Couple things I found out somewhere:
Mickey Dolenz wasn't a musician prior to the Monkees. he starred in a TV show in the US in the early 60's called "Circus Boy". I have never seen it on cable.
Mike was and is a big talent as a singer and songwriter. He also did some of the first music videos. His video "Elephant Parts" won awards and led to the formation of MTV.
Peter Tork used to play banjo in Greenwich Village and auditioned for the Monkees with his firend Stephen Stills, who flunked the audition because he had bad teeth.
Davey Jones had starred in musical theatre in England as a child.
The boys wrote some of the Monkee's songs, but most of the early hits, including the Monkees theme, were written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart. Among the other songwriters who wrote for the show were Neil Diamond and Michael Martin Murphy.
Although a lot of the instrumental tracks were recorded by session musicians, the band did sing. After hearing the criticism that they weren't a "real" band, they worked up the songs (Mike on guitar, Peter on Bass and keyboards, Mickey on drums, Davey on tamborine, keys and groovy moves) and toured.

Although they caught a lot of flack for being "put together" and not playing their own instruments, this wasn't all that uncommon in the early days of rock. The Supremes were put together by Barry Gordy at Motown. And a lot of the Beach Boys tracks were done by studio pros. Whether you consider them legit or not, there was a lot of craft in their music and the shows were a lot of fun.
OK. I'm officially out of the closet. I'm a musical garbologist. I may not be big on the origins of the traditional music that is the meat and potatoes here at the Mudcat, I know a whole lot about pop cultural crapola. And I like it all.