Referenced By / The Beatles

A list of references to a creative work by The Beatles. These references mostly will be to one of the group's songs but also includes their album covers and movies. It also encompasses the solo projects of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr.

For examples pertaining to Yellow Submarine, go here.

For specific visual examples common enough to deserve their own subtropes, see:

• Abbey Road Crossing
• Sgt. Pepper's Shout-Out

For in-universe expies/parodies of the Beatles, see Borrowing the Beatles

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Anime & Manga

• Di Gi Charat:
  • Di Gi Charat Nyo! has two musician characters named John and Paul. The voice actors in the English dub even do an impression of the respective Beatles when voicing them.
  • Another from Nyo!, Episode 51 is called "The Magically Mystical Tour". The title card also recreates the album's cover with Dejiko, Rabi~en~Rose, John, and Paul taking the place of the four Beatles.
  • Reiwa has the character Gema use an attack called "Yellow World". The Yellow Submarine can be seen in the background when the attack is used.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • In Part 2, Joseph can be seen inserting a Beatles cassete tape into his Walkman in the epilogue. The end of Part 3 shows the tape again, revealed to be "Get Back".
  • In Part 3, the minion of DIO wielding the tarot card of Temperance is named Rubber Soul.
  • In Part 5, one of the Stands is named White Album, with one of its abilities being called White Album Gently Weeps (after the song "While My Guitar Gently Weeps").
  • In Part 7, the Stand of Lucy Steel is known as Ticket to Ride.
  • In Part 8, a Rock Animal known for puncturing the skin of its victims is referred to as Obladi Oblada.
• The core cast of K-On!, the Houkago Teatime band, is believed to be a Gender Flipped one for the Beatles - Yui the eccentric and kind guitarist (John), Ritsu the goofball loudmouth drummer (Ringo), Mio the good-looking well-ordered left-handed bassist (Paul), and Mugi the quiet sensitive multitalented one (George). Yui was also taught how to play guitar from scratch by Mio, much like John was taught from scratch by the left-handed-bassist of his band, Paul. In The Movie, Houkago Teatime even do an Abbey Road Crossing, as well as a recreation of the final rooftop concert on their classroom's tabletop.

Comedy

• Peter Sellers recited the lyrics of "A Hard Day's Night" in a Shakespearian voice, while wearing the outfit of Richard III. It was released as a single in 1965, with a version of "Help!" on the B-side (where Sellers plays a priest asking his congregation for monetary assistance).
• Dennis Miller's 1988 album is titled The Off-White Album. Its plain beige cover is a parody of The White Album, complete with four photos of Miller replacing the photos of the band members.
• Bill Hicks cited the Beatles as an example of drugs being good, joking that they were so high they let Ringo sing on a couple of tracks.

Comic Books

• Animaniacs had in its 60s issue Pinky and the Brain hiring some musicians named "Fab Four" for their plan. Between his dialogue◊ and dismissing them as "a bunch of beetles!", turns out Brain basically gave them all the ideas for success.
• Asterix: In Asterix in Britain (1966) Asterix and Obelix visit Britannia, where they observe the four most popular bards of the country, all caricatures of The Beatles.
• Marvel Comics' Rocket Raccoon is a direct shoutout to "Rocky Raccoon."
• Vertigo Comics' Greatest Hits is about a Beatles-like band who also have superpowers.
• According to this eight part blog post, DC Comics' "Scooter" is based directly on Paul McCartney.
• Agent 327: One of the early stories, a short story, has Agent 327 escorting a pop group arriving on the airport who are obviously based on the Beatles. The story was made in the 1960s too.
• Tom Poes: In Tom Poes en de Bombardonder Olivier B. Bommel blows a tuba which calls up a ghost. The ghost likes beautiful music and will ask people to play something for him. Whenever they play false notes or awful noise he gets mad and transforms into a demon. At one point in the story the tuba is used by a pop group who look suspicously like The Beatles in their mob top period. When Tom Poes begs them to play beautiful melodies only they dismiss him with the line: Melodies? Man, you're years behind! This is the music of today, whereupon huge cacophonous pop music is played, making the ghost only angrier.
• Suske en Wiske:
  • In De Apekermis Wiske hears that all apes have turned intelligent and starts laughing. Lambik tells her: Don't laugh, some of them are even able to talk. She keeps laughing and says: Yeah, sure, I also know some who can sing!, whereupon she lets her hair loose and starts playing guitar while singing: "Yeah, yeah, yeah!", obviously mimicking the Beatles, who were very popular when this story ran in the newspaper.
  • In De Kale Kermis Lambik meets three long haired troubadours from biblical times named Elvisius, Ringorius and Humperbrum.
• Batman #222 features the band, or rather a legally-distinct fictional band called The Oliver Twists, in a riff on the "Paul Is Dead" conspiracy theory.

Comic Strips

• A Baby Blues comic published shortly after Hammie's birth has a parody called "Here Comes The Son" about Hammie turning out to be a boy after Wanda and Darryl were expected to have a girl.
• A 1967 cover of MAD Magazine shows the Beatles and the Maharishi hold up Alfred E. Neuman in the air as their guru.
• Nero:
  • In De Paarse Futen Adhemar teaches at Oxford. The pupils in his class are caricatures of The Beatles.
  • In the album Arthur de Vetvogel (Arthur the Fatbird) Nero and his friends are in the jungle where they start singing All You Need Is Love to keep their spirit up. The song was in the hit parade when this story ran in the newspaper.
• Zits Walt gets angry at a song Jeremy is listening to, resulting in this exchange,
  Walt: Did I hear what I think I just heard?!
  Jeremy: Dad, it's just a song lyric.
  Walt: Don't give me that! I'm sick of this new music that's nothing but drugs and sex!
  Jeremy: You mean like, "Lay Lady Lay", "Lucy in the Sky", "Purple Haze", "Brown Sugar"?
  Walt: Hey, that's different! Those are classics!
  Connie: Ouch. Score one for the teenager.

Fan Works

• At the end of the "Deadly Life" part of Chapter 1 of the Papa Louie Arcade/Danganronpa Crossover Fic Danganflippa, Monokuma makes a play on the title of Magical Mystery Tour while welcoming the students to their first class trial, which Utah lampshades.
  Monokuma: Okay, everyone! Brace yourselves for the Spectacular Trial Arrival Magical Mystery Tour!
  Utah: You didn't need to put a Beatles reference in that title, you know.
• The Kingdom Hearts Fan Fic Those Lacking Spines references a Noodle Incident in which Marluxia was said to have dumped a bunch of dead herbs into the castle's water supply, leading to an Organization-wide Mushroom Samba thereafter referred to as "Luxord in the sky with diamonds".
• In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Crossover Fic Starbound, Twilight Sparkle gave the entire town of Ponyville psychedelic hallucinations for a week, an event she refers to as "Derpy in the sky with diamonds" in one chapter.
• Pokémon Crossing has several references throughout the work, mostly to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band:
  • One of the main characters is named Tank Pepper (after Sgt. Pepper), while a one-off character is named Lucy Diamondsky.
  • Another chapter is titled 'Lava's All I Need', a pun on "Love is All You Need".
  • A different chapter has a character saying they got by with "a little help from my friends".
  • One of the characters goes by 'Eleanor Rigby' as a disguise name.

Films — Animation

• Hey There, It's Yogi Bear!: Not in the film itself, but ad spots had the bear quartet that performs "St. Louie" referred to as "The Bear-tles". Appropriately, the film came months after Beatlemania hit the U.S.
• In The Illusionist (2010), among the new entertainments that are killing off traditional variety acts like the title character is a parody of the Beatles called Billy Boy and the Britoons.
• The Jungle Book (1967): The four vultures are very obvious parodies of The Beatles, down to the mock British accents and harmonizing singing voices. Reportedly the studio had the idea of letting the band voice themselves, which all four had shown an interest in, but Brian Epstein, their manager, refused. So voice actors did the job instead.
• My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks:
  • When Rarity is showing off potential band outfits, one of them is styled like The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper band costumes.
  • In the follow-up short "Friendship Through the Age", Rarity is wearing again the Sgt. Pepper-style vest she tries in the movie, along a more complete outfit, and the whole background of her segment is typical of Yellow Submarine.
• Sausage Party has a one-off character called Sgt. Pepper.
• Shrek 2: Shrek describes the herald and trumpeters at his house as "Sgt. Pompous and the Fancypants Club Band".

Films — Live-Action

• The Rutles film All You Need Is Cash is a very detailed spoof of The Beatles' career, made by Eric Idle (Monty Python). George Harrison has a small cameo in it as a journalist interviewing Michael Palin. Harrison loved this movie so much that he frequently quoted lines from it during interviews and named it the most accurate cinematic depiction of The Beatles' lifestory ever made. John Lennon was in the same boat, reportedly refusing to return the VHS tape he had been given to review. Ringo Starr enjoyed the film as well, but noted that some of the more personal scenes hit a little close to home. Paul McCartney, however, always gave the answer "no comment" when asked about it in interviews. According to Eric Idle, he met Paul at a gala dinner and felt a little bit of the cold shoulder from him. His late then-wife Linda, however, loved it.
• In Almost Famous, Penny Lane, one of the Band-Aids, is named after the song. Also, when Jeff finds out his band, Stillwater, made the cover of Rolling Stone, he mentions the first time he bought the magazine, The Beatles were on the cover.
• The opening of Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, with Austin running in the street followed by hundreds of screaming fans, is a direct reference to A Hard Day's Night.
• John Hughes was a big fan:
  • In Sixteen Candles, Farmer Ted sings "Hey, Jude" to Sam in the shop room at school.
  • The Breakfast Club:
    • Brian mumbles to himself with a pen clipped to his lower lip: "Who am I? Who am I? I'm the Walrus…"
    • Carl the janitor says that when he was a kid he wanted to be John Lennon.
    • Principal Richard Vernon is named after Richard Vernon, the actor who played the gentleman in the train compartment scene in A Hard Day's Night.
    • A deleted scene had Brian and Claire singing "All My Lovin'" during the pot smoking scene.
  • Ferris Bueller's Day Off:
    • Ferris, while in the hall after his shower, says:
      It's not that I condone fascism....or any 'ism' for that matter. 'Isms' in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an 'ism', they should believe in themselves. I quote John Lennon, "I don't believe in Beatles... I just believe in me". A good point there. After all, he was the walrus. I could be the walrus, I'd still have to bum rides off of people."
    • Another reference could be the number of absences Ferris has had, 9, a reference to "Revolution 9".
    • Cameron's Detroit Red Wings jersey references Paul McCartney and Wings, as his Epiphone Texan acoustic guitar (which he played on "Yesterday") sported a Detroit Red Wings sticker from the mid-1970s onward.
    • Ferris lip-synchs to "Twist and Shout" in the big parade.
  • Pretty in Pink:
    • Duckie is singing "Woman" by John Lennon in Andie's bedroom while she is getting him a juice box.
    • The book Andie hands to Blaine the second time he comes into Trax is In His Own Write by John Lennon.
• Hans Zimmer's film score to Inception features a composition titled "#9 Dream Within a Dream" which is a reference to John Lennon's "#9 Dream" from his Walls and Bridges album.
• James Bond:
  • In Goldfinger, James Bond complains that drinking Don Perignon '53 when it's lost its chill is as bad as listening to the Beatles without earmuffs. This became Hilarious in Hindsight nine years later when Paul McCartney did the theme song to Live and Let Die, which was scored by George Martin.
    • Speaking of Live and Let Die, the crescendo just before the main title sequence was deliberately meant to invoke "A Day in the Life".
  • In Quantum of Solace, the first name of the doomed Agent Fields (which is only revealed in the closing credits) is Strawberry (a reference to "Strawberry Fields Forever").
• In Independence Day someone asks Julius Levinson if they have everything they need to flee the city by plane. He answers: "All you need is love. John Lennon. Smart man. Shot in the back, very sad."
• In Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, Nick's bandmate Thom tells him The Beatles had love all figured out. It seems to build up a reference to "All You Need Is Love", except that the song he has in mind is "I Wanna Hold Your Hand".
• Once Upon a Time in America has scenes taking place in the 1960s. An orchestral arrangement plays the melody of "Yesterday" to indicate the time change.
• The AIP 1964 movie Bikini Beach has star Frankie Avalon in two roles, as his recurring character and as geeky British pop star Potato Bug.
• In the film Nothing in Common, David tells his boss Charlie he has no intention of jumping to another advertising firm because they wouldn't make him partner, leading to this exchange:
  Charlie: Partner? Boyle, Gargas, Lionel and Basner?
  David: Like...John, Paul, George and Ringo.
  • Becomes an Ironic Echo later, when Charlie writes David telling him he's free to pursue an airline account, and signs the letter, "John, Paul, George and Ringo".
• In Grand Canyon, Mac and Claire say goodbye to their only child, Roberto, as he goes off to be a counselor at a summer camp. When Mac sees how sad Claire is, he sings, "(S)He's leaving home, bye-bye."
• In the Steve Jobs movie, when Jobs and Wozniak are getting into a bitter argument near the end of the film, Woz wants to know why everyone assumes Woz was Ringo and Jobs was John. Jobs points out it wasn't as if Lennon hit George Harrison over the head and somehow took his place as the talented one in the group.
• Trainspotting:
  • The scene where the store detectives chase Renton down the street is reminiscent of the scene in A Hard Day's Night where The Beatles are pursued by fans.
  • The scene where Renton wakes up on the couch in the morning at Diane's home and says hello to someone passing through the hallway while covered with a blanket to his chin, is reminiscent of a scene in Help! where Ringo is found in a trunk of a car covered up with a blanket, and upon being found, says hello.
  • The "Mother Superior's" written in the dealer house is a reference to "Happiness is a Warm Gun", a song about heroin, which has the line "mother superior jump the gun".
  • All this is Hilarious in Hindsight, as Danny Boyle would later direct Yesterday, which features an Alternate Universe where nobody's heard of the Beatles. And Robert Carlyle cameos as an eldery John Lennon.
• In Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, two of Dog's gang are named John and Paul.
• I Wanna Hold Your Hand is a fictionalised account of the day of the Beatles' first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.
• The title character of i am sam is a Beatles fan who regularly brings the band, their lives, and their songs up as a means of relating to others, to the point where he named his daughter Lucy after "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". Lucy's idyllic early years are accompanied by "Across the Universe". We see Sam and Rita's relationship grow to "Golden Slumbers". Sam's lawyer's name comes "Lovely Rita", a point made by Lucy. At the end of the film, "Two of Us" is used.
• In Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Dewey Cox meets The Beatles who are purposefully portrayed satirically by Jack Black as Paul, Paul Rudd as John, Jason Schwartzman as Ringo, and Justin Long as George.
• "Baby You're a Rich Man" plays in the final scene of The Social Network in a mocking, ironic sense as we linger on Mark Zuckerberg.
• In Withnail and I, Wheezin' Ed listens to "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" in the bath. The film was made by Hand Made Films, which was founded by George Harrison.
• "When I'm Sixty Four" plays during the ending scene of The World According to Garp.
• Hook: In a flashback showing how Peter first Wendy's granddaughter Moira, sometime in the 1960's, a poster for A Hard Day's Night can be seen above her bed.
• In The Trip (1967), John tells Paul, "Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream."
• Fletch: When the title character goes undercover as a doctor at a hospital, he faints during an operation. When a nurse revives him, and asks if there's anything she can get him, Fletch replies, "Do you have The White Album?"
• Rain Man: When Charlie was a toddler, Raymond used to sing "I Saw Her Standing There" to him.
• In My Science Project, Bob eagerly describes going to Beatles concerts during his time warp tour of The '60s.
• Boyhood: For Mason Jr.'s 15th birthday, his father makes him a mixtape called The Black Album, made up of solo tracks by all four of the Beatles. (In Real Life, Ethan Hawke made the mixtape for his daughter following his divorce from Uma Thurman.)
• Sara from Hitch wears a Beatles t-shirt in her first scene.
• In Breaking and Entering (2006), Liv lists the Beatles as one of England's exports. Will sings, "Yeah, yeah, yeah."
• The Commitments: Joey claims to have played in the horn section on "All You Need is Love".
• Mr. Saturday Night: Apparently, Buddy Young Jr. (the stand-up comic who's the main character of the movie) went on after the band performed for the first time on The Ed Sullivan Show, and he was booed off the stage as a result (his heckling the audience didn't help). This is a Berserk Button for him.
• Glass Onion is titled after the Beatles song, which plays during the end credits. Partway through the film, Miles Bron plays a snippet of another song from The White Album, "Blackbird", on the guitar that Paul McCartney used to compose it.
• In the 1968 film Duffy, the title character (played by James Coburn), a retired criminal, is in Tangiers, and is visited by Stefane (James Fox), a playboy who wants him to participate in a robbery. Stefane tells him Tangiers is nice, "with tangerine trees and marmalade skies", and Duffy, chuckling, sings the first part of the chorus of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".
• In Top Secret!, Nick and Hillary are taken to a hideout at one point by a horse-drawn carriage. As the carriage leaves the house, the horse starts singing, "It's been a hard day's night, and I've been working like a dog".
• In Doctor in Clover, before the nurses' party, Sir Lancelot Spratt tells Dr. Grimsdyke he's ready for "a hard day's night".
• Water (1985). A TV director expresses amazement that "Ringo Whosit" and "George Whatsit" have reunited as the backing band for Delgado song appeal to the United Nations. "It's Whosit and Whatsit, back together again!"

Literature

• In Frederick Forsyth's novel The Odessa File, the main character (a journalist in 1960's Germany) recalls how he was able to afford his sports car; he saw a magazine with The Beatles on the cover, recognized all of them except for Ringo, tracked down the club they played in Hamburg (back when Pete Best and Stu Sutcliffe were still in the band), and wrote a story about their time in Germany, which became famous in Germany and all over.
• William Goldman has referenced the band in a couple of novels:
  • In Tinsel, one of the characters, Noel Garvey (son of film producer Julian Garvey), is, along with his friend, working on a project that argues the Beatles' lyrics are all connected. This is to the exasperation of Noel's parents, and Julian hopes his new film project will snap Noel out of this (it does).
  • In The Color Of Light, Chubb Fuller, the main character, remembers the night when John Lennon was murdered, and he had come back from mourning him that night when he was attacked by a deranged former student of his, which led him wondering how his death would be ignored on the night of Lennon's murder (luckily for Chubb, a cop friend of his who walks the beat in his neighborhood happens to be there, and saves him).
• Carl Hiaasen has referenced the band several times as well.
  • In Tourist Season, the main bad guy lets known his intentions to the hero and his boss with a telegram that reads, "You say yes, I say no, you say stop, I say go go go", referencing the lyrics of "Hello Goodbye" from Magical Mystery Tour.
  • The protagonist of Skin Tight, Mick Stranahan (who also shows up in Skinny Dip) will only go out with women who know who all four members of the Beatles are (he tells the person who remembers Pete Best that he loves her).
  • In Native Tongue, Skink is obsessed with the murder of John Lennon, and the hero briefly thinks Skink might go up to the Dakota and wreak havoc (though he doesn't).
  • In Sick Puppy, a Running Gag about Palmer, one of the bad guys, is his tendency towards Mondegreen Gags, introduced when he says, "I read the newspaper today, oh boy".
  • Finally, in Bad Monkey, Andrew Yancy, the main character, claims he was conceived while his parents were listening to "Maxwell's Silver Hammer".
• The Band With Rocks In in Soul Music have several references to the Beatles, most notably that they perform in a Cavern Club (which The Streets of Ankh-Morpork reveals is on Quarry Lane, as a bonus reference to the Quarrymen). The Animated Adaptation gives Glod a Scouse accent.
• Wendy from I Think I Love You mentions the factoid that David Cassidy had a bigger fanbase than Elvis Presley or the Beatles.
• Johnny from Dogs Don't Talk communicates mostly in Beatles lyrics. His first words were "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah," sung perfectly on key.
• In the novel In Country by Bobbie Ann Mason, Sam, despite being a child of the 1980's, is a big fan of the Beatles, and gets excited when she hears the band's version of "Leave my Kitten Alone", which she had never heard before.
• David from What to Say Next listens to the Beatles on his headphones while he eats lunch because the music is social in the way a midday meal should be.
• In Remember Dippy, the protagonists listen to a Beatles CD in Holly's car while driving from the hospital back to Hull.
• In The Secret Life of Kitty Granger, Diana puts on a Beatles record after dinner. Overwhelmed by all the social interaction, Kitty lies on a sofa and listens to "Penny Lane" while staring at the ceiling.
• The Warhammer Fantasy "Blood On The Reik'' novel series has a long and complicated sequence of events that culminates in a Sigmarite priest exorcizing the main character with his deity's sacred weapon, all for the sake of the line:
  Markzell’s silver hammer came down upon his head.
• Wats from Moojag and the Auticode Secret Speaks in Shout-Outs of Beatles songs.
• In The Mer, "Yellow Submarine" is Will's favorite song, since the Beatles were big when he was a human.
• In Rainbow Magic, Lucy the Diamond Fairy was named after the song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".

Live-Action TV

• Absolutely Fabulous: One episode has Patsy and Saffy search for lost tapes by The Beatles. In the Abbey Road Studios Patsy accidentally erases the tapes while pressing the recording button and tapes Saffy's singing over it, causing the tape engineer to faint.
• The Adventures of Pete & Pete: The episode title "Hard Day's Pete" is a reference to the song and movie, A Hard Day's Night.
• The Bill. The police find children playing at being drug dealers, selling plastic bags of grass clippings as 'grass'. June Ackland muses, "And my mother thought the Beatles were a threat."
• In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "The Yoko Factor", comparisons are drawn between the split up of the main characters and to the Beatles in a speech by Spike.
• Classic Albums: One episode was devoted to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
• Doctor Who:
  • In "The Chase", the TARDIS crew watch the band play "Ticket to Ride" on Top of the Pops (which is the only surviving footage of any of their appearances). Vicki mentions their memorial theatre in Liverpool and while she's a fan, she had no idea they played classical music. Bonus points — her actress Maureen O'Brien is from Liverpool.
  • "Paperback Writer" plays during the café scene in "The Evil of the Daleks". Official releases of the surviving audio have to edit the track out due to rights issues.
  • In "The Three Doctors", the Third Doctor and Jo quote "I am the Walrus" while explaining the fact that he and the Second Doctor are different incarnations of the same person.
  • In "Remembrance of the Daleks", two of Sgt. Smith's squad are named John and Paul.
• Drake & Josh: In "Battle of Panthatar", Drake gets his hands on a copy of Abbey Road signed by all four Beatles (this being well after Paul and Ringo became the only surviving members). This becomes a key part of the episode's plot when Drake is forced to give it to Thorton in an attempt to quell a falling-out between the two. It doesn't work, and Thorton takes the album and runs, leading Drake and Josh to sneak into his birthday party to steal it back.
• ER: In the first season episode "Motherhood", when Chloe is having her baby, she orders Susan to put on The White Album during her delivery. As there's no time, Susan instead sings "Blackbird" along with Chloe. Becomes a Meaningful Echo near the end of the episode when Susan, sitting with Chloe's baby, sings "Blackbird" to her.
• Gilligan's Island episode "Don't Bug the Mosquitoes". The title musical group (which is clearly based on the Beatles) arrives on the island hoping for some peace and quiet. Boy are they in for a disappointment.
• The Goodies
  • In "The Goodies Rule — OK?" it's revealed that in 1961 the Goodies tried to start a band called The Bootles which wasn't very popular. After they give up its revealed that the founding members of the Beatles were in the audience and decided to copy their look and songs.
  • In "The Stolen Musicians", the Music Master had kidnapped all the musicians in the country, and even boasts of having brought the Beatles back together. When his minion opens their cell, we just hear angry shouting and a guitar goes flying out the door.
• Henry Danger: The beginning of "Captain Jerk" has Jake Hart being interviewed outside a massage place called Rub Me Do, which sounds a lot like Love Me Do. The musicians there are also caricatures of the Beatles themselves.
• Law & Order: In the second season episode "Star Struck", Cerreta believes the person who beat up Lucy Neven, a soap opera actress, and left her for dead was an obsessed fan, and Logan refers to that idea as Cerreta's "John Lennon" theory.
• There's an entire page listing the numerous Beatles references on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
• Mad Men has a couple of brief mentions of the Beatles in season 4 (when Don gets Sally Beatles singles for Christmas to tick off Betty, and when he calls Sally to tell her he's taking her to see them at Shea Stadium), and then in the fifth season episode "Lady Lazarus", Don puts on Revolver, listens to "Tomorrow Never Knows" at Meghan's suggesting. While the song plays, we see a montage of Peggy working and Pete, on his way home from work, looking forlornly at Beth, the woman he's becoming attracted to...and then Don stops the record, clearly not into it. The rest of the song then plays over the closing credits.
• My So-Called Life: In the episode "Father Figures", Patty mentions she believes The Beatles broke up not because of Yoko Ono, but because Paul McCartney wanted his father-in-law to be the band's manager, instead of Allen Klein.
• Veronica Mars:
  • On the first season episode "Meet John Smith", when Duncan is acting blasé about Veronica, his ex, seeing someone else, Logan quips, "Okay, nowhere man, you be the fool on the hill".
  • In the episode "Silence of the Lamb", a string quartet plays "Birthday" for Madison Sinclair on her birthday at school.
• The first episode of The Monkees had Michael Nesmith throwing a dart at a picture of the Beatles and hitting Ringo. Another episode has one of them ask "What have the Beatles got that we don't?" The reply: "Oh, six million dollars".
  • The Beatles and the Monkees would later become good friends, with Lennon calling the Monkees "the greatest talent since the Marx Brothers" and Harrison, noting that the Monkees were both making albums and a TV series, opined that "once they get it all sorted out, they might turn out to the be the best."
• "All You Need is Love" was played in the final episode of The Prisoner (1967). The band were fans of the series and allowed its use.
• Red Dwarf:
  • "Future Echoes", Lister's mechanical goldfish are named Lennon and McCartney. Naturally, given Lister's a Scouser.
  • In "Parallel Universe", Holly ponders an Alternate Universe where Ringo was a really good drummer.
• Glee featured numerous Beatles songs throughout its run, with possibly the most compelling being the scene in "Grilled Cheesus" where Kurt sings a tearful rendition of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" to his father, who had just had a heart attack and is now in a coma. Later on the show had a two-parter entirely devoted to Beatles songs: "Love Love Love" and "Tina in the Sky with Diamonds".
• The Young Ones:
  • In "Boring", the lads do an Abbey Road Crossing on their way to the pub.
  • In "Bomb", Rik sings the first line of "Revolution".

Music

• As early as 1964 the band The Young World Singers and also Rolf Harris recorded a single called Ringo for President.
• The Saturn V recorded a song called "I Wanna Be A Beatle".
• The Rolling Stones: After being saluted by the Beatles on the cover of their album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band the Rolling Stones made a similar salute on the cover of Their Satanic Majesties Request. However, during "Look What The Cat Dragged In" from A Bigger Bang they sing:
  You look like a tumble of spades
  It must get a horrible taste
  You look like a fucker, Sergeant Pepper
  Are you going to throw up all over my face?
• Frank Zappa:
  • Beatles manager Brian Epstein is namedropped in the influences list inside the sleeve of Freak Out.
  • He spoofed the album cover and the gatefold sleeve of Sgt. Pepper's on We're Only in It for the Money.
  • The song "Oh No" from Weasels Ripped My Flesh is a direct attack on "All You Need Is Love":
    You say that love is all we need
    You say with your love you can change all of the world, all of the hate
    If think you're probably Out to Lunch!
  • Beatle boots are referenced during the title track of Joe's Garage:
    We got matchin' suits and Beatle boots.
  • In 1988 his band covered three Beatles songs, "Norwegian Wood", "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" but changed the lyrics to mock televangelist Jimmy Swaggart. Due to copyright issues these songs can only be heard on bootleg copies.
• Captain Beefheart's song "Beatle Bones 'N' Smokin' Stones" from Strictly Personal is a parody of "Strawberry Fields Forever" that didn't amuse John Lennon, who had previously liked Beefheart's debut album Safe as Milk.
• April Wine's song "I Like to Rock" includes the riff of "Day Tripper" along with The Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction".
• Elvis Costello's "The Other Side of Summer" contains a Take That! reference to Lennon's "Imagine" ("Was it a millionaire who said 'Imagine no possessions'?").
• The verses in Def Leppard's "Rocket" contain references to the group along with The Rolling Stones (Band), David Bowie (twice), Elton John (also twice), Thin Lizzy, Queen and others.
• Speaking of David Bowie, the backing singers in the Title Track to Young Americans (which incidentally features John Lennon on two other songs, including a Cover Version of "Across the Universe") sing the opening line to "A Day in the Life" during the breakdown.
• Early in Flaming Lips' career, they made a habit of referencing The Beatles: "The Spontaneous Combustion Of John" quotes "The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill" ("Like the first time Captain Marvel zapped him right between the eyes"). Oh My Gawd!!! is book-ended with Beatles samples — opening track "Everything's Explodin'" starts with a Spoken Word In Music clip from "Revolution #9" ("Take this, brother, may it serve you well") and closer "Love Yer Brain" ends with a loop taken from "Tomorrow Never Knows". And "Out for a Walk" includes a clip of "La Marseillaise" that seems to be taken straight from the intro of "All You Need Is Love".
• The parade theme adopted by My Chemical Romance during their performances of The Black Parade is an allusion to The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
• Pato Fu has a song called "Mamãe Ama Meu Revólver", "Mommy Loves My Revolver". The last verse reveals that it's not about a gun, but the album Revolver.
• Peter, Paul and Mary's "I Dig Rock-And-Roll Music" name-drops the group.
• The Rutles' career is basically an Affectionate Parody of the Beatles.
• During Sugarloaf's "Don't Call Us, We'll Call You", the signature riff of "I Feel Fine" is heard when the song's lyrics mention "John, Paul and George".
• Veruca Salt have made a number of Beatles shout outs.
  • Eight Arms To Hold You was a Working Title for the Beatles album that became became Help! instead.
  • Another Beatles reference, the bridge to "Volcano Girls" parodies "Glass Onion":
    Told you 'bout the Seether before
    You know the one who's neither or nor
    Well here's another clue if you please
    The seether's Louise
• The line "how does it feel to be one of the beautiful people?" in Marilyn Manson's song "Beautiful People" from Antichrist Superstar is a reference to the song "Baby You're A Rich Man".
• Gorillaz' album cover for Demon Days (Album) is a homage to the album cover of Let It Be. Inside the album's booklet, the pages for the song "Every Planet We Reach is Dead" has another shout-out in which the band members strike poses that mimick the album cover of Help!.
• The Residents also spoofed the group a couple of times.
  • The album cover of Meet the Residents is a parody of Meet the Beatles.
  • On The Third Reich 'n Roll the final song covered is "Hey Jude", intertwined with "Sympathy for the Devil" from Beggars Banquet by The Rolling Stones (Band).
• Daniel Johnston is a huge Beatles fan. He recorded a Homage called "The Beatles" on his album Yip/Jump Music and his song "Hey Joe" from his album Hi, How Are You, despite its title, borrows a line from "Hey Jude".
  Hey Jude, come on, Joe
  Don't make that sad song
  Any sadder than it already is
• American Pie by Don McLean references The Beatles at least twice:
  And while Lenin (John Lennon) read a book on Marx
  While Sergeants (Sergeant Pepper) played a marching tune
• The Animals' "The Story of Bo Diddley" references the Beatles (along with other early-1960s icons such as Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones (Band)). It even includes a snippet of "A Hard Day's Night".
• The Beastie Boys referenced "Eight Days A Week" from Beatles for Sale during "No Sleep Till Brooklyn" from Licensed to Ill
  (...) Cause I'll be rocking this party eight days a week.
  • Their song "The Sounds of Science" from Paul's Boutique also borrows samples from "Sgt. Pepper's", "When I'm Sixty-Four" (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band), "Back in the USSR" (The White Album) and "The End" (Abbey Road). "Johnny Ryall", from the same album, has samples from "Helter Skelter" (The White Album).
• Roger Glover's "Love Is All" also has lyrical references to the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love".
• "Breakdown" from I, Robot by The Alan Parsons Project makes a lyrical reference to "With A Little Help From My Friends" (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band)
  Any time it happened, I'd get over it
  With a little help from all my friends
• Nirvana: In the music video of "In Bloom", from Nevermind, the band mimicks the Beatles' performance during the Ed Sullivan Show, complete with the members dressed up in costumes (with Kurt Cobain wearing glasses), archive footage from American Band Stand and a TV presenter describing them as "fine, young men and decent fellows from Seattle."
• Red Hot Chili Peppers: In the music video of "Dani California" from Stadium Arcadium the band dresses up as several rock bands, representing different music genres, one of them naturally being the Beatles.
• Cheap Trick: there are numerous Beatles references throughout their music, including…
  • "Taxman, Mr Thief", an entire-song homage to The Beatles' "Taxman"
  • "Baby Loves to Rock" uses airplane sound effects over the line "not in Russia", a reference to "Back in the USSR", which opens with a verse about an airplane trip to Russia, and "World's Greatest Lover" has Robin Zander doing his best John Lennon impersonation. For bonus points, both songs are from the album All Shook Up, which was produced by "fifth Beatle" George Martin.
  • "If You Want My Love" is so Beatlesque that bassist Tom Petersson jokingly called it "the best Beatles song we've ever done."
  • "Miss Tomorrow", a Robin Zander solo song that eventually resurfaced on Cheap Trick's The Latest, quotes "All You Need is Love" and compares The Beatles and The Rolling Stones:
    Love, you said that love is all you need
    Cold, you taught The Beatles Let It Bleed
• "Randy Scouse Git" by The Monkees contains the lyric, "The four kings of EMI are sitting stately on the floor".
• The Ramones got their name from an alias Paul McCartney used to check into hotels.
• "London Calling" by The Clash contains the lyric, "Phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust". This was a Take That! towards a failed Jukebox Musical of the same name.
• The Raconteurs, a band involving Jack White, has secret cover art on the album Help Us Stranger. On the vinyl release beneath the lenticular version of the common cover art is a parody of the Butcher cover art staged by the members of the Raconteurs.
• The Beatles' songs occasionally show up as Silva Gunner jokes. A few times they've even referenced Billy Cobb's fake Beatles song "It's Okay to Leave a Dog in a Hot Car".
• In the Bad Company song "Shooting Star," Johnny hears "Love Me Do," which inspires him to take up music.
• The Who: The song "The Seeker" references the band:
  I asked Bobby Dylan
  I asked The Beatles
  I asked Timothy Leary
  But he couldn't help me either''
• Dan Bull's "John Lennon" is a tribute to John Lennon himself, with almost every single lyrics in the song referencing a song by Lennon himself or The Beatles. An excerpt (references are italicized):
  Do you want to know a secret, from me to you?^note "From Me to You", a non-album Beatles single
  All you need is love, so love me do
  And whether the music was acoustic, or rock and roll
  He walked the long and winding road 'til it wore out his rubber sole
• Bob Segarini recorded a song, "I Like the Beatles And My Baby Loves The Rolling Stones". It references songs by both bands, including "I Wanna be Your Man", which the Beatles gave to the The Rolling Stones, as well as recording their own version.
• Steve Taylor, in his song "Meltdown (At Madame Tussaud's)", delivers a Take That! to the band, as well as other musicians:
  Elvis and the Beatles have seen a better day
  Better off to burn out than to melt away
  Dylan may be fillin' the puddle they designed
  Is it gonna take a miracle to make up his mind?
• Solid State Survivor by Yellow Magic Orchestra contains a Cover Version of "Day Tripper".
• Rodney Crowell's song "Lovin' All Night" quotes partly from "I've Got a Feeling":
  Everybody had a hard year
  Everybody had a good time
  Everybody had a wet dream
  Everybody saw the sunshine

Puppet Shows

• The Muppet Show has used the band's music a few times:
  • When Vincent Price was guest host in Season 1, a trio of ghosts sang "I'm Looking Through You".
  • When Twiggy was the guest host, she sang "In My Life" while looking at photos of her past career.
• Sesame Street: Sesame Street had an anything muppet insect band spoof called The Beetles. And they sang Letter B, Thinking of U, and Hey Food (with Cookie Monster). The songs are based on Let It Be, Here, There, and Everywhere / P.S. I Love You, and Hey Jude.
• Spitting Image: Both Paul and Ringo were made into puppets, as were Yoko Ono and Linda McCartney.

Sports

• Canadian figure skater Nam Nguyen performed to a Beatles medley for his long program during the 2019-2020 competitive season. The songs are "Come Together," "Let It Be" and "Get Back."

Theatre

• In The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged), among the many saints who get anachronistic shout-outs is St. Jude, "who took a sad song and made it better."

Video Games

• Conway's Game of Life has an oscillator named "penny lane".
• The Legend of Zelda: Beedle, a recurring character throughout the series, is a merchant whose name and appearance takes after the band.
• Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance] has a Dream Eater named the Skelterwild, named after Helter Skelter.
• Kingdom of Loathing has the Swarm of Scarab Beatles, one of several music-themed monsters that live at the Oasis. There are several shout-outs to Beatles' song titles and lyrics in its description and attack messages, and it drops items such as Maxwell's Silver Hammer, a Rocky Racoon, a warm gun called 'happiness', and a set of Jackets with names that reference Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
• Defeating a giant beetle boss in Sacred Odyssey: Rise of Ayden unlocks an achievement called "Beetle in the Sky with Diamonds". Beetle, because - Beatles? With Diamonds? Get it?
• Putting the game disc for Sewer Shark in a CD player brings up a secret audio track in which a Digital Pictures employee receives a phone call consisting of backmasked audio. Playing said audio in reverse reveals a voice chanting "number nine," nodding to "Revolution 9"; it's even uttered in the same cadence to boot.
• At one point in Strife, Blackbird says, "Let's make Mr. Ugly twist and shout!" Blackbird's code name could itself be a reference to the Paul McCartney song on The White Album.
• Sonic the Hedgehog: Dr. Eggman's name and walrus-like mustache may be a reference to "I Am the Walrus" and its "I am the egg man" lyric. At the very least, his recurring Villain Song "E.G.G.M.A.N." (first appearing in Sonic Adventure 2) quotes the lyric several times.

Web Comics

• In The Crossoverlord, when the heroes meet the floating white mask, Dasien decides to call it Ringo.

Web Original

• The very first Epic Rap Battles of History has John Lennon, dressed in his Sgt. Pepper getup, battle against conservative TV pundit Bill O'Reilly.
• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders But Really Really Fast, the Joestar group's submarine is modeled after the Yellow Submarine.

Western Animation

• The Beatles: A cheap 1960s animation series made to cash in on the band's success.
• The Flintstones: In "The Hatrocks and the Gruesomes", a rock band playing "bug" music sings a song called "She Said Yeah Yeah", which sounds like "She Loves You". Later, to scare away the Hatrocks, the Flintstones, Rubbles and Gruesomes don black mop-top wigs and sing the song.
• Iron Man: The Animated Series gives the Beetle, a character who's American in the comics, a Liverpudlian accent as a Shout-Out to the group.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • The Season 3 finale is called "Magical Mystery Cure".
  • In "Party Pooped", during Pinkie Pie's long trek to Yakyakistan, she narrates she once joins a band made up of ponified versions of the Beatles, with Pinkie taking Ringo's place; the photos shown parody their appearances at the Cavern Club, the Royal Command Performance of 1963, a Sgt. Pepper's Shout-Out, an Abbey Road Crossing, and ending with them breaking up over their Creative Differences just like how the real Beatles broke up.
• The Powerpuff Girls:
  • The "Meet the Beat-Alls" episode is one long string of Beatles references. Just about every other sentence is a direct Beatles quote and evoked imagery.
  • In "Mo Job", Princess lures the Girls to Mojo Jojo's lair by calling for help in a line that quotes the song "Help!" This line was later repeated almost word-for-word in "Meet The Beat-Alls" by Sgt Pepper.
  • At the end of "Knock It Off", the Narrator comments "I guess the love you take is equal to the love you make."
• The Simpsons have made countless Beatles references during their long run.
  • Ringo Starr was special guest voice in "Brush with Greatness" where he answers a fan letter Marge send him in 1966, encouraging her to take up painting again.
  • In "Last Exit to Springfield", Lisa's surreal dream under narcosis parodies Yellow Submarine.
  • "Homer's Barbershop Quartet": Homer's flashback to his time in a barbershop quartet is basically a Whole-Plot Reference to The Beatles' career - from their first album Meet the B-Sharps (one wonders if it was called With the B-Sharps in the United Kingdom) to the impromptu rooftop concert. George Harrison even makes a guest appearance.
  • In "Lisa the Vegetarian", Paul McCartney and his then wife, Linda, were special guest voices. They live above Apu's garden in the shades (a reference to "Octopus' Garden"). When Paul hears Lisa ran away from home he asks: "She's leaving home?", in reference to the eponymous song from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the title song which he also dances to when sang by Apu. Near the end McCartney's song "Maybe I'm Amazed" from his solo album McCartney is played, with a backwards text in which Apu reads a soup recipe and Paul adding: "By the way, folks, I'm not dead", in reference to the "Paul is Dead" urban legend.
  • In "The Bart Of War" Ned Flanders is revealed to have a collection of Beatles memorabilia, and Bart and Milhouse end up ruining his collection with their shenanigans.
• Spongebob Squarepants:
  • There is an episode called "Krabby Road".
  • In the "Atlantis SquarePantis" episode, the citizens of Atlantis resemble the Blue Meanies.
  • Another episode is called "A Life in a Day", clearly a reference to "A Day in the Life".
  • There is an album based off the show called The Yellow Album.
• South Park:
  • In "Free Hat", Stan and Kyle compare Raiders of the Lost Ark being remade with The Beatles changing The White Album every year.
  • The Blue Meanies from Yellow Submarine have a cameo among other fictional characters in "Imaginationland".
• Ed, Edd n Eddy:
  • In "Rent-a-Ed", after sinking down into the ground and breaking the see-saw in the process, Ed shouts out "Ob-la-di! Ob-la-da!"
  • In the episode "Once Upon an Ed", Johnny complains that he wants to hear stories about "Octopuses gardens, silver hammers, and Mr. Kite".
• Animaniacs: Wakko's voice was based on Ringo's.
• Pinky and the Brain: In "All You Need Is Narf", Pinky becomes a guru and meets a parody of The Beatles, in reference to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
• Los Trotamusicos: In the opening sequence, The Bremen Town Musicians at one point appear dressed up as The Beatles. Fittingly, Tonto plays the part of Ringo.
• VeggieTales: In the episode "The Ballad of Little Joe", when Jude is introduced by the narrator, all of his brothers (sans Benjamin and Little Joe, since they weren't seen yet) say to him, "Hey, Jude!"
• Phineas and Ferb:
  • Baljeet leads a band called "The Baljeatles" in the episode of the same name.
  • In "Oh, There You Are, Perry", the kids play a concert on a rooftop with Phineas playing the same guitar as John Lennon.
  • In the Made-for-TV Movie, Doof and Doof-2 briefly appear dressed as John and Paul.
• In the Ready Jet Go! episode “My Three Suns”, Jet says "Sun, sun, sun, here we come!", a reference to "Here Comes The Sun".
• Futurama: The episode title "Fry Am the Egg Man" references a lyric from "I Am The Walrus".
• In the Wonder Pets! episode "Save the Beetles!", the titular heroes journey to Liverpool to rescue a band of beetles from being trapped in a yellow submarine. After they're saved, the band invites the Wonder Pets to a concert and preform the song "Kelp!", a parody of the song "Help!"

Real Life

• In the 1970s the fossil of a prehistoric hominid was found in Africa. During the discovery the radio played "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", prompting the archaeologists to name the skeleton Lucy.

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