BBS Productions

Raybert Productions was a production company that operated in the 1960s, founded by Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider. Its principal works were the wildly successful situation comedy The Monkees (and the group of the same name), and the 1969 movie Easy Rider (co-produced with Peter Fonda's Pando Company). Raybert was also the predecessor to BBS Productions, a New Hollywood production company founded by Rafelson, Schneider, and Schneider’s childhood friend Stephen Blauner. BBS Productions' best known film is The Last Picture Show.

Wishing to break into movie production, but lacking experience, Rafelson and Schneider used their Hollywood connections to get the chance to produce a pilot episode for a television series. Adapting what they saw in the Beatles' movies A Hard Day's Night and Help!, and throwing in ideas of their own, Schneider and Rafelson developed The Monkees as the misadventures of an as-yet undiscovered rock band, with songs by the (originally) fictional band as soundtrack music, and as a tie-in for promotion and merchandising.

The original edit of their pilot episode (filmed late in 1965, with music provided by Boyce and Hart) rated poorly with a test audience, but a re-edit scored one of the highest ratings ever, and NBC bought a season's worth of episodes. Screen Gems, the television wing of Columbia Pictures, had a music publishing department, with ties to some of the best songwriting talent in the US (including New York City's Brill Building songwriters), and were able to provide top-notch songs for the show, while Colgems Records was set up to issue records from The Monkees and other productions.

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