The Rutles



The Rutles are a Fake Band who produce real music that parodies/satirizes The Beatles. They are the subject of The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash (or just The Rutles), a 1979 Mockumentary/Rockumentary that tells their story from their founding to the present. Eric Idle plays an accident-prone narrator, as well as Dirk McQuickly, the band's bassist.

They began as a sketch on Eric Idle's post-Python sketch show Rutland Weekend Television, a program that ranged from Crowning Moment of Funny to So Okay It's Average. One of its strengths were the musical numbers which were mostly written by Neil Innes, an occasional member of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and supporting act on Monty Python. The Rutles were born from a psychiatric patient who was sick with love songs (It Makes Sense in Context -- sort of). Innes played the patient, singing "I Must be in Love," which directly segued into a parody of A Hard Days Night crossed with the Beatles' appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. This again mutated into the Mockumentary. RWT is the source of the band's name, so the u is short, "Rut-les."

When Eric Idle guest-hosted Saturday Night Live, he brought over two segments from RWT to air as shorts: Pommy, a parody of Tommy, in which the hero tries to escape from a Ken Russell film, and the Rutles. Idle was especially proud of Pommy, but naturally Lorne Michaels chose the Rutles; SNL was in the midst of publicly "wooing" the Beatles to reunite on the show. The short was a wild success, and the show received many calls asking about the Rutles (some of them even thinking that these were the Beatles). When Idle returned to England, he began writing a feature-length Mockumentary for the BBC, but when he again met up with Michaels, who offered a larger budget with NBC, he committed to doing it with them.

The Rutles was perhaps the first SNL spinoff to be made, but because of its initial failure and the nature of its rehabilitation, they aren't consistently linked. It originally aired on NBC; it was the lowest-rated program on that night. (Apparently, it aired just before the revival of Beatlemania.) It has since been Vindicated by History and Vindicated by Cable. It is also important because it is one of the few films about the Beatles (more or less) that was made before John Lennon was killed and got the Dead Artists Are Better effect. It is also the only collaboration between members of Monty Python and the original Not Ready for Primetime Players.

The story that The Rutles tells parallels the history of The Beatles closely, if inexactly. There are side-stories about how The Rutles affected the greater world, which is, in fact, more than anyone, including the narrator, will admit.

There was a Contested Sequel in 2002, Can't Buy Me Lunch. It was made with outtakes from the first film, with some new footage with Eric Idle's Narrator and a host of new interviewees tying them together. There were also albums; besides the soundtrack to the first film, there was the Archaeology in 1995 (made without Idle's involvement), timed to compete with the Beatles' Anthology. It did surprisingly well, considering the competition.


 * Affectionate Parody: Eric Idle was a huge fan of the Beatles and a close friend of George Harrison.
 * In fact, George Harrison was known to reference the Rutles when explaining incidents in Beatle history. Harrison went so far as to say that All You Need Is Cash is one of the most accurate biographies on the Beatles ever made.
 * Bigger Than Jesus: Ron Nasty caused controversy when he claimed The Rutles were "bigger than God." Ron, speaking to a slightly deaf journalist, actually said that they were "bigger than Rod," as in Rod Stewart. Rod Stewart would not make it big for another eight years.
 * The protests and album burnings that were sparked by Ron's comment are said to have seen the sales of Rutles albums and merchandise skyrocket as people were buying their products just to have them destroyed. While the movie plays this for laughs, it's actually very reflective of the Real Life protests against The Beatles.
 * Blind Black Guy: Blind Lemon Pye, the New Orleans bluesman who supposedly came up with their music.
 * Defictionalization: In the early 80s, "Cheese And Onions" actually turned up on a bootleg album of John Lennon songs.
 * Foot Focus: Ron Nasty and Chastity's film, subverted to the point of Fetish Retardant.
 * G-Rated Drug: Tea.
 * Also a case of Getting Crap Past the Radar, as "tea" is slang for marijuana.
 * The Jimmy Hart Version: Lots of their work is like this; they cleverly play off of the styles and lyrics of individual songs rather than doing note-for-note parodies. Compare "Back in '64" to "When I'm 64," for instance.
 * No Celebrities Were Harmed: The Rutles and those associated with them were thinly-veiled Captain Ersatz parodies of The Beatles and company.
 * Dirk McQuickly: Paul McCartney
 * Ron Nasty: John Lennon
 * Stig O'Hara: George Harrison
 * Barry Wom (Barrington Womble): Ringo Starr (Richard Starkey)
 * Leppo: Stuart Sutcliffe
 * Dick Jaws: Dick James
 * Leggy Mountbatten: Brian Epstein
 * Ron Decline: Allen Klein
 * Bill Murray the K: Murray the K
 * Played by Bill Murray himself.
 * Arthur Sultan: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
 * Corinthia: Cynthia Lennon
 * Chastity: Yoko Ono
 * Whose Father invented World War II
 * Long Title: "Major Happy's Up And Coming Once Upon A Good Time Band".
 * Living Legend: The band are supposedly a living legend that will live long after other living legends have died.
 * The Narrator: Eric Idle.
 * The Pete Best: Leppo, the Fifth Rutle. (Technically, Leppo was a spoof on deceased Beatles bassist Stuart Sutcliffe. Extended canon in the Rutles universe claims that their pre-Barry drummer was named Kevin.)
 * Leppo is also a reference to Zeppo Marx, The Pete Best of the Marx Brothers.
 * Parody Assistance: George Harrison not only referenced The Rutles on occasion; he even played the reporter who interviewed the Derek Taylor Expy, in an interview that took place in front of the Rutles' HQ while people were walking off with stolen items in the background. (Derek Taylor was in turn a friend of Harrison; he and his wife were the friends who had lost their way in Blue Jay Way.)
 * That's also George saying "This little piggy went to market" (backwards) on "Piggy in the Middle".
 * Rooftop Concert: The band's final performance on the roof of their Rutle Corps building where the band notably played "Get Up And Go".
 * The band (minus Eric Idle Dirk McQuigley) also held a rooftop concert in the mid-1990's to celebrate the release of their "lost album" Archaeology, which coincided with the release of The Beatles Anthology.
 * Sdrawkcab Name: It was said that if you play the title track from Sergeant Rutter's Only Darts Club Band backwards, it is supposed to sound like "Stig has been dead for ages, honestly." It in fact says "Dnab Bulc Strad Ylno Srettur Tnaegres."
 * The Quiet One: Taken to an extreme, in that Stig does not get a single line in the entire special.
 * Yoko Oh No: Parodied with Chastity, the No Celebrities Were Harmed Yoko Ono.
 * You Look Familiar: Eric Idle plays The Narrator, Stanley J. Krammerhead III, and Dirk McQuigley. Likewise, Eric's wife plays both Stanley's girlfriend and a German prostitute.

Since TOW removed the list of tracks parodied by each individual Rutles track, here it is:

The Rutles
 * 1) "Goose-Step Mama" (Nasty/McQuickly) - 2:18 ("Some Other Guy", "I Saw Her Standing There" "One After 909")
 * 2) "Number One" (Nasty/McQuickly) - 2:52 ("Twist And Shout", "It Won't Be Long")
 * 3) "Baby Let Me Be" (Nasty/McQuickly) - 1:57 ("Slow Down")
 * 4) "Hold My Hand" (Nasty/McQuickly) - 2:11 ("Eight Days a Week", "She Loves You", "All My Loving", #"I Want to Hold Your Hand", "Please Please Me")
 * 5) "Blue Suede Schubert" (Nasty/McQuickly) - 2:13 ("Roll Over Beethoven", "Boys")
 * 6) "I Must Be In Love" (Nasty/McQuickly) - 2:06 (The film, "A Hard Day's Night". "If I Needed Someone", "From Me To You", #"Ticket To Ride")
 * 7) "With A Girl Like You" (Nasty/McQuickly) - 1:53 ("If I Fell")
 * 8) "Between Us" (Nasty/McQuickly) - 2:03 ("Baby It's You", "And I Love Her", "Till There Was You")
 * 9) "Living In Hope" (Womble) - 2:39 ("Don't Pass Me By", "Octopus's Garden", "Act Naturally", "With A Little Help from My Friends")
 * 10) "Ouch!" (Nasty/McQuickly) - 1:52 ("Help!")
 * 11) "It's Looking Good" (Nasty/McQuickly) - 2:02 ("I'm Down", "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party", "I'm Looking Through You", "I'm a Loser")
 * 12) "Doubleback Alley" (Nasty/McQuickly) - 2:57 ("Penny Lane")
 * 13) "Good Times Roll" (Nasty/McQuickly) - 3:05 ("Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", "You Never Give Me Your Money")
 * 14) "Nevertheless" (O'Hara) - 1:29 ("Love You To", "Within You Without You")
 * 15) "Love Life" (Nasty/McQuickly) - 2:52 ("All You Need Is Love")
 * 16) "Piggy In The Middle" (Nasty/McQuickly) - 4:11 ("I Am The Walrus")
 * 17) "Another Day" (Nasty/McQuickly) - 2:13 ("Martha My Dear", "Don't Bother Me")
 * 18) "Cheese And Onions" (Nasty/McQuickly) - 2:42 ("A Day In The Life")
 * 19) "Get Up And Go" (Nasty/McQuickly) - 3:19 ("Get Back")
 * 20) "Let's Be Natural" (Nasty/McQuickly) - 3:22 ("Julia", "Dear Prudence", "Strawberry Fields Forever", "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)")

Archaeology
 * 1) "Major Happy's Up-And-Coming Once Upon A Good Time Band" - 2:19 ("Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band")
 * 2) "Rendezvous" - 2:06 ("With a Little Help from My Friends", with backing vocals reminiscent of "Good Day Sunshine")
 * 3) "Questionnaire" - 2:41 (Musically a composite of "The Fool On The Hill", "Imagine" and "I Am The Walrus" with pointed lyrics referring to Lennon's assassination and gun-ownership laws)
 * 4) "We've Arrived! (And To Prove It We're Here)" - 2:09 (Rutles versions of "Back in the U.S.S.R." and "Flying" with a "Revolution 9" reference in the ending) (taped 1978 rehearsal featuring Halsall)
 * 5) "Lonely-Phobia" - 2:35 (Acoustic ballads from A Hard Day's Night-era, especially "Things We Said Today" and "I'll Be Back", but also takes liberally from McCartney's solo song Mrs Vandebilt)
 * 6) "Unfinished Words" - 2:08 (A play on the anecdote about "Yesterday" and its 'scrambled eggs' dummy lyrics, setting numerous lyrical references to Martin Lewis's 'fake Beatles outtakes' hoax set to a tune resembling "Nowhere Man".)
 * 7) "Hey Mister!" - 3:18 (Broadly similar to "I Me Mine" and "Yer Blues", references "Helter Skelter" at the ending)
 * 8) "Easy Listening" - 2:09 (A pastiche of "Octopus's Garden" with some suggestions of "Don't Pass Me By" and "Act Naturally", with a lyrical reference to McCartney's "Why Don't We Do It in the Road?")
 * 9) "Now She's Left You" - 2:03 (A pastiche of "I Don't Want To Spoil The Party" written for the original film but unused. In 1981 a doo-wop arrangement of this song featured on Innes's TV series The Innes Book Of Records) (taped 1978 rehearsal featuring Halsall)
 * 10) "The Knicker Elastic King" - 2:39 (A 1981 composition of Innes's, rearranged in the style of "Getting Better". The horn solo ostensibly comprises Eric Spear's theme from Coronation Street, referencing Wings's cover of the theme from Crossroads. The spoken middle-eight homages the Yellow Submarine film and Ringo Starr's children's TV narration.)
 * 11) "I Love You" - 2:18 (Elements of "It's Only Love" and "And I Love Her")
 * 12) "Eine Kleine Middle Klasse Musik" - 4:24 (A 1992 Innes composition rearranged in the style of "Come Together", with a Rhodes riff borrowed from "Maybe I'm Amazed")
 * 13) "Joe Public" - 4:03 (A 1992 Innes song rearranged in the style of "Tomorrow Never Knows", with Fataar singing lead)
 * 14) "Shangri-La" - 7:43 (A 1977 Innes song newly infused with a great many Pepper/Magical Mystery Tour-era Beatles references and a new "Hey Jude"-style coda. "A Day in the Life" forms the backbone of the song, which variously transforms into "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" amongst others, features a chorus suggested by "All You Need Is Love", "Magical Mystery Tour", and Hey Jude and contains a horn riff taken directly from "For No One"; The intro quotes Oasis's "Whatever", in reference to EMI's successful plagiarism lawsuit against that song's melodic similarity to Innes's 1973 single "How Sweet To Be An Idiot")
 * 15) "Don't Know Why" - 3:44 (Written a year in advance of the album for the TV show "Rory Bremner: Who Else", directly pastiching "Free as a Bird", and referencing Innes's then-current hardships relating to the original Rutles project, including his losing of the ATV lawsuit and his fractious relationship with Eric Idle)
 * 16) "Back In '64" - 3:14 (An answer song to "When I'm Sixty-Four", written from a 1996 perspective, with a solo reminiscent of the Moog lines in "Maxwell's Silver Hammer". The "zum zum zum zum" backing vocals reference those of Innes's 1977 song "Crystal Balls".)