The Beatles cartoon series | Page 3 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Linde said
Thanks Parlance, didn’t know about the budget and all.

However, I do feel the same about it as meanmistermustard. I’ve only watched about 2 of them and they were okay, but that was like a year ago and I still don’t feel like watching another one.

And I hate it when they try to portray someone but the voice doesn’t sound the same at all. That’s also what I dislike about Yellow Submarine by the way.

I definitely recommend the “watch with a friend with a sense of humor” approach, as I wouldn’t have bothered any other way myself. My friend and I were commenting on the strange edits they would do to the songs as, “oh, this is where they ran out of money on this episode, ‘wrap it up, folks!'”

Also, the third season episodes were the best of the lot, and “the weird songs” as one animation director put it, were assigned to a better studio. If you can stomach watching it again, I recommend the intro for that season, done to “And Your Bird Can Sing ” with cute cartoonizations of their Sgt Pepper likenesses, and the animation done for “Strawberry Fields.” Cheesy by today’s standards, but compared to the first two seasons, it was a marked improvement. And not entirely easy for a kid-friendly show to pull off.

I thought they did a much better job on Yellow Submarine at least capturing their personas in a fun way. They didn’t even bother on the original cartoon. The actor playing John modeled him on Rex Harrison, for heaven’s sake. I kind of wish someone would just redub John’s voice on just one episode with a decent impression, complete with liberal f-bombs.

parlance

A very sad day. Jack Stokes, the director of the Beatles cartoon and animation director of “Yellow Submarine ,” passed away at 92. From The Examiner:

Mitch Axelrod of Fab4Free4All, and the author of the book “Beatletoons,” which covered the making of both “Yellow Submarine ” and “The Beatles” cartoon show, called Stokes “an incredible man.” and said in a statement to Beatles Examiner, “To Beatles fans, he will always be remembered as the director of The Beatles cartoon series and Yellow Submarine for TVC Studios in London, but he was much more than that. He was not only an animation director, but a brilliant animator as well, working well into his 80’s before retiring.

“He was a fantastic storyteller. A real no-nonsense guy, whom I am proud to have known. He will definitely be missed.”

parlance

Amusing speculation at Hey Dullblog regarding the Tomorrow Never Knows episode.

For whatever reason (maybe budget, maybe considered too weird for kids?) most of the third season episodes weren’t rerun in Chicago, so I never saw this one until last year. Wonder how I would have reacted to the song at the time.

parlance

does anyone know why Paul is so short in this cartoon?

From the Examiner:

Ron Campbell, director of the 1960s Saturday morning Beatles cartoon TV series and animator of the Beatles film “Yellow Submarine,” announced Feb. 26 by email he will be appearing live during the upcoming SXSW.

Campbell will be at Wild About Music, 115 E. 6th Street, Austin, Texas, from 1 to 9 p.m. March 8th through March 15th, except on March 10, when he will appear from 1 to 6 p.m. He will showcase his original Beatles cartoon paintings created specially for the show and create new Beatles pop art paintings live at the exhibit.

More at the link.

parlance

PeterWeatherby said
I mean, holy cow, I give the producers full credit for trying to keep pace with where The Beatles were going musically, but I think by the time Revolver came along it was probably time to ditch the “Mop-Top” cartoons.

Ha! Yes, it was very weird to have the opening credits show where they were during the Sgt. Pepper era already – facial hair and everything – but then we’d go back to Pierre Cardin suit-wearing Beatles.

So glad to see someone else who discovered the Beatles in part through the cartoon (for me, entirely through the cartoon). It seems to be hard to stomach unless you were a kid when you first saw it.

parlance