Beatles mythology has its fair share of heroes, but only Al Brodax can boast of entering the Beatles into the cartoon cannon. As the head of King Features Syndicate cartoons during the 1960s, he launched the animated Beatles television program on ABC, and later produced their legendary full-length animated film, “Yellow Submarine.” Brodax is one of the highlights of Beatlefest ’99: the 25th Official Beatles Fans Celebration. The event is scheduled for Friday, March 26 through Sunday, March 28 at the NJ Crowne Plaza Meadowlands Hotel (formerly the Meadowlands Hilton), at 2 Harmon Plaza, off Meadowlands Parkway, in Secaucus. Brodax will talk about “Yellow Submarine” and answer all manner of Beatles-related queries on Saturday, at 4:30 p.m.
The Beatles cartoon shorts (which aired on Saturday mornings from 1965 to 1969) were a big deal, and managed to single-handedly steal the thunder from CBS’s all-powerful morning lineup. The first two episodes, “A Hard Days Night” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” managed to achieve a 52 per cent share of the audience, a percentage unheard of in those years.
“We were the only successful cartoon show on ABC at that time,” proclaims Brodax. “CBS dominated the children’s cartoon market.”
The show’s concept was simple: in the ultimate musical tie-in, each cartoon had a Beatles song title, and the plot told you something about the song’s story line. Although they were basic and actor’s did the member’s voices, the episodes managed to get many of the Beatles’ mannerisms down. Prior to the film, there were plans to create four prime time specials, but those plans were scrapped.
After its initial network run, the show went into syndication, and in 1970 turned up on New York’s channel 5. In the ’90s the series reappeared briefly on MTV. Apple Records recently acquired the series, and according to Brodax, the company will likely rerelease them in a video collection.
Beatles busy elsewhere
Brodax said the Beatles themselves played little or no role in making the cartoons, and contrary to popular myth, the group was never even considered for doing the voices for the cartoons.
“The Beatles only signed the contracts, they didn’t have anything to do with production,” Brodax reveals. “I came up with the idea for the cartoons and approached (band manager) Brian Epstein about doing them.”
At that time, Brodax was responsible for other King Features properties, including “Crazy Cat,” “Beetle Bailey,” and was credited with the 1960s version of “Popeye the Sailor.”
“My favorite Beatles cartoon was ‘Twist and Shout,'” he said, noting no particular reason except that the product seemed especially well done.
Somewhere along the line, Brodax suggested the idea of a full length animated feature based on The Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine.”
“Since they were doing so well, I thought we could make a movie,” Brodax said.
Once more Brodax, approached Brian Epstein, and found that luck was on his side.
“[The Beatles] wanted to go to India,” Brodax recalled. “They owed United Artists one more film, but they didn’t want to do it.”
According to pop music historians, the reason for the band’s reluctance to do another feature film was the failure of “Magical Mystery Tour” a few months earlier.
“Since they didn’t want to do a film anyway, I gave Brian an alternative,” Brodax said. “Let us do the film instead, and he agreed.”
Exploding the myth
Again the Beatles had very little input, except for a two-minute segment at the end of the movie, and showed up on the set about four times during its year-long production. The movie was built instead around 12 Beatle songs, and an instrumental soundtrack written and produced by George Martin. As with the cartoons, the Beatles’ voices were dubbed by actors.
Brodax, along with Lee Minoff, Jack Mendelsohn and Erich Segal created the story and the mythology. Segal was a Professor of Classic Mythology at Yale.
“We made everything up,” he said, noting that though the film was initially envisioned to be a “Fantasia”-style production, it ended up breaking the Disney mold, and today is considered a milestone in the animated world.
James Garland, an award-winning artist whose Web site “Raccoons from Mars,” gets thousands of hits a week, attended the premier of the film in New York City in July, 1968.
“I was worried that it was going to be too much like Peter Max,” he said. “It turned out to be a wonderful mixture of artistic styles.”
“When we did ‘Submarine’ in 1968, none of the major studios were interested in doing animated films,” Brodax said. “There hadn’t been an animated film done by a major studio in England for 14 years before that. We also did it quickly and for very little money.”
Today, videos of “Yellow Submarine” ironically are rare, and cost as much as $175 a pop on the collector’s market. For more information on Beatlefest ’99, call 1-888-9BEATLES.