special on ITV1, which attracted good ratings for its 4pm time slot.

On the basis of Southern's treatment, Raybert Productions, which had produced the TV series The Monkees and the Monkees movie Head, agreed to finance the film with a budget of US $ 350, 000 ( in return for one-third of the profits ), with Columbia Pictures agreeing to distribute the film.

The films were comedies in the same vein as the American situation comedy TV series, The Monkees.

Dalton and his wife Michelle appeared on The Celebrity Newlywed Game, on which he beat the Monkees ' Davy Jones and his wife ; as well as on Dr. Phil in an episode titled ' Reality TV Stars ' Real Life Drama '.

Head is a 1968 psychedelic adventure comedy film starring TV group The Monkees ( in credit order: Peter Tork, Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz, and Michael Nesmith ), and distributed by Columbia Pictures.

This was in part because Head, being an antithesis of The Monkees TV show, comprehensively demolished the group's carefully groomed public image, while the older, hipper audience they'd been reaching for rejected the Monkees ' efforts out of hand.

* The HEAD page, from The Monkees Film & TV Vault

Barris ' company often builds replicas of non-Barris designed vehicles from other TV series, including The Monkees ( Monkeemobile ), Starsky and Hutch ( Ford Torino ), Power Rangers ( Rad-Bug, Turbo Vehicles, and SPD Cars ), and Knight Rider ( KITT ).

* The song was featured on three episodes of the TV show —" Everywhere a Sheik, Sheik ", " I Was A 99-pound Weakling ", and " The Monkees In Paris.

* An alternate mix without Paul Beaver's Moog riffing was used on the TV show in the biker-themed episode " The Wild Monkees.

After being dropped by his manager for Paul — who was in a boy band rivalling " Busboyz "— Steve tries to make his own way through ever more demeaning auditions until he hears of a casting call for a " Monkees "- like TV show where he could showcase his acting, dancing and singing talents.

A Monkees television show marathon (" Pleasant Valley Sunday ") broadcast on 23 February 1986 by MTV resulted in a wave of Monkeemania not seen since the group's heyday.

Time magazine contributor James Poniewozik praised the Monkees ' classic sitcom, and Jones in particular, saying " even if the show never meant to be more than entertainment and a hit-single generator, we shouldn ’ t sell The Monkees short.

From 1975 to 1977, as the " Golden Hits of The Monkees " show (" The Guys who Wrote ' Em and the Guys who Sang ' Em!

After the Monkees television show ended, Dolenz continued performing providing voice-overs for a number of Saturday-morning cartoon series including The Funky Phantom, Partridge Family 2200 A. D., Scooby-doo, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids, Devlin and Wonder Wheels ( from The Skatebirds ).

Similar characterisation, and format for their show, was more notably seen in the American series The Monkees and US media reported that S Club 7 were " The Monkees for the next generation ".

At the peak of its success the band was originally selected to perform on the television show that became The Monkees, and also gained an added bit of publicity when Butler replaced Jim Rado in the role of Claude for a sold-out four-month run with the Broadway production of the rock musical Hair.

Roddenberry had previously mentioned, in a memo to his casting director, a desire to have someone reminiscent of one of the Beatles or Monkees on the show.

Each show represented a meeting of the " Banana Splits Club ", and the wraparounds featured the adventures of the club members, who doubled as a musical quartet, meant to be reminiscent of The Beatles and mostly their NBC counterpart, The Monkees.

Impressed by Chip Douglas's studio arrangements, Monkee Michael Nesmith approached him after a Turtles show at the Whisky a Go Go and invited him to become the Monkees ' new producer, as that band wanted to break out of their " manufactured " studio mold.

* Top of the Pops is mentioned in Micky Dolenz's of The Monkees biography, I'm A Believer: My Life Of Monkees, Music And Madness as he married Samantha Juste, who at the time hosted the show.

Midway through Season 2, the Monkees themselves insisted the show eliminate the laugh track, believing their viewers were intelligent enough to know where the jokes were.

NBC, already annoyed by the manufactured rock group wanting too much control over their show, cancelled The Monkees after Season 2 concluded, citing the non-existent laugh track as a major factor.

They burst onto the scene in 1969 when they performed at the Woodstock music festival and went on to have their own variety show similar to The Monkees.