Bruce McMouse reappears

One of the Bruce McMouse cartoons for animation (cropped), drawn in the early 70s by Paul McCartney and his family. Photograph: BNPS.co.uk

Paul McCartney has long been associated with animated films. Now a cartoon character he dreamt up in the early 70s – a rodent called Bruce McMouse reappears.

McCartney imagined Bruce and his family living under the stage while Wings performed, and the idea was to release a film featuring the band interacting with the cartoon characters.

The animation film, the Bruce McMouse Show, was made but not released and largely forgotten.

Now a set of sketches of Bruce and his clan, done by McCartney and other members of his family, is to be sold, by Dominic Winter auctioneers, near Cirencester, Gloucestershire, on 16 June. The drawings often feature Bruce McMouse smoking a pipe. His wife, Yvonne, appears in one series, in her curlers doing housework, and a third member of the family is a music-loving teenager named Soily.

Perhaps the most intriguing drawing is the one of a blue walrus. The animal has fascinated Beatles fans since the late 60s when John Lennon wrote the song I Am the Walrus, and subsequently, in the song Glass Onion, asserted, “the walrus was Paul”.

The drawings, done in 1973, are being sold on by Maggie Thornton, the daughter of Eric Wylam, who had the job of helping turn them into a film.

Thornton, one of the few to have seen the finished film, said she understood why it was never released. “The storyline doesn’t really work and some of the cutting between the singing and the animation isn’t very good,” she said.

Chris Albury, of Dominic Winter, said: “The Bruce McMouse Show … was intended as a one-hour, part-animated, film for ITVwith two advert breaks. The idea was to show concert footage from the Wings Over Europe tour of 1972, interspersed with animation action relating to the cartoon characters Bruce McMouse and family living under the floorboards of the stage. Although it was completed, it’s never been shown and probably didn’t stand up to McCartney’s high standards.

Source: The Guardian

Of course, with the new HP Cloud and the revival of Paul McCartney’s catalogue, fans are hoping that the film finally will see the light of day.