The Beatles

Whatever the real Beatles may have thought of this, it is what turned me on to them. I was 8 and thought I didn't like them. The language I most understood was cartoons, and when this came on, I completely turned around.

I actually don't remember the story cartoons very much. Mainly, I remember the "singalong" segment in the middle. Paul, John, or George would introduce the segment (which was sort of a Mitch Miller "follow the bouncing ball" breakfaster, only without the ball). He then would call for the "prop man," and Ringo would come out and say, "The regular prop man's sick, so I'm taking his place." The other Beatle would say something like, "Well, this next song is a really swinging number," and Ringo would say, "Swinging number, eh? I think I've got just the thing," and would go offstage and then reappear on a trapeze, which he would proceed to screw up. It was totally predictable, stupid, and always funny, or is in retrospect.

I recall only bits and pieces of the show and would love to see it again on TV. It probably is dated but would bring back a lot of memories. I remember the scene where the Beatles were performing in the Roman Coliseum and the beat was causing it to fall apart.

In 1965 Ed Vane took over as head of daytime programming at ABC. Saturday mornings were dominated by CBS- Vane wanted to change that. He felt the best bet was a Beatles cartoon. Working with Al Brodax at King Features, a deal was made for 26 shows with 2 cartoons per show at a budget of $32,000/show (cheap for 1965). And Brodax had just 5 months before the premiere. Result was a rush job with all the animation outsourced outside the U. S. Results were as you would expect-simple animation with lots of cycles repeating. Still, "The Beatles" was the top rated cartoon for the year, and ABC came in #1 on Saturday mornings. That shocked CBS into opening its wallet and spending millions on a complete revamp of their lineup.

13 more Beatles cartoons were made over the next two seasons- since they're not as rushed the quality is noticeably better. Al Brodax went on to produce the Yellow Submarine film.

The Beatles cartoon has become beloved and notorious for its production values: wonderful songs used as a backdrop for cookie-cutter stories and shoddy yet funkylicious animation that fits the time period these shorts were made. I've only ever seen this cartoon through bootlegs; and that's another thing, this cartoon has NEVER seen an official release on home video formats. There aren't even official VHS tapes of the show. You can only get bootlegs on eBay or YouTube if you're lucky. This show is like The Star Wars Holiday Special of hard-to-get television 'gems' that we're still waiting to be released on DVD.

This show has The Beatles, and the real stars of the show are really the songs themselves; it doesn't matter what context they're played in, they're always good tunes to listen to. Now Apple Corps, King Features Syndicate and company, can we PLEASE get an official DVD release of this nugget of television animation history?

The thing I remember most about this series was the fact that George's speaking voice sounded exactly like Frankenberry's, from the Frankenberry/Count Chocula breakfast cereal commercials that were popular at the time...In other words, nothing even remotely resembling the baritone nasal scouse of the real George Harrison. I also seem to recall a couple of occasions where the animators didn't quite get the lead vocalist correct (in one episode, Paul was singing lead on "No Reply"). In spite of all that, the series still managed to be quite entertaining, and was the first place I had ever heard the songs "From Me To You" and "Paperback Writer." I only owned Beatle albums and not singles, and neither of those songs were on any Beatle LPs at the time.