Rare 8mm film of Beatles in cartoon studio

The animated Beatles

An uploader on YouTube has made available a rare 8mm film shot by Norman Kauffman from TVC animation studios on 38 Dean Street, in Soho, London on July 29, 1965. This was the very same day The Beatles attended the Help! premiere not far away from there.

TVC was the main Beatles cartoon series animation studio, having produced over half of the episodes. This is the very first time The Beatles were shown a finished product. A bunch of the TVC crew were there as well as both voice actors, Paul Frees and Lance Percival. The film also shows the TVC crew at work on the series.

Production Assistant Norman Kauffman shot the film, and is the person giving the thumbs up at 1:06. This uploads also adds live music, which quickly becomes annoying. The film was originally silent.

Those who have read Mitchell Axelrod’s book on the subject, “Beatletoons,” (Amazon link here) will know this was the last place the Fabs wanted to be at this point. They were tired, and George was not happy about being filmed on what was originally their half day off. They were also going to rehearse for their August 1 appearance on Blackpool Night Out. John went under a buffet table with a bottle of wine, says Axelrod.

The animated series made it’s debut on ABC in USA on September 25, 1965 and became an instant ratings hit, it was also the first animated series featuring characters based on real people. It ran for a couple of years. The Beatles have never made the series available in any home cinema format, but continue to licence images from the series to manufacturers of memorabilia.