#Yellow submarine cartoon movie movie

#Yellow submarine cartoon movie movie

Al Brodax, the New York American producer of The Beatles saturday morning cartoon, used TVC, or TV Cartoons, in London to make the series and had them work on the movie as well. Indeed the Beatles themselves were completely hands off, but United Artists had a three picture deal and they still owed one. This book, published in 2002, chronicles the difficult birth and construction of the Yellow Submarine movie. All you need is love, and hand washing! This brings me to a very interesting Beatles book Adrienne sent me, called Inside The Yellow Submarine: The Making Of The Beatles Animated Classic by Dr.

Even when they weren't trying, The Beatles somehow brought everyone together again.

John Lassiter from Pixar lauded it as a very important film, and its influence can be seen on Schoolhouse Rock and PBS’s The Electric Company. From what I’ve read about the Yellow Submarine movie, it seems to be considered as a landmark project in ‘bringing back’ animated films. There are a lot of clever Beatle puns in the dialog that I only understand now. As weird and nonsensical as this film is I enjoyed it very much, and I smiled through most of it. The Beatles themselves finally do appear in person, in a (short, contractually obligated) live action farewell at the end. I did not join the sing along, as I really wanted to experience the movie. Of course, the highlight for me is the scene with ‘Hey Bulldog,’ one of Lennon’s great rockers, as the lads are being chased by Blue Meanie bulldogs, There’s also an earlier scene when the Yellow Submarine arrives in London, and there are quick cuts of city pictures that remind me very much of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. ‘Lucy In The Sky’ uses amazing rotoscoped images that really work well with the song. Upon meeting Jeremey Hillary Booby, there’s a great scene where ‘Nowhere Man’ plays.

The cut of ‘Eleanor Rigby’ with the ‘lonely people’ pictured reminded me an awful lot of Terry Gilliam’s animation with Monty Python’s Flying Circus. The stream I watched was horribly out of sync with the dialog and sound effects, but it didn’t really matter. The juxtaposition of the terrific music and the trippy animation just works. Led by Canadian producer George Dunning, the film as I understand it, was given out in 12 to 13 minute parcels to various animators, such as Ron Campbell, who also worked on the Beatles Saturday morning cartoon show. In that respect it is a series of vignettes, heavily hippie, pop art, and drug influenced, loosely retro fit around well-known Beatles’ lyrics. I was going to try to offer a synopsis, but the plot is pretty nonsensical. The print has been hand-and digitally-restored and is top notch. Watching the entire film again, I was really amazed at the animation. I remember it being hard to follow, lots of hard to process accents and squeaky dialog. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen it all the way through. I must admit, it had been a LONG time since I had seen this movie. This was the very definition of a contractual obligation film, made to fulfill their three film deal with United Artists. Hell, they were even too apathetic about the project to do the voiceovers for themselves, the four Beatles characters. They considered the soundtrack as a ‘dustbin’ for songs that weren’t up to snuff, especially George’s, and they had almost no input on the movie. So, the animated Yellow Submarine movie is a Beatles movie with almost zero Beatles involvement. By this point in their careers, The Beatles had soured on making movies, they were unhappy with the Help! project, and for the first time, were savaged in the press for the rudderless Magical Mystery Tour. The movie itself has a unique position in the Beatles’ canon. In a prior blog, I wrote extensively about the Yellow Submarine soundtrack at /zubmarine. On April 25, they pulled a surprise: a YouTube viewing of their 1968 animated film, Yellow Submarine, adding sing-along captioning in the style of the film’s graphics. The Beatles still manage to remain vital and relevant fifty years after they broke up.