Songfacts®:

• "Zilch" is the sound of The Monkees monkeying around in the studio. The song consists of the four members repeating a phrase over and over to create a 1:06 spoken-word cacophony. The phrases are:
  
  Peter Tork: "Mr. Dobalina, Mr. Bob Dobalina"
  
  Davy Jones: "China Clipper calling Alameda"
  
  Micky Dolenz: "Never mind the furthermore, the plea is self defense"
  
  Michael Nesmith: "It is of my opinion that the people are intending"
• Based on various interviews with the band members, here are the stories behind the phrases:
  
  "Mr. Dobalina, Mr. Bob Dobalina" - They were in an airport when they heard Mr. Bob Dobalina being paged.
  
  "China Clipper calling Alameda" - A reference to the The Pan Am Clipper flying boats that served Alameda, California.
  
  "Never mind the furthermore, the plea is self defense" - A line from the musical Oklahoma!
  
  "It is of my opinion that the people are intending" - a made up line that sounds like a bureaucratic speech.
• The word "zilch" is slang for nothing, which indicates the meaning behind the song. It's just the guys fooling around in the studio.
• The song is part of the 1967 Monkees album Headquarters, the first one where the band played their own instruments and had some creative control.
• A part of this song shows up in an episode of The Monkees' TV series called "The Picture Frame," where the group is told to rob a bank as part of a scene for a movie, but it's a real bank robbery. When they're caught and a cop tells them to "start talking," they babble out their lines from "Zilch."
• The "Mr. Dobalina, Mr. Bob Dobalina" line formed the basis for a 1991 rap song by Del Tha Funky Homosapien called "Mistadobalina." Del would watch The Monkees on TV and had a copy of the Headquarters album, which is how he heard the song.