Music Battles The Blue Meanies And Wins! The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine

I finally took the time to sit down and watch the 1968 psychedelic cartoon featuring The Beatles entitled, Yellow Submarine. The catchy title song is just one of those tunes that will forever be etched in the minds of many a person. It’s children song-like quality with it’s very memorable hook (”We all live in a Yellow Submarine…Yellow Submarine…Yellow Submarine”) is sung by Beatle drummer, Ringo Starr with his much-loved, ever-so-slightly off key way of rendering a song.

The animated film, which runs approximately 90 minutes can be seen online in its entirety at this link…

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1444637107417806305

The animation used in the movie, Yellow Submarine, with its colorful and psychedelic imagery made it very popular in its heyday, and it remains much enjoyed 41 years after its release. Although the voices of the Beatles’ cartoon characters were not provided by the musicians themselves, the voiceovers are adequate and seem to capture the Beatles’ personalities well. There are plenty of puns, double entendres, and general Beatle joking throughout the film which I found quite humorous.

The basic plot of the film involves a happy place called Pepperland with a uniformed band (St. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band) that is in place to protect the townfolk with their music. An army of evil Blue Meanies who hate music and love the word “no” attack Pepperland (via blue arrow “bombs” and a large flying blue glove) and put a stop to the music of the band, turning everything blue and essentially paralyzing Pepperland. A sole escaping soldier (Young Fred) steals away and locates Ringo Starr who rounds up his Beatle buddies on a quest to return to Pepperland and set things right. The Beatles pose as the paralyzed St.Pepper band, play their music (whose main theme is “Love Love Love”), and save the day.

The real Beatles appear briefly at the very end of the film and the film closes out to the tune “All Together Now”.

There are many great Beatle songs interspersed within the film - some from the Yellow Submarine soundtrack and some not. You will hear the likes of the title track, “Eleanor Rigby”, “Hey Bulldog”, “All You Need Is Love”, “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”, “Nowhere Man”, and many more.  Also included on the actual movie soundtrack is some nice orchestral work penned by famed Beatle producer, George Martin.

I am not surprised that I enjoyed Yellow Submarine as much as I did. I was a big fan of the Beatles’ television cartoon series and both the film and the cartoon series were directed by George Dunning.

Yellow Submarine - A very light, colorfully attention-grabbing, fun, and musically enriched film by the Beatles with humor and music that any Beatle and music fan will enjoy.

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