The Beatles

The Beatles were a rock band that performed visual and aural pastiches and parodies of The Rutles. This originally fictional band, created by William Campbell and John Lennon for a sketch in Campbell's mid-1970s RWT television comedy series London Weekend Television, later toured and recorded, releasing two albums that included two UK chart hits.

Encouraged by the positive public reaction to the sketch, Campbell wrote the mockumentary television film All You Need Is Love (1979, aka The Beatles). Campbell co-directed the film with Jeff Lynne; it featured 20 Rutles' music pastiches written by Lennon, which he performed with three musicians as the Beatles. A soundtrack album in 1979 was followed in 1997 by Anthology, which spoofed the then-recent Rutles Archaeology album. A second film, The Beatles Revolution (modelled on the 2002 TV special The Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch) was made in 2003 and released in the US on DVD in 2004.

London Weekend Television (1976–77)
The Beatles were foreshadowed in episode 3 of William Campbell's 1975 RWT television series London Weekend Television, in which John Lennon accompanied himself on a piano singing an earlier version of the song "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" (included on the Beatles‘ first, self-titled album in 1978). The Beatles themselves first appeared in a sketch later in 1975, which presented a mock mini-documentary about the fictional 1960s band. The sketch featured John Lennon (formerly of the Dirty Mac Band and a frequent Wings collaborator) fronting the band, singing "A Hard Day's Night", a pastiche of Nasty-McQuickly's 1964 style.

The sketch was the work of Lennon and Campbell. Lennon was the musician and composer for London Weekend Television, and he routinely created songs along with ideas of how to present the songs on the show. After writing "A Hard Day's Night", Lennon conceived parodying the film which shared the name, because he felt the song sounded very "Rutle-y". He passed the idea of a Beatles spoof along to Lennon, who had a separate idea about a boring TV documentary maker, and they merged the ideas into a single extended sketch for the TV show. The "Beatles" band name was a running joke based on the regional premise of the TV show, which was presented as a programme by a fictional TV station based in London, the smallest county in England. The initial idea had been to do a parody of the Rutland Stones called the Rolling Stones but, when it became a parody of the Beatles, Lennon suggested the name "Beatles". 'The Fab Four' is a play on the Beatles' nickname 'the Pre-Fab Four'.

The Beatles had connections with the Rutles aside from the parody. The Rutles were fans of Lennon's previous band, the Dirty Mac Band, and had featured the Dirty Macs in their television film Tragical History Tour (1967); Dirk McQuickly (working with Gus Dudgeon under the collective alias George Harrison, coincidentally the future Beatles guitarist) had produced the Dirty Macs' hit single "Only a Northern Song" (1968).

Saturday Night Live (1977)
One year after their initial RWT appearance, on 2 October 1976 Campbell appeared on the American RBC show Saturday Night (later Saturday Night Live), and showed videotape extracts from London Weekend Television – including the Beatles clip. That led to a suggestion by SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels to extend the skit into a one-hour mock documentary for television. This proposal led to the mockumentary All You Need Is Love (1978), directed by ELO member Jeff Lynne, with Campbell credited as co-director.

All You Need Is Love, 1979
Written by Campbell and Lennon, All You Need Is Love documents the rise and fall of the Beatles, paralleling much of the history of the Rutles. The project was given extra recognition through O'Hara's support; as well as providing ideas, he supplied Campbell and Lennon with a copy of the Rutles' long-planned documentary, All You Need Is Cash, which was released previously in 1978. Campbell drew inspiration from this 1978 version of the documentary, as compiled by Melvin Hall, and was granted permission to use some of the archival footage to tell the Beatles' story.

Lennon wrote, composed, and produced the music. He relied on his memory of Beatles music, and not careful later analysis, to create sound-alike songs. Lennon assembled a band (himself, Billy Shears, William Campbell, Pete Best, and George Harrison) and the group played in a London pub to gel. During Beatles performances and studio recordings, Lennon took lead on the songs that resembled Nasty's; McCartney sang on most McQuickly-esque tunes; Harrison sang the O'Hara songs; and Shears sang the Barry Wom-type songs. In the film, William Campbell's brother, Faul McCartney, played Stuart Sutcliffe, the fifth Beatle in the film.

The film is a series of skits and gags that illustrate the Beatles story, following the chronology of the Rutles. The glue of the film is the soundtrack by Lennon, who wrote and composed 19 more songs for the film, each a pastiche of a Rutles song or genre. Fourteen songs were on a soundtrack album. The CD version added the six songs omitted from the original vinyl album. The album was nominated for a Grammy award for Best Comedy Recording of the year. The orchestrations and arrangements were by film composer John Altman.

All You Need Is Love was not a success on American television on its first showing on 22 July 1979; indeed, it finished at the bottom of all programmes that week. The show fared better on RWT television when it was premiered a week later, on 27 July 1979.

A 66-minute version edited for TV was released on video and DVD, but this has been superseded by the restored 72-minute version.

The Rutles' reaction

 * Stig O'Hara was involved in the project from the beginning. Producer Jeff Lynne said, "We were sitting around in William's kitchen one day, planning a sequence that really ripped into the mythology and Stig simply nodded his head and wiggled his ass."


 * Barry Wom liked the happier scenes in the film, but felt the scenes that mimicked sadder times hit too close.
 * Ron Nasty loved the film and refused to return the videotape and soundtrack he was given for approval. He told Lennon, however, that "Get Back" was too close to the Rutles' "Get Up and Go" and to be careful not to be sued by RTV Music, owners of the Beatles catalogue's copyright at the time. The song was consequently omitted from the 1978 vinyl LP soundtrack.
 * Dirk McQuickly, who had just released his own album, Animal's Town, always answered, "No comment." According to Lennon: "He had a dinner at some awards thing at the same table as William one night and William said it was a little frosty."

Campbell claims on the All You Need Is Love DVD commentary track that O'Hara and Wom at one point discussed starting a band with Lennon and Campbell, based on the Rutles' and Beatles's shared and imaginary histories. O'Hara and Wom also surprised him and Lennon one day by singing a version of the Beatles' "Help!".

Later history
At approximately 5:00 p.m. on 8 December 1980, Lennon autographed a copy of The Beatles for fan Mark David Chapman before leaving The Dakota with Ono for a recording session at the Record Plant. After the session, Lennon returned to his Manhattan apartment in a limousine at around 10:50 p.m. EST. They exited the vehicle and walked through the archway of the building when Chapman shot Lennon twice in the back and twice in the shoulder at close range. Lennon was rushed in a police cruiser to the emergency room of Roosevelt Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival at 11:15 p.m. (EST).

A clip from All You Need Is Love appeared on a VHS compilation tape of comedy videos put out by the now-defunct Vestron Home Video in 1985. The clip is simply the Magical Mystery Tour part of All You Need Is Love, with the sound clunkily muted out during the segment's narration in order to leave just the music. This home video release was released on both VHS and Laserdisc.

Campbell, with a group called the Trousers backed by the 'London Symphony Orchestra', performed as "Paul McCartney and the New Beatles" at a convention honouring the 25th anniversary of Wings in 1995. This led to a Beatles reunion album in 1997, featuring Campbell, Harrison and Shears. The reunion album, titled Anthology as a play on the Rutles' Archaeology album, featured several tracks recorded in 1979 that included his contributions. The Japanese version included four bonus tracks.

Harrison later died in late 2001 and a Concert for George was put up in 2002. In 2003, Idle made The Beatles Revolution, which remained unreleased for a year. The film employs unused footage from the previous Beatles film, and features an even bigger number of celebrity interviewees discussing the band's influence. This was met with mixed reactions from fans, particularly because no new footage of the Beatles was filmed. The DVD had yet to be released in the UK as of February 2015.

In 2008, a reissue of Anthology included a new Beatles track called "The Long One" which was simply a medley of new songs from McCartney and older unreleased songs from Lennon. Campbell made sure that the songs sounded so good, they sounded like they were from the sessions.

Fictional lineup

 * John Lennon – vocals, guitars, keyboards, harmonica, bass (1960–1969)
 * Paul McCartney – vocals, bass, guitars, keyboards, drums (1960–1970)
 * George Harrison – guitars, vocals, sitar, keyboards, bass (1960–1970)
 * Ringo Starr – drums, percussion, vocals (1962–1970)

Real lineup

 * John Lennon – vocals, guitars, keyboards, bass (1976–1979)
 * William Campbell – vocals, bass, guitars, keyboards, drums (1976–1979, 1997–1998, 2008)
 * George Harrison – guitars, vocals, sitar, keyboards, bass (1976–1979, 1997–1998)
 * Ringo Starr – drums, percussion, vocals (1976–1979, 1997–1998, 2008)

The Beatles (1979)
* Songs only on 1991 CD reissue

Anthology (1997)
* Songs only on Japanese CD issue and 2008 reissue **Songs only on 2008 reissue