Beatles Cartoon

I don’t know if this will be comprehensible to those who didn’t watch the old Beatles cartoon, the one where the foursome (voiced by others, including Paul Frees) would have some kind of wacky adventure for two minutes and then spend the rest of the cartoon singing (to the real records). It was fairly typical ’60s limited-animation stuff, maybe a bit above the normal standard, with lots of re-used footage. You can find examples online, like “Taxman.” (I give the cartoon producers credit for finding an interpretation of that song that doesn’t led itself to claims that it’s a “Conservative Rock Song” or whatever.)

This is one of those internet mashups that restores my faith in humanity, at least the segment of humanity with a whole lot of time to kill and an encyclopedic knowledge of clips from old TV cartoons. A YouTube user has used clips from the old ’60s Beatles cartoon to imagine how that show might have done a cartoon based on “I Am the Walrus.” (The show was cancelled just before the Beatles’ songs got really weird.) Since the cartoon always used the same footage over and over again for the songs, it’s actually not that hard to find clips of the “John” character’s mouth moving in unison with the lyrics, but the user has managed to find clips — plus some original stuff — that really makes it feel like a real episode of that cartoon.