Micky Dolenz looked back on The Monkees’ fast rise to fame. The made-for-TV rock band made their debut on their self-titled NBCsitcom in September 1966, about one month after their first single, ”The Last Train to Clarksville,” dropped. The song hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and the show was a hit, too.
In a February 2026 essay for Uncut, Dolenz, the last surviving member of The Monkees, detailed the moment he first knew he was famous 60 years ago.
"The show debuted in September 1966 and became a hit pretty fast,” Dolenz shared. "We knew that the show was a success when the first single, “Last Train To Clarksville”, began climbing up the charts to No 1. But we were isolated from the world outside. This was before social media, before paparazzi even.”
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Dolenz, 80, explained that the band spent long hours in the studio and filming the show. He noted that in the pre-paparazzi days, no one knew where he and his bandmates Mike Nesmith, Davy Jones, or Peter Tork worked or lived.
“We had a Christmas break, our first hiatus from filming,” Dolenz continued. “I had to get Christmas presents for my family in San Jose. So I went to this mall I’d been using since I was a child, right there in San Fernando Valley where I grew up. I opened the doors, walked in and suddenly heard screaming! There were people running towards me. I thought there was a fire. So I turned round and opened the door I had just come through saying, ‘Don’t run!' Walk! Calm down!’ That’s when I realized it was a herd of kids and they were running at me. I had to get in my car and drive away fast. That was the first time I saw how big it had become.”
Micky Dolenz said ‘nothing’ could have prepared him for the Monkees fame
Dolenz previously told Best Classic Bands he had “no idea” what was going on with The Monkees fandom until the Christmas 1966 incident.
“That was the first time I realized, “Holy s---! Something is going on here,” he said. “I had only been at the studio and at home. I had no idea what was happening.”
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The actor and singer, who had been a child star on the 1950s adventure western series Circus Boy, told Music Radar that while he had a “taste“ of fame as a child star, it was nothing like what he experienced at the height of The Monkees craze.
"Until we got on the road and started doing concerts, I had no idea how successful the show and the music were,” he said. "But I'd had a taste of it before on a much lower level. I'd been a child star on a TV series [Circus Boy]. I had a fan club, I had parades, and I had kids running after me for autographs. It wasn't on the scale of The Monkees, of course."
"By the time The Monkees came along, I knew the score. But nothing could have prepared me for what happened with The Monkees," Dolenz added.
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