The Monkees go to a telephone answering service because they're missing too many calls. After being recruited by the overworked supervisor, getting mixed up in organized crime and trying to rescue a despondent caller, the boys learn the timeless lesson that call centers are awful.
Hold for the following tropes:
- Critical Staffing Shortage: The supervisor cannot wait to get out of there. Instead of shift schedules, she tells them to press a red button when they get tired. The red button opens the wall and pushes out a bed.
- Large Ham: An unethical aspiring actress convinces poor Mike that she wants to end her life, when she's really just testing her acting skills for a role. He spends the rest of the episode trying to save her while she carries on without explaining she's not serious.
- Rousing Speech: The supervisor draws the Monkees in to her dead-end job offer by passionately extolling the virtues of being a front line worker. As soon as they agree, she runs off to Jamaica.
- Spanner in the Works: Peter receives a message to book the Popsicles for a gig paying $10,000. He switches the band name to the Pelicans (not the Monkees), who he knows could use the work. Unfortunately, the caller is a bookmaker pretending to hire musicians when he's really placing illegal bets on racehorses. When the bookie's horse wins with nothing to show for it, he comes to take it out of Peter's hide.
