The Beatles is a Saturday morning animated television series featuring representations of the popular English rock band of the same name. It was originally broadcast from 1965 to 1969 on ABC in the USA (only 1965 to 1967 was first run; later seasons were repeats). The series debuted on 25 September 1965 and new episodes ended on 21 October 1967. A total of 39 episodes were produced. The series was shown on Saturdays at 10:30 AM EST until the 1967 third season when it was moved to 12:00 PM EST. For the 1968–69 fourth season, which consisted of repeats, the series was shown at 9:30 AM EST on Sundays. Each episode has a name of a Beatles song, so the story is based on its lyrics and it is also played at some time in the episode. The original series was rebroadcast in syndication by MTV in 1986 and 1987 and on The Disney Channel beginning in 1989 on Fridays at 5 PM. The series was a historical milestone as the first weekly television series to feature animated versions of real, living people.
The series consisted of short animated stories that essentially were intended to set up the visual illustration of Beatles songs that were played in their entirety. In addition, there were sing-along sequences with simpler imagery complementing the full lyrics of particular songs. The songs were taken from all the albums up to Revolver as well as non-album singles up to 'Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane', the song 'Bad Boy', the German language song 'Komm Gib Mir Deine Hand', and the 'Long Tall Sally' EP.
The series depicted the band in their early "moptop-and-suit" look as depicted in the 1964 live action film, A Hard Day's Night, even though the band had moved beyond it during the series' run. The producers did attempt to acknowledge the band members' contemporary appearances with photographs of them in the series' title sequences during its production run.
The Beatles borrowed Richard Lester's fast-cutting directorial style of A Hard Day's Night and its 1965 follow-up, Help! Hal Erickson writes in Television Cartoon Shows that the frenetic cuts "[gave] the series its breezy pace and comic impudence — which often had to compensate for some distressingly sloppy animation and infantile scripting."
The band members themselves had nothing to do with the series' production beyond the use of their music recordings. US actor Paul Frees did the voices of John and George while Lance Percival did the voices of Paul and Ringo. Frees had been the voice of Boris Badenov in the Rocky and Bullwinkle series. The female voices were provided by Julie Bennett and Carol Corbett. At first, the Beatles dismissed the series because of its poor quality. It is reported, however, that the band members enjoyed the cartoons in later years.
Initially, the opening credits theme was a guitar riff from "A Hard Day's Night" segueing into "Can't Buy Me Love", over a cartoon sequence of the group running down a fire escape, echoing a scene in A Hard Day's Night. The second season's opening theme was "Help!", while the third season's theme was "And Your Bird Can Sing", over a different cartoon sequence.
Cast[]
| Image | Character | USA | Mex | Jap | Ita |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
John Lennon | Paul Frees | Salvador Nájar | Masato Ibu | |
| Antonio Passy | |||||
|
Paul McCartney | Lance Percival | Víctor Mares | Kenji Obata | Sergio Luzi |
| Luis Bayardo | |||||
|
George Harrison | Paul Frees | Ángel Aragón | Hideyuki Tanaka | Rodolfo Baldini |
| Jorge Arvizu | |||||
|
Ringo Starr | Lance Percival | Jorge Arvizu | Kazuyuki Sogabe | |
|
Title | N/A | CarlosDavidOrtigosa | ||
| SergiodeBustamante |