The Beatles in popular culture

These is a list of references to English rock group the Beatles in popular culture.

Television

• The Beatles TV series, a late 1960s American fictional animated television series featuring the musical misadventures of The Beatles.
• The Rutles, a mid 1970s series of sketches on the BBC television series Rutland Weekend Television, which would lead to the 1978 mockumentary film All You Need Is Cash.
• Sesame Street featured a parody band called "the Beetles", a group of four bugs with Liverpool accents and Beatle hair performing parodies of their songs, such as "Letter B" and "Hey Food".
• In The Powerpuff Girls episode "Meet the Beat-Alls", Mojo Jojo, "Him", Princess Morbucks, and Fuzzy Lumpkins form a group of supervillains named "The Beat-Alls". There are many additional references to the Beatles, their history, songs, and albums through the episode. Also, in two parts of the episode, all 4 Beatles appear in their animated forms from The Beatles cartoon series and the Yellow Submarine film.^[1]

Film

• The 1967 film The Jungle Book features the four vultures named Buzzy, Flaps, Ziggy and Dizzy with Liverpool accents and mop-top hair style, referencing to the Beatles.
• The 1978 film I Wanna Hold Your Hand is about "Beatlemania" and is a fictionalised account of the day of the Beatles' first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.
• The rock musical Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, released in 1978, featured Beatles covers by the Bee Gees, Peter Frampton, Aerosmith, Earth, Wind & Fire and many other musical and non-musical celebrities. It went on to be a critical and commercial disaster.
• The 2007 film Across the Universe is a musical that takes place during the 1960s. 34 Beatles compositions were performed in the film along with names of characters referenced in their music and multiple small allusions to The Beatles are scatted throughout the film.
• The 1978 television film All You Need Is Cash (based on a single sketch from a mid-1970s sketch series called Rutland Weekend Television) traces the career of a British rock group called The Rutles in mockumentary style.
• The film Ferris Bueller's Day Off features at least two references to the Beatles: Ferris (Matthew Broderick) states his admiration of John Lennon's quote "I don't believe in Beatles, I just believe in me," and later sneaks onto a parade float and lip-synchs to "Twist and Shout", to positive reception from the crowd.
• In the 2007 comedy film Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, fictional Dewey Cox meets The Beatles who are purposefully portrayed satirically by Jack Black as Paul McCartney, Paul Rudd as John Lennon, Jason Schwartzman as Ringo Starr, and Justin Long as George Harrison.
• In the 2001 film I Am Sam, Sam's daughter is named after the song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". Lucy's idyllic early years are accompanied by "Across the Universe". We see Sam and Rita's relationship grow to "Golden Slumbers". Sam's lawyer's name comes from The Beatles' song "Lovely Rita", a point made by Lucy. At the end of the film, "Two of Us" is used.
• The 2008 film I'm Not There features a segment in the mid-1960s in which singer Jude Quinn (a fictionalised version of Bob Dylan, played by Cate Blanchett) visits London and is briefly seen fraternising with the Beatles.
• The 2000 Icelandic film Angels of the Universe, which focuses on schizophrenia and is mainly set in a psychiatric hospital, features one character, Óli, who believes himself to have written most Beatles songs and to have transmitted them to The Beatles via telepathy, even after the split of the band. "Hey Jude" is being "composed" by Óli in one scene of the film.

Video games

• The Beatles: Rock Band, developed by Harmonix Music Systems, was released 9 September 2009.

The Beatles mentioned in song

The Who song The Seeker "I asked Bobby Dylan, I asked the Beatles..."

Mott the Hoople song All the Young Dudes "and my brother back at home with his Beatles and his Stones..."

Electric Light Orchestra song "Shangri-La" "fading like the Beatles on 'Hey Jude'..."

References