A cartoon series featuring The Beatles began on this day in the United States. Simply titled The Beatles, it ran until 1969 on the ABC network, with 39 episodes produced over three seasons.
For the 1968-69 fourth season, which consisted of repeats, the series was shown at 9:30 AM EST on Sunday mornings. 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 band members themselves had nothing to do with the series' production beyond the use of their music recordings. American actor Paul Frees did the voices of John and George while Lance Percival (of the Carry On series) 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.
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 series became notorious for its static depiction of the band in their early "moptop-and-suit" look as depicted in the live action film, A Hard Day's Night, even though the band 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.
