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Yellow Submarine — news, coverage & facts — IJR

Plot

Pepperland is a music-loving paradise under the sea, home to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The titular Yellow Submarine rests on an Aztec-like pyramid on a hill. At the edge of the land is a range of high blue mountains.

The land falls under a surprise attack from the music-hating Blue Meanies, who live beyond the mountains. The attack starts with a music-proof glass globe that imprisons the band. The Blue Meanies fire projectiles and drop apples (a reference to the Beatles' then-new company Apple Corps) that render Pepperland's residents immobile as statues, and drain the entire countryside of colour.

In the last minutes before his capture, Pepperland's elderly Lord High Mayor sends Young Fred to get help. The Apple Bonkers "bonk" the Mayor with several large apples as Fred takes off in the Yellow Submarine ("Yellow Submarine"). He travels to Liverpool ("Eleanor Rigby") (depicted in late 1960s), where he follows a depressed Ringo to "The Pier", a building on the top of a hill, and persuades him to return to Pepperland with him. Ringo collects his mates John, George, and Paul. The four decide to help Young Fred, and journey with him back to Pepperland in the submarine ("All Together Now"). They pass the Sea of Time ("When I'm Sixty-Four"), the Sea of Science ("Only A Northern Song"), and the Sea of Monsters, where Ringo presses the forbidden panic button, and gets swept out of the submarine. John, Paul and George manage to save Ringo with a rescue button, bringing him back before a vacuum creature sucks away the whole Sea of Monsters and itself, leaving the group in Sea of Nothing. Crash landing, they meet Jeremy Hillary Boob Ph.D., a short and studious creature ("Nowhere Man"). Boob repairs the submarine's tiny motor, and Ringo invites him to join them. They arrive at the Foothills of the Headlands ("Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds"), where they are accidentally separated from the submarine and Fred. They then find themselves in the Sea of Holes, where Jeremy is kidnapped by a Blue Meanie, and Ringo picks up the hole that Jeremy was previously stuck in and puts it in his pocket. Then when he steps on a green hole, it turns into the Sea of Green, which brings the group to Pepperland.

Reuniting with Young Fred and reviving the apple-bonked Lord Mayor, they look upon Pepperland's now-miserable, grey landscape. The Beatles dress up as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, steal some instruments, and rally the land to rebellion ("Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "With A Little Help From My Friends"). The Chief Blue Meanie retaliates by sending out the Dreadful Flying Glove, which John defeats ("All You Need Is Love"). Pepperland is restored to colour as its residents revive and flowers re-bloom. Ringo uses the hole in his pocket to release the Lonely Hearts Club Band, and they join the Beatles in combating the Meanies' multi-headed dog ("Hey Bulldog"). Ringo then rescues Jeremy, who performs some "transformation magic" on the Chief Blue Meanie, causing the Meanie to bloom roses and sadly concede defeat. John extends an offer of friendship, and the Chief Blue Meanie has a change of heart, sheds a tear and accepts, confessing that he is related to the Bluebird of Happiness. The Beatles, the Blue Meanies and the Pepperlandians then celebrate their new peace and love ("It's All Too Much").

The film ends with a segment featuring the real Beatles, who playfully show their souvenirs from their journey: George has the submarine's motor, Paul has "a little 'love'," and Ringo has "half a hole" in his pocket (having apparently given the other half to Jeremy, though Paul recommends to "fix it to keep his mind from wandering"). John, looking through a telescope, tells the group, and the audience, that "newer and bluer Meanies have been sighted within the vicinity of this theatre" and that everyone will need to sing to ensure the audience escapes. The Beatles then lead the audience in a sing along to "All Together Now", which ends with translations of the song's title in various languages appearing in sequence on the screen.

Development

The Beatles were not enthusiastic about participating in a new motion picture, having been dissatisfied with their second feature film, Help! (1965), directed by Richard Lester. However, they saw an animated film as a favourable way to complete their commitment to United Artists for a third film. Many fans have assumed that the cartoon did not meet the contract's requirements, since a later live action movie was produced, but the documentary film Let It Be (1970) was not connected to the original three-picture deal.

The Beatles make a live-action cameo appearance in the final scene, which was filmed on 25 January 1968, shortly before the band's trip to India. This was done primarily to fulfil their contractual obligation to United Artists to actually appear in the film. The cameo was originally intended to feature a post-production psychedelic background and effects, but because of time and budget constraints, a blank, black background remained in the final film. While Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney still looked the same as their animated counterparts, John Lennon's and George Harrison's physical appearances had changed by the time the cameo was shot. Both were clean-shaven, and Lennon had begun to grow his hair longer with accompanying mutton-chop sideburns.

The original story was written by Lee Minoff, based on the song by Lennon and McCartney, and the screenplay was penned by four collaborators including Erich Segal. Harrison's character's recurring line "It's all in the mind" is taken from The Goon Show and was also said by John in The Beatles animated series in the episode "Strawberry Fields".

As with many motion-picture musicals, the music takes precedence over the actual plot, and most of the story is a series of set pieces designed to present Beatles music set to various images, in a form reminiscent of Walt Disney's Fantasia. Nonetheless, the film still presents a modern-day fairy tale representing the values of its intended hippie audience.

The dialogue is littered with puns, double entendres and Beatles in-jokes. In the DVD commentary track, production supervisor John Coates states that many of these lines were written by Liverpudlian poet Roger McGough (who, coincidentally at that time, was married to Thelma Pickles, a former girlfriend of both Lennon and McCartney), though he received no credit in the film.

In the DVD commentary track, Coates states that the Meanies were always intended to be coloured blue. However, background supervisor Millicent McMillan recalls that the Blue Meanies were originally supposed to be red, or even purple, but when Heinz Edelmann's assistant accidentally changed the colours, the film's characters took on a different meaning. Coates acknowledges in the commentary that the "Are you Bluish? You don't look Bluish" joke in the film is a pun on the then-contemporary expression "You don't look Jewish", but that it was not intended to be derogatory. It was a reference to how most villains in movies were played by Jewish actors.

Animation

The animation design of Yellow Submarine has sometimes been incorrectly attributed to famous psychedelic pop art artist of the era Peter Max, as his art style greatly resembles the style used in the film, but the film's art director was in fact Heinz Edelmann, who along with such contemporaries as Milton Glaser and Seymour Chwast pioneered the psychedelic style for which Max later became famous.

Animators Robert Balser and Jack Stokes were hired as the film's animation directors.

Charlie Jenkins, one of the film's key creative directors, was responsible for the entire "Eleanor Rigby" sequence, as well as the submarine journey from Liverpool, through London, to splashdown. Jenkins also was responsible for "Only a Northern Song" in the Sea of Science, plus much of the multi-image sequences.

A large crew of skilled animators, including (in alphabetical order) Alan Ball, Ron Campbell, John Challis, Hester Coblentz, Geoff Collins, Rich Cox, Duane Crowther, Tony Cuthbert, Malcolm Draper, Paul Driessen, Cam Ford, Norm Drew, Tom Halley, Dick Horne, Arthur Humberstone, Dennis Hunt, Greg Irons, Dianne Jackson, Anne Jolliffe, Dave Livesey, Reg Lodge, Geoff Loynes, Lawrence Moorcroft, Ted Percival, Mike Pocock, Gerald Potterton, and Peter Tupy, were responsible for bringing the animated Beatles to life.

The background work was executed by artists under the direction of Alison de Vere and Millicent McMillan, who were both background supervisors. Ted Lewis and Chris Miles were responsible for animation cleanup.

George Dunning, who also worked on The Beatles cartoon series, was the overall director for the film, supervising over 200 artists for 11 months. "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" was Dunning's idea, which he turned over to Bill Sewell, who delivered more than thirty minutes of rotoscoped images. By that time Dunning was unavailable, and Bob Balser, with the help of Arne Gustafson, edited the material to its sequence length in the film.

Edelmann's surreal visual style contrasts greatly with the efforts of Walt Disney Animation Studios and other animated Hollywood films that had been previously released at the time (a fact noted by Pauline Kael in her positive review of the film). The film uses a style of limited animation. It also paved the way for Terry Gilliam's animations for Do Not Adjust Your Set and Monty Python's Flying Circus (particularly the Eleanor Rigby sequence), as well as the Schoolhouse Rock vignettes for ABC and similar-looking animation in early seasons of Sesame Street and The Electric Company. (Only one of the animation staff of Yellow Submarine, Ron Campbell, contributed subsequent animation to the Children's Television Workshop.)

The Beatles' animated personas were based on their appearance during the Sgt Pepper's press party at manager Brian Epstein's house, on 19 May 1967. The film also includes several references to songs not included in the soundtrack, including "A Day in the Life", the lyrics of which are referenced in the "Sea of Holes" scene; the orchestral breaks earlier in the film are also taken from the song.

Musical numbers

All tracks written by Lennon–McCartney except where noted.

Track start and end time is indicated in hrs:mins:secs. These are approximated because the songs are embedded in the film plot and cannot be strictly separated.

0:21–2:15: "Introduction Story" music by George Martin

7:55–10:40: "Yellow Submarine"

10:40–13:30: "Eleanor Rigby"

19:00–19:55: "Love You To" (George Harrison) (excerpt, played during George's entrance)

22:30–23:05: "A Day in the Life" (excerpt, orchestral swell, starting as the submarine takes off)

23:25–25:55: "All Together Now"

28:20–31:15: "When I'm Sixty-Four"

31:30–34:30: "Only a Northern Song" (Harrison)

43:15–46:15: "Nowhere Man"

48:00–51:30: "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"

54:30–54:50: "Yellow Submarine" (a short vocal excerpt when Ringo finds the green hole that leads to Pepperland)

56:15–56:25: "Think for Yourself" (Harrison) (short excerpt, a line is sung a cappella to revive the Lord Mayor)

1:06:35–1:08:50: "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"

1:08:50–1:09:05: "With a Little Help from My Friends" (short excerpt, directly following "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" without interruption, just as on the 1967 album of the same name albeit fading out after a few seconds)

1:11:45–1:15:05: "All You Need Is Love" (abridged)

1:16:30–1:16:40: "Baby, You're a Rich Man" (excerpt; only played on the international versions as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band are set free from the anti-music bubble; it was also added to the 5.1 mix of the restored 1999 UK version)

1:17:25–1:21:00: "Hey Bulldog" (originally shown only in UK before the film's 1999 restoration)

1:24:15–1:27:15: "It's All Too Much" (Harrison) (abridged) (This version is an odd yet not really noticeable hodgepodge of the original 8:14 minute mix of the song, which has many a line cut from the song, shortening the official album version of It’s All Too Much to 6:26. One of the cut lines is used in the film version; that being: “Time for you and me to take this opportunity, Time for me to look at you and you to look at me.”)

1:27:15–1:29:00: "All Together Now" (accompanied by images of the real Beatles singing, numbers and letters, and "all together now" translated in various languages)

First soundtrack album

The original soundtrack album comprised the four new Beatles songs, two other Beatles songs (the title song and "All You Need Is Love"), and orchestral pieces by George Martin.

The orchestral pieces were also used in the short NASA Apollo 9 mission films, which were part of the series that NASA made for every mission.

Second soundtrack album

Another soundtrack was released in 1999 that contained all of the Beatles' songs from the film except "A Day in the Life".

Spiritual sequel

In 1985, Al Brodax teamed up with the New York Institute of Technology Computer Graphics Lab to produce a spiritual sequel of sorts to Yellow Submarine titled Strawberry Fields (based on the song Strawberry Fields Forever). The film was intended to be entirely CGI, but due to the complexities of the technology of the time, it was decided to render only backgrounds and objects in this style, while all the characters would utilize traditional animation. The film was also supposedly going to utilize clips from the unproduced animated film The Works. Contrary to popular belief, Don Bluth was not involved in the production, though Jeff Merghart, who worked on An American Tail, was involved as a key animator. His artwork, which resembles the style of his colleague Bluth, was used as the basis for the character designs.

Due to Apple Records no longer owning the rights to the songs, the catalogue would have featured cover versions such as Michael Jackson's version of "Come Together", Cyndi Lauper's version of "Across the Universe", Crosby, Stills & Nash's cover of "Blackbird", Robert Palmer's cover of "Baby, You're A Rich Man", Siedah Garrett's cover of "Hey Jude", Cheap Trick's cover of "Magical Mystery Tour", Luther Vandross's cover of "Michelle" and Stevie Ray Vaughan's cover of "Taxman".

At some point in between 1990 and 1992, Brodax left the project and was replaced with Dutch director Rene Daalder. One of the other concept artists for the film was Polish painter Jacek Yerka, who was hired to create figures, monster-machines and unreal landscapes. Several of his paintings such as Broken Picnic, Technobeach and Creation Of Life were originally meant for Strawberry Fields.

The plot centered on an amateur detective named Jude who teams up with a woman named Michelle Ma'belle to reacquire King Maxwell's Silver Hammer from the Evil Walrus and his Eggmen. And along they way they would have met Flattop, Bungalow Bill, Rocky Raccoon, Mean Mr. Mustard, a blue snake named Oo Bla Dee, Oo Bla Da, Jojo and The Fool.

Production drawings for the film resurfaced in 2019, and in 2024, a work-in-progress reel was found and was put up on the Internet Archive. In 2026, a pitch trailer, 300 pages of storyboards and cast listing involving Chuck McCann, Deborah Winger and Steve Guttenberg were found.

In popular culture

In 1969, Corgi Toys issued a licensed die-cast toy model of the Yellow Submarine. A lightly modified version was reissued as a collector's item by Corgi Classics in 1999.

In the 1978 mockumentary film All You Need Is Cash, the Rutles are featured in a clip from their animated film Yellow Submarine Sandwich performing the song "Cheese and Onions".

Between 1981 and 1989, Paul McCartney worked on a proposed album titled Return to Pepperland. Several songs such as "Beautiful Night", "P.S. Love Me Do" and "Love Come Tumbling Down" were officially released on albums and singles, but the rest are only available through bootlegs. The title song, "Return To Pepperland" was originally planned to release on a 12" single release but was cancelled for unknown reasons.

In 1984, a large-scale sculpture of the Yellow Submarine was constructed for the International Garden Festival in Liverpool. It subsequently stood for some years in Chavasse Park, before being placed in its present location at Liverpool John Lennon Airport in 2005.

In the 1993 episode of The Simpsons titled "Last Exit to Springfield", Lisa Simpson, under anesthetic, has a dream sequence highly reminiscent of the film.

Professional wrestler the Blue Meanie derived his name and persona from the villains of the film.

The 2001 episode of The Powerpuff Girls titled "Meet the Beat Alls", which contains numerous Beatles references, briefly features cameos of the band members' likenesses from Yellow Submarine. One character from the episode resembles Fred from the film.

In the episode of the animated series Smeshariki – "BallAst", the main characters are swimming in a yellow submarine under water, as well as sounds the arrangement of the song "Yellow Submarine".

The 2007 film Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story features an animated acid-trip sequence that parodies Yellow Submarine.

The Adult Swim animated series Superjail! frequently makes visual references to Yellow Submarine, which series creator Christy Karacas has stated to be an influence to his visual style.

The third Futurama film, Bender's Game (2008), makes visual references to Yellow Submarine.

In the Robot Chicken episode titled "Due to Constraints of Time and Budget", Yellow Submarine is spoofed in a sketch called "Ping Them Back".

In the 2010 episode of Family Guy titled "Something, Something, Something, Dark Side", when Lois Griffin as Princess Leia becomes angry with Peter Griffin as Han Solo for driving the ship into an asteroid field, he says, "It was either this or the Strawberry Fields!" This leads to a cutaway gag that features the band members in their Yellow Submarine likenesses floating in the space, surrounded by giant strawberries.

In 2010, the official music video for "Your Love Is My Drug" by American pop recording artist Ke$ha features digital animation sequences, making visual references to Yellow Submarine.

In 2014, apparel company Vans released a series of shoes based on Yellow Submarine.

In 2016, for the 50th anniversary of the original song's release, the die-cast toy car brand Hot Wheels released a miniature replica of the Yellow Submarine from the film, as well as an assortment of six toy cars featuring imagery from the film.

In 2016, Lego Ideas released a Yellow Submarine Lego set that includes minifigures of the four Beatles and Jeremy Hillary Boob, along with the submarine.

In the 2019 Marvel Cinematic Universe film Avengers: Endgame, Tony Stark jokingly refers to his shipmate Nebula as a "Blue Meanie".

In The Big Lez Show season 3 finale, the main characters consume a plant named the "Blue Meanie", and it having a psychedelic effect. In the season 4 finale, "Choomah Island 3 – Denouement", Sassy and Donny go on a trip reminiscent of this film and encounter John Lennon.

In early July 2022, artist Igor Fridrih Petković with the support of the Exit Foundation recreated the top of the Yellow Submarine on one of the piers of the former Prince Andrew Bridge (also known as the Emperor Franz Joseph Bridge) on the Danube river in Novi Sad, Serbia. The art installation was planned to remain for over a year and was a part of the world peace thematic of the 2022 Exit Music Festival. It was slightly damaged during the 2023 summer storms that ravaged Southern Europe, with the submarine periscope falling due to heavy winds.

In 2023, Apple released an ad promoting the iPhone 14 titled "Hello Yellow", that makes visual references to Yellow Submarine. It has surpassed 20 million views on YouTube.

On 28 January 2025, Crocs did a collaboration with the Beatles and released two Classic Clogs and Jibbitz accessories based on the Yellow Submarine artwork.