(1968). See handout for details about the film.
From: "What's the Meaning Behind Yellow Submarine" by Radio X editors, Global Media & Entertainment.
"50 years ago, The Beatles premiered their psychedelic full-length cartoon feature
Yellow Submarine in London...But why had The Beatles recorded such a child-like song in the first place? And what were they doing making cartoons anyway?
The genesis of
Yellow Submarine as a song came in early 1966 as the band were preparing songs for their seventh album
Revolver. Traditionally, a Beatles album would include a “Ringo song”, designed to please fans of the Beatle drummer, in the same way as he’s get a vocal spot in their live shows.
Paul McCartney was thinking about such a song when he was living in Wimpole Street, London. He recalled: “I was laying in bed... I was thinking of it as a song for Ringo, so I wrote it as not too rangey in the vocal. Then [I] started making a story, sort of an ancient mariner, telling the young kids where he'd lived. I think John helped out. The lyrics got more and more obscure as it goes on, but the chorus, melody and verses are mine.” Pop-folk singer Donovan was a friend of the Fabs at the time and contributed the couplet “sky of blue, sea of green”.
By this point in their career, The Beatles were expanding their songwriting horizons, aware that the beat boom of the early 1960s was now long gone. Their previous album
Rubber Soul had included a number of “story songs” like
Drive My Car and
Norwegian Wood, which moved away from the traditional “I love you” compositions.
Revolver would go further: the LP would include an Indian raga by George Harrison, John Lennon’s psychedelic drone
Tomorrow Never Knows and McCartney’s stark, classically-influenced
Eleanor Rigby, scored for strings and no Beatle instruments.
So The Beatles recording a song for kids wasn’t that unusual in the circumstances. In fact, they liked the song so much they made it a double ‘A’ sided single with
Eleanor Rigby, released on the same day as the album.
The recording of
Yellow Submarine at Abbey Road studios was remarkable for the party that was held during the session: the Beatles, together with friends, wives and even Rolling Stone Brian Jones added sound effects, vocals and roadie Mal Evans playing a big bass drum to get an authentic marching band effect.
Once the track had reached the general public, the interpretations started - especially once the use of the psychedelic drug LSD had become more widespread in the UK. Were The Beatles tripping when they made the record? Are they referring to smoking joints or something, like Donovan did with Mellow Yellow - which was meant to be about smoking banana skins...!
Or were “yellow submarines” actually Nembutals otherwise known as pentobarbitone, a well-known tranquilizer that came in a pleasingly submarine-shaped yellow pill?Sadly not - as McCartney said at the time: “It's a fun song, a children's song.”
The idea of making a cartoon film about Yellow Submarine came in 1967, when the studio United Artists were chasing The Beatles for a follow-up to their film
Help! The Fabs still owed them a movie as part of their deal, so it was decided to fulfill the contractual obligation with an animated film.
Directed by Canadian animator
George Dunning and designed by German artist
Heinz Edelmann, the film was made in London. Both Dunning and producer Al Brodax had been involved in the cheesy
Beatles TV cartoon series that the band had hated, so the Fab Four didn’t have much enthusiasm for the new project.
Because of this, when the producers asked The Beatles for some new songs for the
Yellow Submarine movie, they sent over some of the outtakes and below-par material that they’d been working on across the Summer of 1967. One track, George’s
Only A Northern Song, was recorded during the Sgt Pepper sessions, but dropped from the final album.
Another song, recorded in February 1968, would later only appear in the UK print of the movie.
Hey Bulldog was a quickie song, knocked out when The Beatles were in the studio to shoot a video for their single
Lady Madonna.The band did agree to appear as themselves in a short live action sequence at the end of the film. For the rest of the movie, their voices were played by
Carry On actor John Clive as John, Geoffrey Hughes, later better known in
Keeping Up Appearances as Paul, Peter Batten as George and Paul Angelis as Ringo. Comedian Dick Emery played the “Nowhere Man”, Jeremy Boob, who the team pick up on their travels. [
See IMDB.com for more information.]
THE STORY: The tale concerns Young Fred, a sea captain in the idyllic world of Pepperland, which is invaded by the music-hating Blue Meanies. He hijacks the Yellow Submarine and makes his way to Liverpool, where he beseeches The Beatles to come and bring music back to Pepperland and break the boring spell of the Meanies.
Along the way, the crew embark on a series of surreal adventures - losing Ringo in the Sea Of Monsters and getting trapped in the Sea Of Holes - before unleashing Beatle music on the Blue Meanies, who realise the error of their ways.
Some of the animated sequences in Yellow Submarine are stunning - a mix of psychedelic and pop art visuals set to Beatle songs. Even the lackluster new tunes are given life by the hand-drawn visuals. On its release, The Beatles themselves realized the quality of the product and the film was a huge success, spawning all kinds of elaborate merchandise. [This film is an excellent example of TRANSMEDIA--cashing in consumer goods
(such as t-shirts, lunch boxes, and toys), with a record (music) made into a film (film), using animation (visual arts), that is riding the wave of popularity of The Beatles.
Yellow Submarine has celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2018. For a movie that was entirely handmade, that’s pretty impressive.
