Please Please Me | With the Beatles | A Hard Day's Night | Beatles for Sale | Help! | Rubber Soul | Revolver
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band | Magical Mystery Tour | The White Album | Yellow Submarine | Abbey Road | Let It Be
Past Masters | The Beatles Anthology | The Beatles: Get Back
The Album:
- Better Export for You: The US version of the soundtrack album contained more songs (including the two hit singles from the movie) than the domestic British version. This is the only album in the Beatles canon with differing track listings to use the US version.
- Breakaway Pop Hit: The soundtrack album in general, which got released long before the film in America; it was also much better received and is much better known than the film itself. "Magical Mystery Tour," "I Am the Walrus," and "The Fool on the Hill" in particular became popular hits, and the fact that Side 2 of the LP included earlier hit singles "Hello Goodbye", "Strawberry Fields Forever", "Penny Lane", and "All You Need is Love" certainly helped album sales.note
- A weird Cover Version double example is that the band Ambrosia managed to just barely make the Billboard Top 40 (#39) with "Magical Mystery Tour" in 1976, which was taken from the soundtrack of All This and World War II, an odd documentary that set World War II footage to covers of Beatles songs.
- One-Take Wonder: The basic backing track for "Blue Jay Way" (George and John on twin organs, Paul on bass, Ringo on drums) was done in a single take, with vocals and various overdubbed effects added later.
- Referenced by...:
- In the Doctor Who serial "The Three Doctors", Jo sarcastically quotes "I am the Walrus" in response to the Third Doctor's attempt at explaining the fact that he and the Second Doctor are different incarnations of the same person. The BBC actually cleared the quote's use with Apple Corps. before including it in the story.The Third Doctor: I am he and he is me.
Jo: And we are all together, goo-goo-kachoo?
The Third Doctor: What?
Jo: It's a song by the Beatles.
The Second Doctor: Oh, how does it go? [brings his recorder up to his lips]- It does sound like Jo says, "goo-goo-kachoo", but the actual lyric is "goo-goo-gajoob". note
- Not only was Tears for Fears' "Sowing the Seeds of Love" written as a pastiche of "I Am the Walrus", the chorus kind of sounds like the chorus of "All You Need is Love" and the horns in the bridge are evocative of "Penny Lane".
- Sonic the Hedgehog's arch-nemesis, Doctor Eggman, found his namesake in "I Am The Walrus", and his original design
◊ almost makes him look like one (if you have trouble seeing it, his mustache represents the whiskers and the yellow triangles from his cape represent the tusks).
- In the Doctor Who serial "The Three Doctors", Jo sarcastically quotes "I am the Walrus" in response to the Third Doctor's attempt at explaining the fact that he and the Second Doctor are different incarnations of the same person. The BBC actually cleared the quote's use with Apple Corps. before including it in the story.
- Serendipity Writes the Plot: It wasn't looking good for "Strawberry Fields Forever" to be included, or released. They had recorded two versions, in different keys and tempos. While promising, neither version was quite the sound they were hoping for. It was John Lennon's request to join both versions in some way or another. George Martin, together with Geoff Emerick, took on the task by using multiple speed adjustments and other effects to make an 'acceptable' edit of the takes. According to Martin, the edit "sticks out like a sore thumb to me!"note
- Throw It In!: While recording "I Am the Walrus", John Lennon randomly flipped through radio stations and came across a BBC production of King Lear. He added snippets of dialogue from the scene being broadcast at that moment to the mix, most of which appear in the song's coda.
- What Could Have Been: In early 1967, the Beatles were planning to do a Concept Album about Liverpool. They got as far as writing "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" before abandoning this idea, so those two songs ended up as a double-A-side single, and hence on the US version of the "Magical Mystery Tour" album.
The Movie:
- Acting for Two: The Beatles play themselves, as well as the wizards. John also plays the Magical Mystery Tour ticket salesman and the waiter serving spaghetti with a shovel, and Paul also plays Major McCartney.
- Based on a Dream: John Lennon told Paul McCartney about a dream he had where he used a shovel to serve spaghetti to a woman. Paul suggested they film this, John agreed, and the scene is included in the movie.
- Paul dreamed up most of the film while flying home to the UK from the Monterey Pop Festival.
- Creator Breakdown: Of a sort; the movie was rushed into production in response to the death of Brian Epstein, the Beatles' manager, and was intended of a way of taking their minds off things and establishing some group solidarity in the uncertain aftermath of his death.
- Deleted Role: Traffic filmed a sequence (set to their song "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush") to possibly be included in the film, but it did not make the final cut. It eventually surfaced on the 2012 Blu-ray release of the movie, along with several other extra scenes.
- Dueling Works: To Head.
- Keep Circulating the Tapes: Rescued from this. Although officially released on DVD in a low key release in 1997 that went out of print, then in 2003 on a "grey market" release with near bootleg quality video, it was at one point nearly impossible to find. However, in 2012 it was finally given an official official release on Blu-ray and DVD, including a reissue of the double EP version of the album.
- Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: The most complete edition of the 2012 re-release of the movie contains the film on Blu-Ray and DVD (with a bunch of extras on them, including a DVD Commentary by Paul McCartney), a book containing photos and information about the film, and a reproduction of the original double-EP that served as the soundtrack in the UK. Oh, and a ticket to go on the Magical Mystery Tour.
- No Export for You: Because of the poor reception of the film in the UK, none of the American networks were interested in airing it, First-Run Syndication would have been a bit too involved to try, and running less than an hour, it wasn't really a candidate for a theatrical run. There was a special screening at the Fillmore East in New York in 1968, and some one-off American screenings in the next few years, but its first proper availability to the American public was when New Line Cinema released it to the midnight movie and college movie circuits in 1974.
- Referenced by...:
- Received one from the British Ska revival band Bad Manners, whose singer, born Douglas Trendle, adopted the Stage Name Buster Bloodvessel.
- To say nothing of Death Cab for Cutie!
- And the "Tragical History Tour" segment of The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash. Neil Innes, who played Ron Nasty in The Rutles, also appeared in Magical Mystery Tour, as a member of the The Bonzo Dog Band.
- And The Simpsons episode "Margical History Tour".
- The sequence for "Your Mother Should Know" was one of many music videos parodied by that for "Weird Al" Yankovic's "UHF".
- Received one from the British Ska revival band Bad Manners, whose singer, born Douglas Trendle, adopted the Stage Name Buster Bloodvessel.
- Screwed by the Network: The movie was made with the intention of being released to theaters, but wound up being played on BBC1, a network that still broadcast its programs in black-and-white. On Boxing Day, opposite the Queen's speech, when color TV was still a rarity (it was a few days later re-broadcast in color on BBC2). The psychedelic, colorful spirit of the movie was, therefore, lost to the black and white format, especially the surrealistic "Flying" sequence, which may have helped it get poor ratings and reviews.
- What Could Have Been: Oh, lordy...
- The bus was actually supposed to shown flying during the "Flying" sequence.
- The "four or five magicians" were supposed to feature more frequently.
- Ever wonder why the footage kind of freezes at the end of the "Blue Jay Way" sequence? Originally, George was going to be hit by the bus...
- Jimi Hendrix was to appear in the film, but it clashed with his appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival (ironically, he'd been invited to play at Monterey at the suggestion of Paul McCartney).
- See Screwed by the Network.
- Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: As noted on the main page.
