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For my money, the Monkees are way, way more interesting than the Beatles. 

According to Andrew Sandoval's thorough and invaluable book "The Monkees: The Day-By-Day Story of the '60s TV Pop Sensation," an ad was put in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter on September 8, 1965, looking for "four insane boys" to be the members of a new pre-fabricated pop band. The band would also star in a TV series -- deliberately meant to evoke Richard Lester's 1964 Beatles film "A Hard Day's Night" -- that would use their real names, but present their lives as a fictional merry-go-round of kooky shenanigans. 

The producers zeroed in on former child actor Micky Dolenz, a friend of musician Stephen Stills named Peter Tork, a British, boyish heartthrob named Davy Jones, and heir to the Liquid Paper fortune, Mike Nesmith. Their TV series debuted on September 12, 1966, the week after "Star Trek" debuted, and...

Ever forget to turn off your Monday-Friday alarm on the weekend’s eve? Beep beep…Beep Beep…Beep Beep…“Oh man. Work.” You exhale a long sigh and as you start to sit up, a suspicious feeling comes over you. Your brow furrows as your sleepy fog cloaks clear thinking—ahh yes. It’s Saturday. Two choices: either go back to sleep or get your day started off any way you want. When you’re a kid, the choice here is easy: flip on the morning’s cartoons. As an adult, the decision becomes tougher. Unless of course you were a child of the 1970s and have recently acquired the new box set, Saturday Morning Cartoons:1970s Volume 1. If so, the nostalgia will beckon you from catching a few more Z's and you’ll probably end up in the kitchen pouring a bowl of cereal to eat in front of the television.