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The Rutles: Difference between revisions
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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.<ref> Idle was fed up with shoestring budgets. ''RWT'' wasn't given money for a BBC light entertainment (comedy/sketch show), but for a chat (talk) show, which meant that they had to make props and do shoots for the money it takes to tape talking heads. Not fun.</ref>
''The Rutles'' was perhaps the first [[Saturday Night Live|''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.
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