She: I can’t believe Davy Jones is dead. That’s so sad.

Z: It is sad. He wasn’t that old.

She: And he was still so cute and fit and trim.

Z: Aren’t you a little too young to have been a fan of The Monkees? The show ran from 1966 to 1968.

She: I think I saw them in reruns. I can’t remember exactly, but I do remember that Davy Jones was definitely one of my first safe crushes.

Z: Safe crush? Is that opposed to a dangerous crush?

She: Exactly. When girls first start to become aware of boys they have no interest in real boys, who are way too messy and smelly and say all the wrong things.

Z: Not me. I only farted roses and said things like, “Uh, like, Jordache sucks.”

She: When girls are young they need someone nonthreatening to fantasize about.

Z: Or a unicorn.

She: We couldn’t afford that, but we did have a TV set and a record player and spent a lot of time talking about our first celebrity safe crushes.

Z: I never really got that. No Farrah posters, no Sports Illustrated covers on the walls for me.

She: I wasn’t really a poster girl either, but I did have a subscription to Tiger Beat, which I devoured immediately the minute it came in the mail. Then I taped all of my favorite pictures inside the wall in my closet.

Z: You’re such a girl.

She: I think they were there until I went away to college.

Z: And Davy Jones was your favorite man-child?

She: Yep, I was always a sucker for accents. You’re right about the man-child persona, although I didn’t realize it at the time. He was cute and had groovy clothes and a cool way of talking, but there was still something inherently nonthreatening about him.

Z: You do realize he was an actor, right?

She: I was young, but there was still something really cute but nonthreatening about the character he played. He was definitely the cutest Monkee.

Z: I’m sure it was just all that paisley.

She: I love their music and Davy Jones had that great mop of hair that would slide into his eyes just a little bit.

Z: Note the similarity to Justin Bieber.

She: Totally.

Z: I liked The Monkees fine. Catchy theme song, although I remember being disappointed when I discovered that they weren’t really monkeys. It felt like false advertising.

She: “Daydream Believer,” “Last Train to Clarksville,” “Girl”? I loved those songs. We’d play them over and over.

Z: I’d make fun of you, but we played the Chipmunk Rock album a lot.

She: And you know how I feel about The Brady Bunch?

Z: It was almost our wedding theme.

She: My favorite episode ever of The Brady Bunch was when Davy Jones came to town and Marcia tracked him down at the recording studio.

Z: All your worlds came together. Beautiful.

She: She was president of the Fillmore Junior High Davy Jones Fan Club, and she had bragged to the whole school that she could get him to perform at her prom.

Z: Since when do junior highs have proms? I had issues with the reality of that episode.

She: Davy Jones had written a nice letter to Marcia so she thought they were close friends and she could get him to come to her school.

Z: Thus beginning today’s long tradition of celebrity hounding where every schmo in the world thinks he or she can get a date with their favorite star just by making a lame YouTube video.

She: If you were Marcia Brady it would work. Trust me. I wrote a letter asking him to come to our school after that episode. All I got back was an autographed picture.

Z: He was probably bombarded with letters after that Brady Bunch episode.

She: I bet he would have come if only my elementary school had a prom.

Z: Yes, dear.

— Share your man-child memories with She and Z by emailing leslie@lesliedinaberg.com. And follow them on Twitter: @lesliedinaberg. Click here for previous She Said, Z Said columns.