Banal and insipid?
How appropriate on April Fools Day...
Not all the kids watching were ready for Zappa, but I'm sure there were a few who were.
Zappa earns his entry as the fifth Monkee for appearing in the series and the movie Head. Both appearances were batshit crazy in the best way.
His first appearance was as Mike Nesmith - and Mike as Frank - in an interview to open the episode Monkees Lose Their Minds. Frank, a fan of Dadaism and an expert on sound experimentation, got to rip into popular music while playing a car. This was Frank's performance art, finding music on anything - he had demonstrated this trick on the Steve Allen Show years before, when he played a bicycle. If that's odd to you, remember putting baseball cards in the spokes of your bike just to hear the rhythmic "th-th-th-th" that became a whirr the faster you went. That's what he was doing.
He showed up as The Critic, walking a cow in the movie Head, calling Davy Jones "pretty white" in response to his Daddy's Song routine, and encouraging the band to work on their music because "the youth of America depends on you to show them the way."
Even I had to say WTF to that.
I could go on about the bizarre but admittedly uneven brilliance of the man. He found melody in discordance. His performance art extended to movies and television. He celebrated things while mocking them like the 80s hit Valley Girl, a collaboration with daughter Moon Unit. We knew we were being mocked, and we enjoyed it anyway. Besides, you can't claim to be a true Val when you're repping the Mitten State in discounted jam shorts from Jean Nicole.
And my kid loves St. Alphonse Pancake Breakfast. I expect no less from the kid whose favorite Beatles song is Revolution #9.
