Why DID we fall for the Drab Four?

I CAN still remember the evening in 1968 when I tried, and failed, to get into a packed showing of The Beatles’ cartoon Yellow Submarine, then a sort of cult. I never did manage to see it at the time.

So I was filled with curiosity when it was revived last week after 50 years. It was terrible. This wasn’t just because it was full of the idea that the bought pleasures of noise (and perhaps, just possibly, drugs) were the only real happiness, and that other approaches to life were grey and miserable.

It was because the whole thing was so crude. There was no proper plot, and the jokes were dreadful. Long before 1968, Disney’s brilliant animators had created works of art with cartoons. But this was lame and slow, and made surprisingly little use of music. The cartoon Fab Four were also shown in their embarrassing Maharishi Mahesh Yogi phase, all droopy moustaches and candy colours.

How could it have been a success? Yet again, the only conclusion you could draw was that they had put something in the water round about 1967, and everyone between the ages of 15 and 30 had taken leave of their senses.