Friday 18 May 2018

Beatles parodies in TV variety show sketches


Please note: this is not a generic collection of Beatles appearance in live TV shows, it only features scripted sketches; interviews and songs as live performance aren't included.





PARODY CLIPS IN FULL

Harry and Paul made a few shorts of the old Beatles that never took drugs and instead visit regularly the doctor for a prostate check, they also can convert square daughter to Beatlemania.





And this one is a commercial for YELP!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00bc6vh


Another of my favourite TV shows parodies is the one on episode 6 of the first series of Big Train where George Martin is kidnapped by terrorists, then later released for annoying them with his never-ending Beatles-stories.


or you can watch the full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMKlz2TDihs

The next one from Smith and Jones is very funny even if the real Beatles parody comes at the end, which may already have seen in the main video collection; however, the whole 10 minutes clip is worth watching if you fancy a laugh.




Not as funny as the previous clips is one made by Matt Lucas & David Walliams (Lucas & Walliams) parodying George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Barbara Bach and Ringo Starr in Rock Profile with Jamie Theakston. Directed by Michael Cumming. 1999.




Another two clips featuring Peter Serafinowicz, the famous Ringo Remembers and The Beatles Box (AKA John Lennon invented the Apple iPod in the 60's)






Similar, but with a more shallow humour is this next clip by the Channel 4 British comedy Star Stories featuring another George Harrison parody. No further comments.




While the above clip is so-so, this other one from Star Stories is much, MUCH better.
It is known as "the (real) story of the Beatles", perfectly representing the the bossy attitude of Paul McCartney towards the rest of the band.



The clip above is taken from the episode from Star Stories - Season 3, Episode 2: Heather Mills, it gives a good idea of what's type of humour it is all about. You can watch the episode in full here below .... and here's just the trailer .. or a clip in HD : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT9Vi91rS4I





The next two clips are Jimmy Fallon's Lennon impersonation on Saturday Night Live.
The first one is a fixed YouTube video upload; it was filmed from the TV with a shaky mobile phone and, however did it thought it is a good idea! 
It is kind hilarious how most people spends a lots of money on TVs and mobile phones and then they completely fail at using them.




The next clip, always from Saturday Night Live is best known as John Lennon and Jerry Garcia Memorials; it is a very funny sketch featuring Jimmy Fallon as John Lennon's spirit and Horatio Sanz as Jerry Garcia's spirit. Also starring Vince Vaughn, Chris Kattan and Cheri Oteri.
Original Airdate: 12/05/1998




Last but not least, another Saturday Night Live sketch offered by Jimmy Fallon & Fred Armisen.




CLIPS MISSING FROM THE MAIN COLLECTION

Rob Newman's The history of the world backwards is a mock history programme set in an alternative world, where time flows forwards, but history flows backwards. It was shown on BBC Four, starting on 30 October 2007, and later shown on BBC Two. It was Newman's first television project for 14 years.



And finally The Dana Carvey Show - Leftover Beatles Memories  from 1996, featuring Stephen Colbert.



There's also a singing parody sketch featuring Rick Moranis as Ringo Starr on SCTV's Lee Iacocca's Rock Special (Second City Television) from 1982, let's call this clip "Rings".
Short's somewhat unclassifiable uber-nerd Ed Grimley (later featured on Saturday Night Live when Short became a regular) is an SCTV fixture, appearing on numerous assorted shows, commercials, promos, and "behind-the-scenes" dramas. His hair is styled using an upside-down funnel, and he plays the triangle, for which he took lessons. Grimley has an obsession with the game show Wheel of Fortune and host Pat Sajak. The SNL version of the character is the same, except the sketches have Grimley getting involved in weird situations: meeting a perpetually unlucky man (played by Ringo Starr), being targeted by the Devil (played by Jon Lovitz), and having a near-death experience. As of 2012, Grimley is the only SNL and SCTV character to have his own children's cartoon show: The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley.




SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE REAL BEATLES APPEREANCES

Paul McCartney has been a guest of the TV show SNL in many episodes, and still appears regularly (well, once in a while, maybe once every two years). As we previously seen in the video collection The Beatles as actors, him and Ringo did a few memorable funny sketches that can be watched in full in the previous blog. I won't post the full clips again, but you can visit THIS PAGE to watch them, if you fancy so. (sgtpepperchannel.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-beatles-as-actors.html)


In fact, I suggest you to visit the blog linked above for any real-Beatle appearance in TV shows!


I will only share this for now, which is a supercuts of Ringo's appearance at the Rowan & Martin's Laugh In show.




... and the extracts from the Rutland Weekend Television featuring George Harrison


.. and this is the unedited version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpGENCOWeoE

The two mock/fake interviews with Paul and George at the "Weird Al" Yankovic television  show, also known as Al TV, are two interesting clips to show in this blog:






This last clip is from a short TV documentary. This is a reenactment of the meeting between the Beatles and Elvis from a 1992 videotape.  Since everybody who was there (both the Beatles and Elvis' entourage) recall things differently, we will probably never know just exactly what happened.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb9NW4QbGg4 





TBC


Tags:
#Beatles #The Beatles #TVShow #Parody

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Monday 30 April 2018

TV shows featuring the Beatles

It was obvious that the SgtPepperChannel blog would have covered this subject too.
After going thought 200 movies, 100 cartoons and all the biographical movies it was time for more references featured on TV screens.
I would like to say that I do not own a TV and don't like watching movies, cartoons and least of all TV series. While I had a blast creating the collection from references in song, I got extremely bored watching some of this TV series episodes By the way, to avoid misinformation similar to that I encountered while researching for the movies compilation and the acting compilation, this time I did my own research. What you see in this video and blog is 100% my own research. No forums were consulted! And, how odd it may sound, it actually sped the process up. For example, behind the first 100 Beatles reference in movies video collection there was almost a 6 month period of research, while for this one more or less a month! I ain't lying!



The saddest part of creating these videos is bumping over confused people: those that start a comment with "you forgot" ... oh, dear! I don't mind so much the comment, either the dislike they leave on the video ... what really bothers me is the fact that many of them are over-reacting, and responding with "that clip is another video" is seen as an insult. Unfortunately my channel is mostly visited by man over the age of 50. The problem at that age is they do not want to hear them saying "you're wrong", the more you grow old, the more you become wise, therefore you deserve more respect ... that's works in the same way for idiots. The stupider a person is, the less is aware its mistakes.
typical idiotic comment
typical idiotic comment
At some point I had to stop searching for clips to add to the collection TV Series collection, as you can see HERE the list is infinite and the search is only referred to Beatles, I did not dare doing further searching with other keywords. So, yeah, that's one of the methods I use to search for material to add these sort of video-collections. The technique I cannot share is how I obtain these videos ... I'll let you guess, just know that it is not 100% legal! All you need to know is I do not monetize my videos. If you see adverts on my videos is because the owner of the clips I used kindly placed adverts on the video rather than taking it down.


TV SERIES CLIPS

One my childhood favourite TV series was The Wonder Years and I remember very well the episode 10 of season 3 titled Rock N Roll where Kevin formed a band with some friends. I especially remember the last scene where he lays in bed holding the album cover of the Beatles' Abbey Road.



A very cool re-enact of the Beatlemania in the US in 1964 is featured in the episode 11 of the series one  of American Dream I wanna hold your hand, aired 5 January 2003: The Beatles' arrival in America sends the country and the Pryor household into a frenzy, except for a concerned J.J., who receives word that Notre Dame has denied him a full scholarship. Determined to afford his son's college education, Jack seeks financial help from his successful and slightly distant older brother Ted, despite Pete and Helen's concerns.
This clip reminds me a lot of the movie called I wanna hold your hand.


Here's a link to the video in case it doesn't show up in your browser: https://www.bitchute.com/video/m5dqAAczTOHH


Some TV Series such as Mad Men has featured a full length Beatles track ... I wonder how much it costed it !!!!




The second upload of the video collection (at the top of this blog) got blocked worldwide by Apple Corps because the song I wanna hold your hand performed at the Ed Sullivan show was manually detected, and for manually detected it means that an Apple Corps Ltd employee watched the video appositely to find copyrighted music; I don't think the song and video is copyrighted as the full version is available on YouTube and there are many uploads of the same event. So, evidently Apple is playing the asshole corporation with my channel. In case, the next clip from U.F.O. was cut short in the video collection while you can watch it in full one on YouTube!
This is the episode 9 of Andersons' first live-action TV series and it is titled "Ordeal" and this episode was aired in 1969. The Beatles' song used (Get Back) was released the same year.


extended version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_iFrAe9Jwk

Talking about the cost to use Beatles music in film, here's a funny clip from Portlandia season 4 episode 6 titles Bahama Knights where Fred has the idea to make a Beatles documentary (even if Netflix has hundreds of them), so he flies to London only to find out that it's going to cost him one billion dollars regardless of how many songs he uses or how long a song it plays.




When I was a kid I used to love the American science-fiction television series Quantum Leap, and whilst working on this video project I was absolutely trilled to find out about the clip in which Scott Bakula sings Imagine. I wanted to use the whole song in the video collection, but, to avoid having the video blocked in Canada I had to cut it short like all the rest of the clips I used. So, here's the full clip.



This one and Mad Men are going to be the only clips containing music that I will share in this post.
The TV series Glee has lots of Beatles covers, probably too many (well, it never too many) and probably would have taken too much spotlight in the video collection, so, I intentionally left a few clips out. And by the way, who of you saw the ballet show for LOVE and actually enjoy the dances? Not many I would bet ! Glee covers are even worst than the Bee Jees musical Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band! Ok, I'll stop ranting now.
There's also a curious similarity between the logo of Quantum Leap and the font/style used in the title of McCartney's Give My Regards to Broad Street ... or at least, that's my impression.

 


Another great vocal performance can be seen in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air where Carlton sings "Silly Love Songs" in the shower.



The episode 6 of the season 2 of Joanie Loves Chachi from 1983 is dedicated to the Beatlemania.




Same for Drake and Josh, throughout the episode 16 of season 4, titles Battle of Panthatar there are a lot references to the Beatles.




In an episode of Vinyl there is a sort of re-enactment of John Lennon's lost weekend in Los Angeles in company of May Pang. I think May Pang in particular has been portrayed pretty well.




Even if the next clip isn't particularly funny I would still have shared in full.
This is taken from The Kids in the Hall series 4 episode 7.




Unexpectedly, the clip of Drake & Josh from the episode Battle of Panthatar got my video blocked in Canada only, I had to edit it shorted to pass through the copyright fair use. Still I don't understand why the full episode is available on Dailymotion. (PS: this video may be blocked in Canada)



Last, but not least (for now), a sketch by Eddie Murphy called "The Fifth Beatle"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3ilQZi_weI

the fifth beatle.. from Chris Greene on Vimeo.



I will take a break for now with the clips in full, but I will update this blog regularly (just like I do with all the previous blogs posted on the SgtPepperChannel blogspot.
So, if you would like to see anything not included in this blog, leave a comment with your request and I will post it; or come back next week to check the updated page.
And if you would like to suggest a clip to add to the next collection, let me know in the comments below or in the comment section of the main video collection.

Bye !


THUMBNAIL





Friday 12 January 2018

The Beatles as actors


FILMS WITH THE REAL BEATLES

NOTE: Some browser may not show some of the clips embedded in this blog. Please, use the alternative links under the blank space (which is the not-showing clip).

This blog is dedicated to the Beatles (as band and solos) as actors in movies and TV sketches (TV commercials included). I omitted music videos from this collection and concentrated on other things. But, to avoid ignoring the whole music video scene, here’s a list of videos featuring a sort of acting (not just playing and singing):
  • Day Tripper (Ringo’s sawing off the bars)
  • Goodnight Vienna (Ringo Starr)
  • The Frog Song (Paul McCartney)
  • The Chess Game (John & Yoko)
  • This Song (George Harrison)
  • Crackerbox Palace (George Harrison)
  • When We Was Fab (George Harrison)
  • Ding Dong, Ding Dong (George Harrison) 
  • Pipes of Peace (Paul McCartney)
  • Wonderful Christmastime (Paul McCartney)
  • Waterfalls (Paul McCartney)
  • This One (Paul McCartney)
  • Appreciated (Paul McCartney)
  • My Valentine (Paul McCartney)
  • Only You (And You Alone) (Ringo Starr)
  • You Don't Know Me at All (Ringo Starr)
  • Stop and Take Time to Smell the Rose (Ringo Starr)
  • Act Naturally (Ringo Starr with Buck Owens)
and many more ....

MAIN COLLECTION VIDEO



I'm sure that many of you enjoyed very much certain scenes and would love to see the whole movie. Well, the SgtPepperChannel cares about you, and has already provided this blog with some of the best movies featured in this collections. The ones I choose for now are the one that have actors playing as the Beatles. I was also planning to upload the whole Pirates of the Caribbeans: dead man tell no tales film, but, I didn't even watch it! I only watched the scene with Paul .... and since that has been the most talked about subject the early 2017 (but as usual nobody really cares to see it with own eyes) I will share it for first.



Be honest: how many posts did you see on Facebook or elsewhere with this photo of Paul McCartney in a pirate costume ? Lots of times, right? And how many times did you see anybody sharing the actual clip (it has always been on YouTube !!!) .... none !!!!! So, should we finally get to see that bloody sketch ?!
FOOTNOTE: The joke Uncle Jack tells to Jack Sparrow "a skeleton walks into a bar and orders a beer and a mop" was previously told by Quentin Tarantino in 1996 in the film Desperado (https://youtu.be/Gz_PJqCCd2E?t=9s), by Harvey Miller and later by Jack Nicholson, repeated by Al Pacino (https://youtu.be/nOPdRjGtryk?t=30s), subsequently parodied by Johnny Deep (https://youtu.be/8R12QHMFF48?t=1m39s) ... see how Disney keeps on recycling the same garbage !?



Here's also a behind the scenes special clip of this scene, in which Co-directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg go through the making of this particular McCartney's cameo.




I won't share the actual full Beatles movies as main feature, those are pretty easy to find with a Google search and perhaps you all already own a digital copy, but I want to share this 1984 movie in full: Give My Regards to Broad Street, directed by Peter Webb and starring Paul McCartney, Bryan Brown, Ringo Starr, Barbara Bach and Linda McCartney.



However, Give My Regards to Broad Street is not the only film featuring Paul, Ringo, Linda and Barbara; The Cooler is a short promo film directed by Kevin Godley and Lol Creme and it was originally made as a promo video for "Private Property" from Ringo’s solo album "Stop And Smell The Roses". It was filmed at the AIR Studios in southwest London in mid-January 1981 by Paul McCartney’s MPL Communications.



Going back a couple of years, in 1978 Ringo Starr took part to the TV Special/film "Ringo", where he plays himself, as well as a fictionalised version of himself and his fictional half-brother Ognir Rrats.
However, in this film George Harrison played a little role as interviewee at a press conference (making also a reference to trousers of The Rutles) .... and possibly a cameo of Paul McCartney.
George appears at minute 1 and minute 35: https://youtu.be/raHA3pzB2Kk?t=1m and https://youtu.be/raHA3pzB2Kk?t=35m14s and Paul towards the end as a beardy pianist https://youtu.be/raHA3pzB2Kk?t=41m16s

 




In the film Alice in Wonderland from 1985, Ringo Starr played the role of the turtle while singing the song Nonsense. I could have let the whole clip, but, for the sake of keeping the video under 2 hours of length I cut it 3/4 short. However, here the whole unedited clip.




And, also the scene from Candy (1968) should be posted in full.



I had a lot of requests to share a link for the Beatles' 2008 bootleg film Let it Be (the big picture).
It is more or less the same as the 1970 version of Let It Be, but with 30% of extra screen-picture (literally). Let it Be was recorded on 35mm film and zoomed in. This version has the original film size. NOTE: this is not a remastered version !!! Apple has no plans of releasing the LET IT BE remastered movie anytime soon. đŸ˜©



Paul and Linda McCartney take part to an episode of the British TV comedy series, Bread in 1987. Sparingly, Linda is a very good actress.
... Paul appears at the very end.




And, since we are talking about Paul and Linda, let's include Denny Laine of Wings too.
In 1977 Paul McCartney also played in a sketch, along with Linda and Denny Laine for The Mike Yarwood Show (https://www.bitchute.com/video/111ZiEa78WBH/). They also performed a couple of songs live during the same TV show.




Another curious and less note TV appearance is the one Ringo took place at the Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In show in 1970. NOTE:  a lot of these clips are available ONLY in this blog. So, fell lucky to have discovered this page!



... and the end of the episode + credits Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In with Ringo's guest appearance (show hosted by Hosted by Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, this ground-breaking variety show was a fast moving barrage of jokes, one-liners, running skits, and musical numbers that made fun of the social and political issues of the late 1960s and early 1970s.)




And, since we are talking about Ringo, here another few clips of his sketches for Saturday Night Live. The first in known as Fernando's Hideaway, from 1984.



And the next one is from the same year.



Before moving to the voice acting section of this blog, there is a McCartney funny voiceover commentary sketch with Seth Meyers filmed in 2013.



VOICE ACTING

We covered some of the Beatles voice acting in cartoons, such as the Simpsons and the Powerpuff Girls, which you can watch is the Cartoon blogspot.
Since this one below (BoJack Horseman) is pretty recent cartoon episode (2015) I don't mind sharing it again (here's also a version dubbed in Spanish: https://youtu.be/MTjTw7vu4h4).




Not only Ringo Starr was the first to take part to a Simpsons episode, but he also was the one with most lines. You can watch the full episode of "Brush with Greatness" here:


Brush With Greatness: https://my.mail.ru/mail/grom2763/video/17/352.html (Russian)

Two years after the Ringo appearance in the Simpsons, it was George Harrison's turn to play himself in the 1993 episode "Homer's Barbershop Quartet" (MOMENTARILY UNAVAILABLE)



While Paul McCartney was the last. He eventually appeared on "Lisa the Vegetarian" in 1995.
http://pixa.club/en/the-simpsons/season-7/epizod-5-lisa-the-vegetarian


Sorry, the video is in Russian.

Also, we shouldn't forget that Paul McCartney voiced his own cartoon characters in Rupert and the Frog Song. Paul does the voice acting for Rupert, Bill, Boy Frog.
NOTE: the recent Rupert and the Hedgehog cartoon is inspired by Paul's animation; Rupert's voice is similar to the one McCartney did, but it is played by Julie Lemieux.



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JOHN & YOKO'S FILMS

Due to their extreme boredom I won't embed any of their avant-garde films/video.
However, I created a YouTube playlist with all of them in their entirety.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlqXiBY2sa0Rk4TrYicPyLLF01a6x3rdL

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ONLINE MISINFORMATION

While searching for clips to add to this collection I came across a lot of wrong info. Sites such as IMDB should be the primary source for this sort of research, but, most of the times they information they provide is misleading or even completely wrong.

At the end of the Beatles as actors video collection I included two clips: Checking Out and Sabrina, the teenage witch; for these two clips I can't tell if those are George Harrison and Ringo Starr for real, but certainly I can tell that this guy here below is NOT Ringo, as claimed on IMDB, Ringo's encyclopedia and more. Screenshot taken from the film Saint Street (2012).

Saint Street full movie link (if you want to double-check it yourself)

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Ringo, among the four is the one with the most wrong references online. Just like on Facebook, most websites copy and paste descriptions from other places. In the next case, on Ringo's encyclopedia it also stated that this guy here below is Ringo. [from Weekend of a champion]
https://my.mail.ru/mail/billy.shears/video/_myvideo/168.html


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If you google "In episode 9F11 of Season Four, Homer is seen eating a cookie in the shape of Ringo’s head" you will find this citation in a lots of websites and forums. Too bad that nobody checked if it true ... well, one person did it ... that's me !

This is a screenshot of the Simpsons episode scene. The cookie is not even a cookie but a potato chip and Great Aunt Gladys clearly says that ..... not Ringo Starr. (Episode: “Selma’s Choice” S04E13).



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Another mistake I encountered is in the 1999 film An American Tail: The Mystery of the Night Monster where Ringo is once again mentioned as a member of the Outlaw Cats but he’s not credited in the actual film credit roll. Alternately Yoko Ono is credited for her contribution as assistant director. Ringo has probably been confused for his song called Mystery of the Night, however, where they got the source for the Outlaw Cats is the real mystery about this movie and if this mistake has never been corrected is because nobody bothers to double-check these claims.

 

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Quick annotation for the film Monty Python's Life of Brian: Harrison appears in a cameo appearance as Mr. Papadopoulos, "owner of the Mount", who briefly shakes hands with Brian in a crowd scene. His one word of dialogue (a cheery but out of place Scouse "'ullo") had to be dubbed in later.

NOTE: I made a little editing mistake in the main video: one of the Not Only ... But Also clips is from 1994, the other in from 1966.
Also, How I won the war was filmed in 1966 but screened in 1967, and so Candy was filmed in 1967 but screened in 1968.
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HOW I WON THE WAR

How I Won the War is a black comedy film directed and produced by Richard Lester, released in 1967, based on a novel of the same name by Patrick Ryan. The film stars Michael Crawford as bungling British Army Officer Lieutenant Earnest Goodbody, with John Lennon.




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RINGO THE ACTOR

I'm sure you all noticed how Ringo appeared in so many films. Ritchie has indeed talent as actor and Richard Lester discovered with A Hard Day's Night, giving Ringo the main spot in his next film with the Beatles, Help! But I still find weird the fact that John had not a full sketch in AHDN but got to be the main character in How I Won The War.
However, I would like to share this short documentary of Ringo and his adventure filming Magical Mystery Tour.




EXTRAS

As I said earlier, I don't think there is a need to post the main Beatles films in full, but I'll do it anyway ..... but in a very small format to occupy less space. Use the full screen button to have a bigger view.
..............A Hard Day's Night....................................Help!..........Magical Mystery Tour


A Hard Day's Night

Help!

Magical Mystery Tour



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Comments are ALWAYS appreciated. Suggestions even more. But commenting “you forgot” followed by something that has no relation to the subject is plain annoying.

However, I was suggested to add the interview Paul McCartney at the Chris Farley Show even if the only person acting is Farley. I considered adding it to the main collection while editing the video, but I decided to include it not.  I’ll leave the full clip here, for those who want to watch it.


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TBC (more clips to be added)
If you would like to see a clip or a movie in full, let me know in the comments.
I'm very happy to share it.
Should I create a section with all the Beatles movies in full ?