Micky Dolenz, Dave Draper, and the Death of a Boy’s Dreams

By the time you hit kindergarten, you were already a zealous convert to the gospel of hard work, marinated in a diet of children’s books and those absurdly persuasive Charles Atlas bodybuilding ads found in comic books. Your tiny brain was hardwired to believe that with enough elbow grease and grit, you could bend the universe to your will. You marched through life armed with Captain Kangaroo’s treacly aphorisms and the motivational war cries of The Little Engine That Could. “I think I can” became your toddler mantra, your creed, your caffeinated Kool-Aid.

Then came October 16, 1967. The day optimism died.

You were just twelve days shy of your sixth birthday, nestled into your evening ritual of watching The Monkees, when the episode “I Was a 99-lb. Weakling” detonated your reality. There on the screen was your scrappy hero Micky Dolenz, getting demolished on the beach by a slab of muscle named Bulk—played by none other than Mr. Universe Dave Draper. Bulk, a bleach-blonde Hercules with pecs that looked weaponized, snatched away Brenda, the beach goddess, without breaking a sweat.

Crushed but hopeful, Micky sought salvation through Weaklings Anonymous. His training montage was nothing short of existential punishment: lifting weights the size of Volkswagens, chugging fermented goat milk curd (which may as well have been bottled regret), and pawning off his drum set—essentially amputating his soul—to finance this fever dream of redemption.

And then came the final betrayal.

After all that sweat, sacrifice, and putrid curd, Brenda dumped Bulk and hooked up with some Proust-reading dandy who probably thought cardio was a character in Les Misérables. Your six-year-old heart imploded. You sat there slack-jawed, betrayed by TV, by Micky, by Brenda, and most of all, by the myth that hard work would win the day. Goat curd couldn’t save you. Pop-Tarts couldn’t save you. Even a twin-pack of Ding Dongs barely numbed the existential sting.

You wandered the next few years like a ghost of your former self, disillusioned, cynical, nursing your wounds in sugary snacks and quiet rage. Not until Arnold Schwarzenegger stormed into your life via Sports Illustrated and Pumping Iron did your faith in the bodybuilding gospel return. But by then, the damage was done. You knew the truth: sometimes, life crowns the guy reading Proust—and leaves the guy drinking protein shakes in the dust.