[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okQe_lmM8OI]
It is true that, as Newsweek noted at the time, the Monkees were “direct videological descendants of the Beatles.” Their sitcom was heavily inspired by A Hard Day’s Night. But the lads and their crew of directors and producers took the medium of TV to new places. Rapid jump-cuts, fourth-wall-smearing nods to the camera and inventive direction techniques gave the series a feel and a pace unprecedented on American television. More important, the show presented romp scenes and performance clips that presaged the music video we came to know and love.