On Feb. 23, 1986, MTV aired a weekend marathon of The Monkees television series. What began as nostalgic programming quickly became something much bigger. The response was overwhelming.
“We've never received such a volume of mail,” MTV general manager Tom Frestontold Rolling Stone later that year. “We were dumbfounded by the whole thing.”
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MTV aired 45 episodes of the Emmy-winning series back-to-back over the February 23rd weekend, then ran two episodes per day in March 1986, three per day in April, and then repeated the weekend marathon in June.
The surge of interest came at the perfect moment. Music promoter David Fishof had already been quietly exploring the idea of a 20th anniversary reunion tour with Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones and Peter Tork. The MTV marathon turned that idea into a phenomenon.
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Within weeks, the trio committed to the tour. What had originally been planned as a short run of small amphitheaters exploded into a 100-plus city trek that stretched nearly six months. Demand was so intense that shows were moved into larger arenas and stadiums. By the end of 1986, the reunion had become one of the biggest-grossing tours of the year.
Rhino Records reissued the band’s original albums, and seven of the nine studio records returned to the Billboard Top 200. A new single, “That Was Then, This Is Now,” cracked the Billboard Top 20 and received heavy MTV rotation. Monkeemania was officially back.
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“We weren't prepared for this,” Dolenz said in 1986. “Suddenly, we found ourselves one of the hottest acts of the summer.”
Even Michael Nesmith, who was largely absent from the tour due to film commitments, joined the group onstage at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles later that year.
What started as a weekend nostalgia experiment became a full-blown cultural reset. MTV didn’t just replay old episodes—it revived a band for an entirely new generation.
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