Sunday Night Tomfoolery (11)

George, John, Ringo and Paul. Together they were known as The Beatles, and were a musical phenomenon. I wont go through their list of achievements; you can read about that here. They would have to be the most recognised band in the world, and their songs have been copied and rereleased by numerous artists over the years. Indeed, Yesterday has over 1,600 covers recorded, at one time making it the most covered song in the world.

Well tonight's Tomfoolery has sought out parodies of The Beatles and their songs online for you entertainment.

Eric Idle and Neil Innes created The Rutles in 1975, orginally for UK television. They are probably the best known of The Beatles parody bands, appearing throughout the mid to late seventies. They released a couple of albums during that time, including The Rutland Weekend Songbook (1976) and The Rutles (1978) together with a documentary titled All You Need is Cash (1978).

Here is Ouch! Can you guess which Beatles song this is a parody of?



And here is Cheese and Onions, probably one of their best efforts, complete with a brilliant video ripping off Yellow Submarine.



The final Rutles clip I have here is the first part of the mockumentary, All You Need Is Cash. This is an all star cast and includes Michael Palin, Bill Murray, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Mick Jagger, Paul Simon and George Harrison (as an interviewer). You can definitely feel the Pythonesque influences of this piece, courtesy of Eric Idle.



I really don't know how to introduce this next clip, except to say it is Hey Jude, as you have never heard it before.



The next two clips feature when I'm 64, and work on roughly the same theme. The first is When I'm 94 by Bruce Kerr/harley5521. The second is by one of my favourite Australian comedians, Tony Martin, as sung on his radio show, Get This, back in 2006.




This next one is actually the first clip that comes up when you type "Beatles parodies" into Youtubes. It's from the Peter Serafinowicz Show:



Now a clip from Sesame Street, with a song sounding remarkably like Twist and Shout:



Back in the 1989/1990 on ABC television Andrew Denton hosted a show called The Money or the Gun. Each show ended with the well known song Stairway to Heaven sung in a different style by different artists. Here is The Beatnix with their version:



The final clip (and yes the topic of next week's Tomfoolery) here is the tribute band, The Mop Tops, singing Hava Nagilah.