Welcome to the most random comic in my collection, or at bare minimum, the strangest one left over from my dad's collection. What we've got are three stories in this issue, if they even count as that. In the first one, the Monkees have gone to sea in a raft to find the sunken treasure of Mauvebeard, which they'll use to record an album. They constructed a deep-sea diving suit for Peter out of what looks like a water cooler, a trash can, and some irons tied to his feet. All of which is unnecessary because the water's only 6 feet deep.
This does lead to the line I laugh at the most, as Peter wonders what kind of idiot pirate buries his treasure in 6 feet of water, and Davy responds, 'a short idiot pirate.' Their raft is wrecked by a passing yacht, captained by a Hjalmer, with his niece along for the ride. He's in a race, but the entire crew is down with gooseberry fever. Cue a series of the Monkees trying to be the crew and taking all orders seriously (Michael Nesmith cutting paper dolls as he trims the sails.) They get their shit together, and win the race.
Second story, the Monkees are well enough known that people recognize them in the park, yet they are trying to figure out how to get on a show called Honesty Pays, a candid camera-style thing. It just so happens, some man leaves a satchel on another park bench nearby, then immediately gets in a taxi. The Monkees take the satchel of vital nuclear secrets, thus prevent the Commies from getting the upper hand in the atomic race, thereby keeping them from bankrupting their country for an additional 20 years, and give chase in another taxi, which they leave without paying.
OK, I'm lying about the satchel having nuclear secrets.
Cue another sequence of one-panel gags about them using a variety of modes of transportation to chase the airliner the man's in. They end up back at the same bench, and the satchel is just full of birdseed. And the taxi driver is the one on Honesty Pays, for letting them ride without paying their fare.
Yeah, I don't know.
In the third story, the Monkees have decided to abandon music, but have no fallback plan. Instead, they distract themselves by helping a guy running a hot dog cart who hasn't had any business for eight and a half days. What, is he in some weird vegetarian commune? Is he literally grinding the rats into hot dogs right there on the street? The Monkees engage in a massive advertising campaign, for which they hope to be paid in exposure. Come on guys, don't fall for that line.
Their plan involves them yelling to each other about Oscar's Hot Dog Stand in a variety of locales, before they graduate to hijacking printing presses and news broadcasts, and culminates in them defacing space capsules and Egyptian burial tombs. Oscar ends up with so much business he's thinking maybe he should get himself some live music, and do the Monkees know someone?
In other words, this comic feels a lot like an episode of Family Guy. Take that how you will.
[7th longbox, 120th comic. The Monkees #9. Jose Delbo (artist). Writer, inker, letterer unknown.]
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