The Beatles, a late 1960s American fictional animated television series featuring the band's musical misadventures.
Petticoat Junction, "The Ladybugs": Hoping to cash in on Beatlemania, Uncle Joe recruits Billie Jo, Betty Jo, Bobbie Jo, and Sally to form a Beatles-like pop group. [1]
The Beagles, a 1967-1968 American animated television series in which its name is a takeoff on The Beatles.[2]
Sesame Street featured a parody band called "the Beetles", a group of four bugs with Liverpool accents and Beatle hair performing parodies of their songs, such as "Letter B" and "Hey Food".
In The Powerpuff Girls episode "Meet the Beat-Alls", Mojo Jojo, "Him", Princess Morbucks, and Fuzzy Lumpkins form a group of supervillains named "The Beat-Alls". There are many additional references to the Beatles, their history, songs, and albums through the episode. Also, in two parts of the episode, all 4 Beatles appear in their animated forms from The Beatles cartoon series and the Yellow Submarine film.[3]
The Beatles appeared and were mentioned several times in The Simpsons. Specifically, the episode "Homer's Barbershop Quartet" roughly parallels the Beatles' story, providing numerous references. The three surviving members of the band, at the time, have guest starred as themselves during the series on separate occasions.
In the Wonder Pets! episode "Save the Beetles!", the group save a rock band named The Beetles (parody/reference to The Beatles).
In the Amphibia episode "Battle of the Bands", in the scene where Sasha Waybright sees Anne Boonchuy's concept art for the group bug outfits, Marcy Wu the drummer of a band named "Sasha and The Sharps", is doing the peace sign. This could somewhat be a reference to Ringo Starr, the drummer of The Beatles, who also does the peace sign. This reference is seen once again in the episode "Turning Point", where Sasha Waybright sees Anne Boonchuy's journal.
The 1967 film The Jungle Book features four vultures named Buzzie, Flaps, Ziggy and Dizzy, with Liverpudlian accents and mop-top hair style referencing the Beatles.
The 1978 film I Wanna Hold Your Hand is about "Beatlemania" and is a fictionalized account of the day of the Beatles' first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.
The 2007 film Across the Universe is a musical that takes place during the 1960s. 34 Beatles compositions were performed in the film along with names of characters referenced in their music and multiple small allusions to The Beatles are scattered throughout the film.
The film Ferris Bueller's Day Off features at least two references to the Beatles: Ferris (Matthew Broderick) states his admiration of John Lennon's quote "I don't believe in Beatles, I just believe in me," and later sneaks onto a parade float and lip-synchs to "Twist and Shout", to positive reception from the crowd.
The 1994 film Backbeat chronicles the Beatles' Hamburg days.
The 2008 film I'm Not There features a segment in the mid-1960s in which singer Jude Quinn (a fictionalised version of Bob Dylan, played by Cate Blanchett) visits London and is briefly seen fraternising with the Beatles.
The 2000 Icelandic film Angels of the Universe, which focuses on schizophrenia and is mainly set in a psychiatric hospital, features one character, Óli, who believes himself to have written most Beatles songs and to have transmitted them to The Beatles via telepathy, even after the split of the band. "Hey Jude" is being "composed" by Óli in one scene of the film.
In the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger, Bond is disparaging of the group, commenting: "My dear girl, there are some things that just aren't done, such as drinking Dom Perignon '53 above the temperature of 38 degrees Fahrenheit. That's just as bad as listening to the Beatles without earmuffs!"
The 2019 film Yesterday written by Richard Curtis and directed by Danny Boyle is set in a world where no one has ever heard of The Beatles apart from one man. The film contains covers of many of their songs, including the titular track: Yesterday.
Wolfenstein: The New Order and Wolfenstein: The New Colossus, an alternative history games developed by MachineGames, features a german singing version of The Beatles under the name "Die Käfer", who sing Nazi propaganda songs, which are mostly parodies of real life Beatles songs.
1977 song "1977" by The Clash: "No Beatles, Elvis or The Rolling Stones" [8]
In the 1979 song "London Calling" by The Clash, the line "Phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust" appears to be aimed at the movement itself. However, Mick Jones stated in an interview that "[the line] was aimed at all the touristy sound-alike rock bands in London in the late '70s." and that he and the rest of the band were fans of the group.[9][10]
In the 2018 song "Going Bad" by Meek Mill featuring Drake, the latter raps, "I got more slaps than the Beatles", referencing how he beat the band's record for the most top-ten singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart within a single year, which they had previously held since 1964. After beating the record, Drake got a tattoo of himself walking in front of the group in their Abbey Road formation, appearing to be waving back at them.[17][18][19][20]
