I love The Monkees. Unabashedly. And I'm only a little ashamed about it. What's your guilty pleasure?

-- Kymm (hedgehog@hedgehog.net), June 29, 2000

Answers

I love the Monkees so much that I wrote an article about them! Want to read it? Here it goes: http://www.boobtoob.net/ (click on "Reruns").

And not only did I watch and record the made-for-TV movie, but I recorded all 15 hours of the Monkees marathon!

-- Katrina (xntryx@chickmail.com), June 29, 2000.

So long as there is one person left on this planet who believes that WFW and the events on the Jerry Springer show are real, I refused to feel the slightest bit of guilt out of any pleasure I find anywhere, and that's all there is to it.

However, I probably shouldn't have so many peanut butter and banana sandwiches, given my diet... and have you ever tried warm peanut butter as a topping on mocha fudge ice cream? Oh, and adult beverages... some of those are very nice.

But no guilt. None. No sirree.

-- Colin (ethilrist@prodigy.net), June 29, 2000.

Sweets, and reading trashy novels instead of worthy literature.

-- Jackie (jackiec@diaryland.com), June 29, 2000.

Sweets, my inability to walk past a discounted biography or picture book devoted to Princess Diana (they're all discounted, now) without making a purchase and my secret love of the band Embrace.

-- Jackie Danicki (nein@freeuk.com), June 29, 2000.

I love the Monkees too!

Last night I was searching my house for something and I came upon old 45's. God, Remember life before CD's???? Anyway, I have some old Monkees 45's!

Wonder what I could get for them on Ebay? Does everyone do that now? -- Look at their old crap and wonder what they could get for it on ebay?

-- Colleen (triggirl@yahoo.com), June 29, 2000.

The Monkees are a pleasure. Not a guilty one, I proudly state that I'm a Monkee's fan. Their music is good.

You probably could get a good price for those 45s on ebay. I have original copies of "Meet the Monkees", "Picies, Aquarius, Capricorn, and Jones, Ltd" and the "Head" soundtrack on vinyl, but I can't play them because I don't have a needle for my turntable, drat the luck.

-- Roger Bixby (rbix@earthlink.net), June 29, 2000.

Ben & Jerry's mint cookie in a Keebler's sugar cone.

I have totally weaned myself off everything out of the free vending machine at work, using nothing but a quarter-teaspoon of willpower and the promise of ice cream cones in the evening.

Man, I'm ready to leave work early and go have one now. No, wait. That's wrong.

-- Jessie (sorokin@alum.mit.edu), June 29, 2000.

"Sometime in the Morning" is hands down the finest Monkees song around. My brother and I both cried when they took the re-runs off the air back in the late 70's, early 80's...whenever it was. We were both way too old to be crying about that kind of thing.

There was a time that I was in-love with Micky Dolenz.

Guilty pleasures, though... Handmade paper, long gauzy skirts and home made icecream.

-- Jackie (jackie@jackie.nu), June 29, 2000.

I adored The Monkees when I was a kid, and then again in high school. I still do, just not quite as fanatically.

There was a MOVIE recently? And I missed it?! Someone please tell me it's on tape somewhere...

I'm mostly unashamed in my Monkees adoration. The show was GOOD, damn it. It was way, way ahead of its time in terms of comedy and production aspects. Until that point, there was nothing on TV like it. I used to have all of the episodes on tape, but I think I've lost a few tapes. I also owned all the albums as well, but my vinyl collection was a casualty of my divorce a few years back.

And Kymm? Don't be ashamed for liking "Head"! I do too. I think it's a good movie, if more than a little off-kilter. :)

BTW, "Sometime in the Morning" was one of my favorites too, mostly because Micky sang it, and Micky was my darling. Especially with the 'fro. ;)

-- Lisa (lisa@selkie.net), June 29, 2000.

The Monkees movie is currently playing on VH-1. Sure to be rerun a thousand times this summer. It's swell, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I love the Monkees.

My guilty pleasure is reading celebrity magazines like Star and People and ET. It's not that I think people will sneer at my low brow tastes, but... no, wait. That's exactly what I think. Well, also I feel guilty about giving the paparazzi a reason to live.

-- Lucy Huntzinger (huntzinger@mindspring.com), June 30, 2000.

I'm starting to think Jackie and I were the same person or something in another life. Not only do we wear the same color lipstick, but "Sometime In the Morning" is MY favorite Monkees song!!

The Monkees were actually my first concert, when they were touring without Mike in 1986. I was a screaming banshee. I didn't care that they were forty something or whatever and that Peter hadn't aged well. I was all about the Monkees.

Other favorites...Shades of Gray...I'm Gonna Buy Me A Dog...What Am I Doin' Hangin' Round...

-- Melissa (centerbeth@yahoo.com), June 30, 2000.

Yeah, I do the People magazine reading too. In fact, just yesterday I bought the one with Prince William on the cover.

I also make and eat cookie dough and buttercream frosting. Never in front of other people.

-- Catherine (catcoicrit@earthlink.net), June 30, 2000.

*eyes Melissa and Jackie*

Were we separated at birth?

My first concert was seeing the Monkees in 1986. And yeah, I didn't care if they were old and balding either. :) I remember being enormously bummed because my friend Dana and I had made a huge sign out of a bedsheet that said, "We love you, Micky, Peter and Davy! Love, Lisa and Dana" that had peace signs all over it. We were sitting in the first row of the balcony, but the security guards wouldn't let us put up our sign. Hours of work, wasted. *sigh* :)

-- Lisa (lisa@selkie.net), June 30, 2000.

Romance novels. I love reading trashy, period romance novels. Oh, and teen screamies- like Fear Street by R.L. Stine? Anything by Christopher Pike? I'm a total sucker for those neon emblazoned scraps of not-really-horror.

-- Saundra (headspace@anywherebeyond.com), July 03, 2000.

Um... *blush*

"A Wedding Story" on TLC. And right now, god help me, there's a 12-episode all-afternoon-marathon on!

My fiancé finds it very disturbing that I can stomach this stuff. He thinks it's like crack. He's probably right, but I just can't help myself...

-- Cameron (cameron@cimtegration.com), July 04, 2000.

My guilty pleasure would be celebrity gossip columns. I know it's wrong, but I follow that sort of entertainment news anyway.

There are other things I like that other people might think I should feel guilty about -- I am a Deborah Gibson fan, after all -- but that doesn't bother me one bit.

-- Shmuel (shmuel@nycmail.com), July 04, 2000.