Though modern medicine benefits people far and wide, pockets of the world remain untouched by it. In these isolated areas, people don’t know about amoxicillin, and they don’t live with air filters, daily showers or the power of Purell. Diets there favor starch and fiber, with very few preservatives.

María Gloria Domínguez-Bello, a microbiologist at the University of Puerto Rico, thinks that the mix of microbes living within and on people in these places—their microbiome—may be close to that of more ancient humans. If so, studying the populations could tell scientists whether today’s war on bacteria has eliminated some helping hands, organisms that once protected us all from allergies and autoimmune diseases.

To find out, Domínguez-Bello and her colleagues journeyed deep into the Amazon rainforest to the isolated village of Checherta, in Peru. There, her team collected DNA samples from villagers’ hands, feet, cheeks and tongue, as well as from air, livestock and work surfaces. By comparing these samples with similar ones collected in three other towns and cities—all in the Amazon, but with varying lifestyles—the team hopes to identify any microbe species that modern medicine may have wiped out.

Aliens Inside Us, a Smithsonian Channel documentary premiering May 4 at 8 p.m. ET, follows the research effort. As the scientists make contact, they also introduce antibiotics that could transform the microbiomes of the people in Checherta. It would be unethical, says Domínguez-Bello, to bring doctors to an area where people suffer from infectious diseases without offering help. “We spoil the very places we go for our study,” she says, ‘but it is unavoidable.”

In the Amazon, María Gloria Domínguez-Bello and her team collected about 1,500 DNA samples to identify any microbe species that modern medicine may have wiped out. Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian Channel

Smithsonian Channel is about to get some new hardware to add to its fast-growing awards collection. On Wednesday, March 27, the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication announced this year’s George Foster Peabody Award recipients, and the six-year-old Channel got the call.

The Peabody Award is the oldest and among the most prestigious annual awards in electronic media, started in 1941 to recognize exceptional work made for radio, the web and television. Smithsonian Channel won a documentary award for MLK: The Assassination Tapes, its 2012 film by producer Tom Jennings that tells the story of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination in 1968 entirely from historical news reports and rare footage—no narrator or interviews.

“The technique really brings out the raw drama of the narrative,” says the Smithsonian Channel’s Executive Vice President of Programming and Production David Royle, an executive producer on the show. “When you watch the film, it’s as if you’re sitting at home watching it on television for the first time. It has a real visceral immediacy to it.”

Photo courtesy of Smithsonian Channel

Jennings gathered most of his footage from a fortuitous source. When Memphis’s mostly black sanitation workers went on strike in February 11, 1968, several faculty members at the University of Memphis began collecting every piece of media they could find relating to the strike, convinced of its historical importance. King showed up in the city to lend his support, and was shot on his motel balcony a day after delivering his famous “I’ve been to the Mountaintop” address at the city’s Mason Temple. Memphis’s faculty saved all the coverage of his death and its aftermath  in their Special Collections Division, so they wound up with a rare, big-picture account of the murder and its elaborate social context.

“It was startling to me just how volatile America was in 1968,” says Royle. “In the film, you see the long-simmering anger on both sides of the racial divide absolutely boiling over. It is intense. It’s not that there aren’t racial issues confronting America today, but what you see is just so out of control, and so angry. It brings it home that I think a lot of us have forgotten about, even people who lived through that; it’s hard to remember just what a knife edge America was balanced on in those years.”

Royle believes that witnessing Americans tackling these issues in King’s time provides a lesson of hope and perseverance for modern viewers. “It’s important for a younger generation that we see people confront what was going on, and to appreciate the courage of the past,” he says. “I think it gives people who are confronting today’s version of injustice courage to also stand up for what they believe in. Even though this story is infused with tragedy, it is ultimately a film of triumph. It’s a film of justice overcoming injustice.”

This year’s 38 other Peabody winners include a This American Life story about Guatemalan immigrant whose supposed father led the massacre of his village, a blog about the daily and historic workings of the Supreme Court and Lena Dunham’s mega-popular HBO comedy-drama “Girls.” The awards will be presented at a ceremony in May, but there’s no need to wait around to see MLK: The Assassination Tapes in action—watch the whole film above!

A scene from the Smithsonian Channel’s new documentary, Lincoln’s Washington at War. Courtesy of Smithsonian Channel

In 1861, with the Civil War at Washington’s doorstep, President Lincoln was haunted by an terrifying dream foretelling his own assassination. Years later, on their last day together in 1865, Lincoln and his wife shared their dreams for the future over a carriage ride. She wished to see the European capitals and he hoped to take in California’s gold mines. Later that night, as the assassin’s bullet cut short the president’s life, Lincoln’s premonition from four years earlier came true.

That poignant piece of history is just part of the documentary, Lincoln’s Washington at War, airing Saturday at 1 pm on the Smithsonian Channel. The new documentary, which premiered earlier this week on President’s Day, features the American History Museum’s Harry Rubenstein, curator and author of Abraham Lincoln: An Extraordinary Life, and follows the transformation of the country’s capital in the midst of a national conflict.

Rubenstein has long been interested in Lincoln. As part of the 2009 team that took apart a gold pocket watch that once belonged to Lincoln, he helped confirm a long-held rumor that a watchmaker had scrawled a secret message behind the dial. The watchmaker, Jonathon Dillon, was repairing the watch in his shop on the day Fort Sumter was attacked by Confederate forces and the Civil War began and later told the New York Times he had left his own premonitory message, “The first gun is fired. Slavery is dead. Thank God we have a President who at least will try.”

In truth, the message was much plainer (“Jonathan Dillon April 13-1861 Fort Sumpter [sic] was attacked by the rebels on the above date J Dillon April 13-1861 Washington thank God we have a government Jonth Dillon”). But Lincoln unknowingly carried the hopeful blessing with him, in his pocket, inside the gold chamber of his pocket watch, throughout the war.

Both Dillon and Lincoln’s fateful visions would come true, transforming a country and its capital forever.

Smithsonian Channel’s “Decoding Immortality” recently won an Emmy for Outstanding Science and Technology Program.” Courtesy of the Smithsonian Channel

This month on the Smithsonian Channel, the award-winning programming continues with a look behind a famous portrait of our first president, a momentous protest that began at a lunch counter and a newly discovered monster predator. The Channel’s program about the promise of youth hidden inside an enzyme, “Decoding Immortality,” recently took home an Emmy for outstanding science and technology programming. Be sure to catch the program about the findings of Nobel Prize-winning researcher Elizabeth Blackburn.

Picturing the President: George Washington
Monday, October 22nd, 9:30 P.M. EST
Tuesday, October 23, 12:30 A.M. EST
Friday, October 26, 5:00 P.M. EST
We all know the many stories of George Washington, but what about the story behind his portrait, one of the most famous paintings in American history? Examine Gilbert Stuart’s unforgettable portrait, which captures the spirit of this victorious general, stalwart leader, and pioneering president of the United States of America. The story of the painting reverberates to present times.

Seizing Justice: The Greensboro 4  
Monday, October 29th, 9 P.M. EST
Thursday, October 25, 5:00 A.M EST
Monday, October 29, 9:00 P.M. EST

In February of 1960, a simple coffee order at America’s favorite five-and-dime store sparked a series of events that would help put an end to segregation in the United States. Join us as we detail the extraordinary story of otherwise ordinary young men, four African-American college students whose nonviolent sit-in at a Woolworth’s lunch counter started a revolution.

Titanoboa: Monster Snake  
Wednesday, October 31, 9:00 P.M. EST
Saturday, October 20, 2:00 A.M. EST
Wednesday, October 31, 9:00 P.M. EST

In the pantheon of predators, it’s one of the greatest discoveries since the T-Rex: a snake 48 feet long, weighing in at 2,500 pounds. Uncovered from a treasure trove of fossils in a Colombian coal mine, this serpent is revealing a lost world of giant creatures. Travel back to the period following the extinction of dinosaurs and encounter this monster predator.

Decoding Immortality
Sunday, October 21, 5:00 P.M. EST
Saturday, October 2, 2:00 A.M. EST
Wednesday, October 31, 9:00 P.M. EST

The Fountain of Youth may have just been discovered, not in a Florida spring, but in a murky Australian pond. Far from myth, the findings of Nobel Prize-winning scientist Elizabeth Blackburn, an enzyme that can keep cells young, may just prove to be the key to immortality. Join us as we track Blackburn and molecular biologist Carol Greider’s decades-long journey to fully understand this enzyme, which is both amazing and paradoxical, for while it may prove to be an elixir of endless life, it also has the power to kill.

In January 2011, the Smithsonian Channel approached Kevin Hockley, an Ontario-based model maker, with a tall (and rather long) order: Build us a snake.

Several years ago, Carlos Jaramillo, a paleontologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and scientists from the University of Florida, University of Toronto and Indiana University unearthed fossils of a prehistoric snake in northern Colombia. To tell the story of the discovery, the film producers wanted a full-scale replica of the creature.

Kevin Hockley and his model of Titanoboa. Courtesy of Robert Clark / INSTITUTE

The snake, however, was not your typical garter snake or rattlesnake, which Hockley had sculpted before, but Titanoboa, a 2,500-pound “titanic boa” as long as a school bus that lived 58 million years ago.

Hockley’s 48-foot long replica of Titanoboa slurping down a dyrosaur (an ancient relative of crocodiles), is being unveiled today at Grand Central Station in New York City. The sculpture will be on display through March 23, and then it will be transported to Washington, D.C., where it will be featured in the exhibition “Titanoboa: Monster Snake” at the National Museum of Natural History, opening March 30. Smithsonian Channel’s two-hour special of the same title will premiere on April 1.

“Kevin seemed like a natural choice,” says Charles Poe, an executive producer at the Smithsonian Channel. Poe was especially impressed by a narwhal and a 28-foot-long giant squid that the artist made for the Royal Ontario Museum. “He had experience making museum-quality replicas, and even more important, he’d created some that seem larger than life. When you’re recreating the largest snake in world history it helps to have a background in the fantastical,” Poe says.

In fact, Hockley has been in the business of making taxidermy mounts and life-size sculptures for more than 30 years. He mounted his first ruffed grouse as a teen by following instructions from a library book. Hockley spent his high school years apprenticing as a taxidermist in Collingwood, Ontario, and he worked a dozen years at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, creating mounts as well as artistic reconstructions of animals and their habitats. Today, as owner of Hockley Studios, a three-person operation headquartered on the 15-acre property where he lives, near Bancroft, Ontario, he builds bronze sculptures of caribou, lynx and wolves and life-like replicas of mastodon and other Ice Age animals, such as extinct peccaries and jaguars, for museums, visitor centers and parks.

Creating Titanoboa wasn’t easy. Scientists piecing together what the prehistoric creature might have looked like provided Hockley with some basic parameters. “They linked it strongly to modern-day snakes, which was very helpful,” says Hockley. “It was sort of a blend of a boa constrictor and an anaconda.” He studied photographs and video of boas and anacondas and visited live specimens at the Indian River Reptile Zoo, near Peterborough, Ontario. “I could see the way the skeleton and the musculature moved as the animal moved,” says Hockley. “There are all these little bulges of muscle at the back of the head that convey the animal’s jaws are working.” He made sure that those bulges were on his model. Hockley also noted the background colors of anacondas and the markings of boa constrictors. Jason Head, a vertebrate paleontologist and herpetologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, surmised that the coloration of the prehistoric snake might have been similar. “Of course, this is speculation,” says Hockley. “It could have been pink with polka dots for all we know.”

A replica model of the 45-foot-long snake thought to be of Anaconda descent. Courtesy of Robert Clark / INSTITUTE

The first step to building the replica was coming up with a pose. Hockley produced a scale model in clay, an inch of which represented a foot of the actual replica. The snake’s body forms two loops, where museum visitors can wander. “I tried to make it interactive, so you can actually get in and feel what it is like to be surrounded by a snake,” says Hockley. He stacked large sheets of 12-inch-thick Styrofoam high enough to make a snake with a 30-inch circumference. He drew the pose on to the Styrofoam and used a chainsaw, fish filet knives and a power grinder with coarse sand paper disks on it to carve the snake. Hockley applied paper mâché to the Styrofoam and then a layer of polyester resin to strengthen it. On top of that, he put epoxy putty and used rubber molds to texture it with scales. “The hardest part was trying to make the scales flow and continue as lines,” he says. When the putty dried, he primed and painted the snake. He started with the strongest markings and then layered shades over the top to achieve the depth of color he desired. “It makes the finished product that much more convincing,” he says. The snake was made in six sections to allow for easier transport, but devising a way to seamlessly connect the parts was also tricky. Hockley used a gear mechanism in a trailer jack, so that by ratcheting racheting a tool, he can draw the pieces tightly together.

From start to finish, construction of the replica took about five months. As for materials, it required 12 four-foot-by-eight-foot sheets of Styrofoam, 20 gallons of polyester resin, 400 pounds of epoxy resin and numerous gallons of paint. Smithsonian Channel producers installed a camera in Hockley’s studio to create a timelapse video (above) of the process.

“It was an amazing opportunity,” says Hockley. The artist hopes that his model of Titanoboa gives people an appreciation for how big animals could be 60 million years ago. Since snakes are coldblooded, the size they can attain is dependent on the temperature in which they live, and temperatures during Titanoboa‘s time were warmer than today. As a result, the snake was much bigger than today’s super snakes. “Hopefully they will be awestruck by its realism,” he says. “A little bit of fear would be nice.”

In February, to commemorate Black History Month, the Smithsonian Channel, Comcast and the National Museum of American History hosted an essay contest for high school students. Participants were asked to watch “Seizing Justice: The Greensboro 4,” a Smithsonian Channel program about the 1960 sit-in at the F.W. Woolworth store in Greensboro, North Carolina. Then, they had to answer one of three questions for the chance to win an iPad 2. More than 200 students entered, but it was 15-year-old Kaleb Harris, a sophomore at DeMatha Catholic High School in Hyattsville, Maryland, who won the grand prize.

According to Harris, he wrote his winning essay at his mother’s urging. He was not familiar with the story of the Greensboro sit-in, but he watched the Smithsonian Channel segment and learned about Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, David Richmond and Ezell Blair, Jr. (now Jabreel Khazan), the four African-American students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College, who defiantly sat down at the whites-only luncheonette. Harris was moved when he visited the National Museum of American History and saw the actual lunch counter where the nonviolent protest was held.

“I honestly don’t know if I could have done what they did back in the day,” says Harris. “I would have liked to have tried, but it might have taken awhile for me to get used to it.”

In his essay, Harris reflects on the Civil Rights movement and what its leaders set out to do. He writes:

Have the goals of the Civil Rights movement been achieved? Yes and no. The Civil Rights Movement was centered on justice and equal treatment for African Americans and other races. Not all of the goals have been reached. The goals of freedom, education and justice have been reached, but there is still racism that is present to this very day.

In fact, Harris recalls a time just last year when he felt that he faced discrimination as an African American. He and his family were driving to California and had stopped at a restaurant in Texas late one evening. When they asked if they could be seated for dinner, the restaurant employees said they were just closing. “We saw a bunch of white people staring at us like we were awkward and out of our territory,” says Harris. “I didn’t like the way that felt.”

At a recent event for area high school students at the National Museum of American History, Joseph McNeil, one of the “Greensboro 4,” announced that Harris was the essay contest winner. The teenager had the opportunity to meet McNeil. “It was inspirational,” says Harris. “Also, it was kind of funny because the first thing he said to me was ‘Wow, that was really good. It sounded like I wrote that myself.’”

McNeil spoke to the group about why he did what he did and the gumption it took to be able to sit down at the segregated lunch counter. For as serious as the address was, McNeil also conveyed a sense of humor. “He talked about how the pie and the coffee wasn’t all that great,” says Harris. The two exchanged email addresses so that they might stay in touch.

Kids are back to school. Cravings for homemade chili and freshly picked apples kick in. And across the country, football season officially begins. (If you haven’t seen high school and college players, strengthened by arduous two-a-days, suiting up for their season openers, you’ve surely witnessed office mates tinkering with their fantasy football teams, right?)

In due tribute to the excitement of another season of pep rallies and Friday night games under the lights, the Smithsonian Channel premieres “The Rivals” this Saturday, September 11, at 9 p.m. The documentary, directed by Kirk Wolfinger, follows two high school football teams from Western Maine, both hell-bent on winning the state championship, through their 2007 season.

The football field is just about the only place where the Falcons of Mountain Valley High School in Rumford, Maine, and the Capers of Cape Elizabeth High School in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, are evenly matched. Rumford is a blue-collar town struggling to be supported by a paper mill in town, while Cape Elizabeth is a white-collar town teeming with successful doctors and lawyers. The Mountain Valley Falcons play on a worn field in the shadow of the mill’s smokestacks, and the Capers have a new turf field funded by their Booster Club. Plain and simple, it is the “haves” versus the “have nots.” And, as the narrator of the film points out, football, in this case, is more than just a game. It is a clash of cultures.

But the Mountain Valley Falcons do have experience on their side. Coach Jim Aylward has led them to six conference titles and two state championships during his long tenure. Ninety miles south of Rumford, Coach Aaron Filieo, three years into establishing a football program at Cape Elizabeth High School, is just trying to make a name for his Capers.

The film transported my husband and I back to our high school sports days, reminding us of rivalries, coaching styles, spaghetti dinners and, most of all, the sense of community that sports create. ”When you’re carrying the ball,” Coach Aylward tells his players, “you’re carrying it for the whole town.”

Though particularly poignant to former athletes, the story, with its life lessons of respect, pride and perseverance, has been enjoyed by a wide audience. On the independent film festival circuit, “The Rivals” has won the Audience Choice Award at the 2010 Woods Hole Festival, Best Picture at the 2010 Phoenix Film Festival and Best Documentary at the 2009 Los Angeles Reel Film Festival.

When field biologist Gudrun Pflueger found out, in 2005, that a cancerous tumor the size of a golf ball was growing in her brain, her chances for survival looked bleak. Many might have even said that recovery was impossible. But Pflueger—sweet, and yet tough as nails—fought, and remained hopeful.

“Already once something impossible happened,” she says. “Why not a second time?”

The miracle she’s referring to happened just prior to her diagnosis. Pflueger, a wolf expert, was on a six-week expedition along the coast of British Columbia, when she experienced a rare wildlife encounter. Seven Canadian coast wolves encircled her, curiously but not aggressively, in a meadow, while she lay prone in the grass. They played in the field for about an hour.

“The situation kind of carefully evolved. It was always their decision to come closer and closer. They didn’t rush. They took their time. They tried to smell me. They never showed any sign that they would even remotely consider me as prey,” Pflueger told me in an interview two years ago. “They just accepted me.”

At that time, the Smithsonian Channel was preparing to air its first program on Pflueger, called “A Woman Among Wolves.” (Check out the interview and the accompanying video clip.) Now, cancer-free, Pflueger is the subject of a sequel. The channel’s “Running with Wolves” premieres this Sunday at 8pm (et/pt).

“They [the wolves] gave me their will to fight for my life and be determined,” says Pflueger in the film, which describes her deep connection to the animals. The biologist says that her battle with cancer really brought her work into focus, and to a great extent her life’s, purpose, to fight for wolf conservation.

In “Running with Wolves,” she returns to the meadow where her encounter with the wolves happened. She also searches for wolves in other parts of British Columbia, setting up motion sensitive cameras along the way. Months after she installs a camera outside of an empty wolf den, she returns to it and watches the footage. Jackpot! For a second time, she gets a privileged view of wolves. On her laptop, in a cabin in the backcountry, she watches wolf pups coming out of their den for the first time.

Watch this clip as the crew passes over Pearl Harbor. Today marks the 68th anniversary of the attack.

The show airs again tonight at 5 p.m. EST, on Thursday, 9 p.m. EST, and Saturday, 6 p.m. EST. For more viewings, see this calendar.

A Colombian accordion player featured in Smithsonian Network's " The Accordion Kings" focuses intently. Photo courtesy of Smithsonian Networks.

As part of the Latin American Film Showcase, “The Accordion Kings: The Story of Colombian Vallenato Music,” a Smithsonian Networks film, will be shown at the Georgetown Business School – Lohrfink Auditorium tomorrow at 6:30 p.m. The film captures an annual festival of accordion music that takes place in the Colombian coastal town of Valledupar.

In 2008, Smithsonian magazine’s Kenny Fletcher wrote about the making of the film. The documentary focuses on the competition among accordion masters to be crowned the “vallenato king” at the festival. Vallenato is similar to country music in the United States, relating the everyday stories of love and love lost. “Wearing straw cowboy hats and jeans,” Fletcher wrote, “the hopefuls are covered in sweat, eyes closed, bodies rocking, fingers blurring as they fly across the accordion’s keys. The competition’s nationally televised finale has the drama and fanfare of “American Idol.”

As the genre becomes mainstream, festival organizers say the competition, which promotes the traditional form of vallenato, preserves their musical heritage. “It’s a way of linking you to the land, to your ancestors, your traditions,” says Gabriela Febres-Cordero, the honorary president of the 40-year-old festival.”

Vallenato is an essential part of Colombian culture. The rhythm of vallenato was first documented in the late 1800s. Gabriel García Márquez is said to have described his novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, as a 400-page vallenato.

The Latin American Film Showcase this year features more than 30 films from from almost 20 countries. The offerings include contemporary classics as well as films released just this year.

Scene from "Batwomen of Panama." Image courtesy of the Smithsonian Channel.

Let’s take a moment to think about notable women of the past decade or so. How many entertainers can you rattle off the top of your head? Sports stars? How about scientists?

I’m guessing you choked a little on that last one. Let’s rectify the situation, shall we?

March is Women’s History Month and the Smithsonian Channel is giving it up to the girls with Women of Science, a series of four films which will be broadcast throughout the month. The series kicks off tonight at 8:00 with A Woman Among Wolves, Batwomen of Panama and Footprints on the Water. (The fourth film, Flying With Condors, will first air on Thursday, March 5). Go to the Smithsonian Channel’s website for a full schedule of these and other horizon-broadening programs. (I mean c’mon—what golden nugget of information were you able to casually toss off at your last cocktail party? You owe it to yourself to watch.)

Aerangis distincta. Photo by James Osen, Smithsonian Institution.

You can learn a lot of things from the flowers. Perhaps the girls from Sex and the City should have ditched the daily macchiatos and decked out to the local botanical garden to take a few pointers from the orchids. That’s right kids, orchids are total pros when it comes to sex, and it has served them well when it comes to finding Mr. Right. (Well, in the wild world of plants, it’s more like “Mr. Right Now,” but you get what I mean.)

Thanks to the coquettish ways in which they attract pollinators—from bright colors to inviting curves—these flowers have managed to survive since the age of the dinosaurs. They have since developed into 25,000 different species, 10,000 of which are represented in the National Museum of Natural History’s horticultural collections. Orchids Through Darwin’s Eyes—the special title given to their 15th Annual Orchid Show honors the 200th birthday of the famous naturalist who was awed by orchid diversity—highlights these collections. (Fellow ATM blogger Joseph Caputo previously covered the show here.) Can’t get down to the National Mall before the show closes on April 26th? You can enjoy the Smithsonian’s spin on these sexy flowers by way of Smithsonian Channel’s Stories from the Vaults series. In the episode “Beauty,” host Tom Cavanaugh talks with Smithsonian Orchid Collection Specialist Tom Mirenda to get the lowdown on how orchids get their groove on. (See a clip from the show below. The episode is also available for download from iTunes.)

And any orchid-related stories or experiences you would like to share are also most welcome.

Monkees (sapiens musicalis) from left to right: Davy Jones, Mickey Dolenz, Peter Tork and Michael Nesmith

Hey hey it’s the Monkees, and they’re back on TV! The Smithsonian Channel’s new documentary “Making the Monkees” takes a look into one of the biggest musical sensations of the 1960s.

In November 1965, Davy Jones, Mickey Dolenz, Peter Tork and Michael Nesmith were brought together by central casting to star in a television show featuring a boy band to rival the Beatles.

The resultant avant garde TV program—a freewheeling show in a similar vein of A Hard Day’s Night—was an instant hit and presented a family friendly vision of the hippie generation to viewers both young and old. Combined with chart-topping singles like “Last Train to Clarksville,” “I’m Not Your Stepping Stone” and “Daydream Believer,” Monkeemania swept the US in the mid to late 60s.

And you know you’ve made it big when you get a board game AND a lunch box with your face on it. It’s also no small compliment being the object of Marcia Brady’s affections.

Unfortunately, fighting between the band members and producers over artistic differences led to the Monkees’ dissolution in the early 70s. Perhaps the crueler cut is that the band has been met with some disdain due to the fact that they did not write their own material and (at least in the case of earlier studio recording sessions) did not play their own instruments. However, no matter what your misgivings may be, it is undeniable that the Monkees were a major part of American popular culture. And if they’re too busy singing to put anybody down, why should you put them down?

Check out the promo video below and tune in to the premiere of “Making the Monkees” Saturday night at 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. It’ll be more fun than a barrel of Monkees.