TV Tuesday S0107: LOVE MONKEY

Love Monkey was a mid-season replacement series for CBS in 2006. After just three episodes, it was pulled from the schedule and sat on the shelf for a month until VH1 (a sister company to CBS in the Viacom corporate family) announced it would be repeating those first three episodes and airing the remaining five episodes that were in the can.

HERC missed the initial CBS run (sprint?) but caught the show's residency on VH1. There are many things he likes about the show but the top three are: Tom Cavanaugh, the music aspect and Judy Greer. The rest of the cast (see pic above) is crazy likable as well.

Cavanaugh plays Tom, a man-boy who works at a record label.  Greer plays Bran (short for Brandy), his best friend.  The other three gents play his other best friends - they drink, dine and shoot hoops together.  One's a doctor married to Tom's sister, expecting their first child; another is a wealthy real estate heir while the third is a closeted former jock turned reporter.  

The music supervisor for Love Monkey is Nic Harcourt.  He was the "Morning Becomes Eclectic" host on KCRW at the time and one of the most influential disc jockeys in the country.  In addition to movies like 2004's Anchorman, Harcourt was also music supervisor for the short-lived series Life As We Know It from 2004-2005.  [full disclosure: HERC bought Harcourt's 2005 book Music Lust before he knew who he was.)

The show's problems are obvious in hindsight: an inscrutable title, poor postioning/scheduling by the network and the dreaded "dramedy" designation.  And, due to the music aspect of it, it will forever be dated and unable to sustain repeated viewings.  There are some familiar faces (Aimee Mann, John Mellencamp, Dr. John) as well as others like Teddy Geiger who kind of played himself as an artist Tom signed to his label.

Be honest, what came to mind when you saw the title graphic at the top of the post?  Probably not the same thing you've seen in the show clips thus far.  So the title was a liability.  Ah but the show was adapted from the novel of the same name although Tom's character was given an almost complete redesign.  HERC found the book and read it and liked it.  HERC likes monkeys.

Originally airing on Tuesday nights in the final hour before the local news, following the lead-in of NCIS and The Unit which meant millions of viewers, all hopped up on military action, simply changed the channel to view (based on the ratings) Law & Order: SVU.   Maybe it would have worked better as a half-hour comedy paired with The New Adventures of Old Christine, still one of the funniest shows EVER.

Love Monkey has never been officially released on a home video format but it has popped up on streaming video services.  And through the largess of YouTube user LonelyBranch, those initial three episodes plus the series finale are currently up for your viewing pleasure.  

Here's a Summer Smoothie recipe to give you an idea of what Love Monkey is like:

What about the music?

"Someone Who's Cool" by Odds, the show's  theme song for the first three episodes is not on Spotify at the moment.  Some of the other music heard, mentioned or alluded to in the show is included in HERC's Mix below.