Hughes ended up playing the Paul McCartney character. His advice on the Scouse accents was also followed. Director Dunning and producer Brodax clashed over the degree of the accents, with Brodax wanting to use the same sort of mid-Atlantic accents he'd used for the voice-overs of the Beatles television cartoon series. They had also been produced by TVC London for King Features. The actors were all opposed to this, wanting to make their voices as authentically Beatles as possible. Fortunately for posterity's sake, the director backed them up. Most moviegoers simply assumed the real Beatles had provided the voices.

Geoff Hughes also told me, "Al (Brodax) was concerned about the strength of the accents, but whenever Al asked us directly to calm them down, George (Dunning) would tell us to carry on the way we were. Al usually backed down on the floor, but I'm sure he and George pursued it later."

While slighted in other ways, Geoff Hughes and the other actors got to see their names in the screen credits, which is more than can be said by Roger McGough.

While interviewing over two dozen contributors to the film for my book, almost all of them insisted I interview Roger McGough and let the world know he wrote much of the script, although his name doesn't appear anywhere in the credits. To hear them tell it, McGough contributed more of the lines of dialogue that were kept than just about any of the other writers - and that includes the four who received on-screen credits: Lee Mintoff, Jack Mendelsohn, Al Brodax and Eric Segal. (According to Segal, there had been more than 60 contributing writers).

In one of these all too frequent miscarriages of justice in the film and entertainment world, McGough did not receive any credit for his work.

The story of why he agreed to such a deal is in 'Inside The Yellow Submarine.' American writer Jack Mendelsohn, one of the first on the job who helped shape the plot into the Beatles rescuing Pepperland, remembers being told there was a problem with the script sounding too American. The Beatles are said to have rejected the first few attempts as sounding like the Flintstones or the Bowery Boys.

McGough recalled, "The belief from the British side was that the script was very American, and I think the Beatles felt this as well. It was an American company working for an American market, and they said it needed some Liverpudlian element, some contemporary element, some Englishness. I wish I had a copy of the first script I came to because the humour was America-Jewish, like New York Jewish. Words I didn't know and the Beatles wouldn't know. What I did was try and make them speak in the language they would speak, with their sort of comedy, their humour, from the streets, Liverpudlian."

Though American writer Erich Segal (best known for his blockbuster 'Love Story') is a very funny man, his sense of humour can more easily be described as the delightfully 'punny' lines of the Nowhere Man character, Jeremy Hilary Boob, who rhymed all his lines.

"Most of the jokes in the script I think were Roger McGough's rather than Dr. Segal's," recalled Geoff Hughes, observing that, "Eric had an arid and slightly esoteric sense of humour, in my opinion."

Roger is known as a Liverpool poet and contemporary of the people. His agent had a call from Al Brodax and he was brought to an interview with the heads of TVC London, John Coates and George Dunning.

"I was asked to do it," he said, and although "it was made clear from the outset that there was a fee but no credit," he said he would be "delighted" to take the job.

"For me it was a very exciting and friendly thing to have done. It was great to be involved with it. From my point of view I had no quarrel, really, because it had been made clear from the beginning there was no credit. You go into it with that in mind. Maybe later on, when you realize you've done a lot of work, it would have been nice, but in a sense I didn't have any worries. Certainly not with John Coates, who I love. He's a wonderful man. George Dunning was a great hero. I was honoured and delighted to be with it and I knew some of the people doing the voice-overs like Geoff Hughes and Paul Angelis.

"It will be nice to have people know I was involved after being kept secret," he admits

Flashing forward again to Liverpool in 1999. This time Roger McGough was on display for the rejuvenated film's premiere. He was even asked to write a new, original speech for the Chief Blue Meanie to perform for the crowds, using the voice of the original actor Paul Angelis, who also voiced the Ringo character. Much to my surprise and delight, Roger handed me his own script for this little ditty, which he autographed for me.

All of the co-creators on the crew of 'Yellow Submarine' were like the mysterious Oz behind the screen, but some of them were better hidden than the others. Liverpudlians have a lot to feel proud of that two of their native sons, Geoff Hughes and Roger McGough, played pivotal roles in the success of this message of peace and love.

By working together in unprecedented ways, this talented and dedicated international team of talents elevated a child's cartoon into a sophisticated fable that continues to withstand the test of time as the true classic it turned out to be.
Copyright ©2003 Hieronimus & Co.

Editor's Note: Dr Bob, author of Inside The Yellow Submarine: The Making Of the Beatles Animated Classic, is a good friend and his perseverance in writing the true story behind the making of Yellow Submarine was a labour of love and dedication. He spent years researching and interviewing before finally completing the book, which is an amazing work. If you'd like to order an autographed personalized copy of Inside The Yellow Submarine: The Making Of the Beatles Animated Classic, with a free bonus Yellow Submarine trading card, you can order it from Dr. Bob's own website: http://www.21stCenturyRadio.com/yellowsubmarine.html

Return to main section