When the Beatles stepped off of that plane so many years ago, the entertainment industry changed permanently. The never-before-seen deluge of fan adoration was a bottomless well ready to be tapped. And no time was wasted in producing everything from little plastic guitars to Beatle-painted automobiles.
Little ABC, the perennial third-place network, cashed in on the Fab Four as well. They began showing The Beatles as a Saturday morning TV cartoon beginning on September 25, 1965.
And we Baby Boomer kids loved it.
The show maintained a basic premise: two adventures, and two songs, a kid's version of Sing Along with Mitch, complete with a bouncing ball, as I recall.
I assumed it was really the Beatles doing the voiceovers when I was six. Of course, the bandmembers were far too busy conquering the musical world to do it. The actors who did the talking were Lance Percival (Paul and Ringo), and Paul Frees (John and George). What I remember (now keep in mind I haven't seen the cartoon since Nixon was President) was Ringo's distinctive laugh. Apparently, it was artistic license, as I never heard him laugh that way in real life interviews.
BTW, Frees provided the voice of Boris Badenov in the immortal Bullwinkle series.
Additionally, the Beatles' Liverpudlian accents were Americanized a bit to make them more understandable to American kids, and this was not well received by Britons in general, the Fab Four in particular. The show was not shown in the UK until the 1970's.
But I certainly remember the songs. They used some of the more obscure ones as well as the big hits. For instance, I remember belting out "Mr. Moonlight," a definite non-best-seller, as that ball bounced endlessly across our black and white television. But I also remember "A Hard day's Night." However, I never did figure out what a hard day's night meant.
There was also a riff played before each new adventure that I remember well. It must have been played by hired help, as I have never seen it mentioned on the most comprehensive Beatle anthologies.
The Beatles appealed to a very wide range of demographic groups. Could you imagine a Rolling Stones cartoon? And many Big Band fans and Bobbysoxers found the Beatles' unique power pop sound appealing, much to their offsprings' disgust.
But there was something about the original Fab Four, with their dry, slightly long locks that absolutely hooked many of us Boomer children, and continues to appeal to us many years later.
IMH(adult)O, the Beatles' just got better with time. But that's not how I felt back then. I was disturbed that the Beatles of 1969 looked so hairy and unkempt. I wanted them to be the clean, cartoon images that were on the television show. And apparently I wasn't the only kid who felt that way. The show's ratings had dropped precipitously by then and the last ABC episode aired that year.
Some blame the show's demise on a newfound superhero obsession, sparked by Batman. But there was just too much genius involved to keep the whole Beatlemania phenomenon going. The previously mentioned Rolling Stones have had their ups and downs over the years, but their legacy is sustained quality. The Beatles, on the other hand, after their unbelievable debut in the USA, could not possibly last more than a few brief years.
Neil Young said "it's better to burn out than to fade away." When a supernova-sized flame burns as brightly as did the initial spark of the Beatles, that may well be true.
Comments (6)
I see in the IMDb that the actor who did Paul's and Ringo's voice, Lance Percival, did a non-Beatle voice role in "Yellow Submarine".
The voice of Paul in that movie was none other than Geoffrey Hughes, who also plays the beer-drinking slob, "Onslow", in the popular U.K. series, "Keeping Up Appearances", seen on PBS.
Posted by Mike Ransom | August 27, 2007 5:21 AM
Posted on August 27, 2007 05:21
Regards to how long the Beatles would have lasted if they stuck together..I'd say 1-2 years, at best. A few
clues as to what they would have sounded like
can be seen in the solo projects and interests
of the four. Paul produced Badfinger and got more power pop with solo stuff, so the Beatles would have sounded more melodic
in an abbey road-side two way. Lennon got more
primal and political, so you would have gotten
more "revolution" type stuff. George got more
mystical, so more "Here
comes the sun" stuff, and less great guitar work. Ringo would have
had more input, and injected his typical
Octupus Garden" humor
on the LP's. Finally,
Lennon would prob have pushed the orchestral envelope that ELO took
off(some say ripped off)
with. Some things happen for a purpose, and the Beatles breaking up was best after all is said and done. Another question is what the Doors and Hendrix would have done if they lived.....I think the Doors ran out of ideas anyway, but Hendrix would have prob did some incredible stuff. The rock world
def would have changed in some unforseen ways if Jimi lived......well, the beauty of recorded music does allow us to hear what they did all do, so I'm off to play a few tunes!......
Posted by scott | August 27, 2007 2:02 PM
Posted on August 27, 2007 14:02
I'm an X-er but I remember this cartoon ... largely because I'm an Australian and in the 60s/70s/80s Australia received US and UK programs several years after they were released.
I hated this particular one. Give me Batman any day!
Posted by Pete Aldin | August 28, 2007 6:31 AM
Posted on August 28, 2007 06:31
Interesting comments on the Beatles. As I see it, the Beats were a huge jump forward from what music had been. Much more energetic, upbeat, and full of those catchy hooks. While some point out that the Beatles would not likely continue to be relevant, they were the reason a change was possible in the 1st place. USA was so conservative in 1962. Beatles were as far beyond that as could be allowed. We could not have done it without them. The Monkees made a career out of carrying on Beatlemania.
Beatles music had distinct periods and types. Beatles were explorers and experimenters who did not care about the market or what would sell. It was about the music they wanted to do. I loved the clean mop tops as well. I still use that hair style ;-) at 49! I liked Meet/With the Beatles thru Rubber Soul as my favorite period. Loved the other stuff, too. While the "hard" stuff was not as common, it was amazing and cutting edge. It would be left to others to do more with that. When McCartney would cut loose like in Long Tall Sally, Hey Jude, or Helter Skelter, no one could stay on the same stage with him. Sadly, he did not do enough of that.
We can muse over what might have been with many groups but the Beatles had an awful lot of accomplishments in such a small period of time and enabled many more to do things in music as well. Thank God for the Beatles. They took R&B, soul, and the like and sweetened it just enough to perfect it and create a hybrid synthesis that became pop music, though not exclusively just that. They are still number one in my book! I could write all night about them.
Posted by Scott Irving | September 27, 2008 10:27 PM
Posted on September 27, 2008 22:27
It occurred to me as I cam across this again that Things were changing fast in the 60s. Beatlemania came and went fast for many reasons. Music was quickly growing, moving, developing, changing. Times were changing. Our lives were changing as were the fab four. What they started, the rest of the music world would have to carry on. But with things changing so fast, it was hard to get used to anything and I do believe it has begun to unstabilize everything. We need some stability, and continuity, some time to settle in a little before we are off to the next great thing.
Proof you ask? Look at how that old music still sells. I saw a girl of about 22 get out of her car. She had a Beatles sticker on her trunk. Many are still turning on to the Beatles all these years later, even as they do for Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, or whoever. Its only the more recent stuff that is not selling long or reselling and much of it may one day become forgettable. Good!
Posted by Scott Irving again | May 14, 2009 6:02 PM
Posted on May 14, 2009 18:02
I knew of this cartoon, but don't remember it at the time. Watching Batman and the Hornet I guess! Yellow Submarine was really my first exposure to Beatles annimation!
Posted by Rivers End | June 30, 2009 5:04 PM
Posted on June 30, 2009 17:04