the yellow submarine

dash finally cushioned up to watch the beatles' 1968 "the yellow submarine" this weekend - and thrice over. yes, it IS that much of psychedelic fun! :D

it all started when pepperland was poetically deemed by the chief of the blue meanies as "a tickle of joy on the blue belly of the universe", and hence it must be scratched - out of existence. we watch how young fred, the sole survivor from the blue meanies' invasion of pepperland, navigated in the yellow submarine to get help from the fabulous four to fight for the liberation of pepperland. and it is also from this animation that dash learnt of "H is for Hurry; E is for Ergent; L is for Love me; and P is for Pleeeeaaassse!" ^_^

and why does dash love the animation so much?

first up, the the catchy songs with its deliriously happy colours and artwork make it pleasing on the ears and eyes. there are just so much details in every scene that there are always new interesting bits of subtleties caught upon every subsequent viewing! from the assortment of odd creatures and instruments that ran from door to door across the corridors in a house in liverpool, to the seamless mish-mesh of 2-d cut-out antiquated black-and-white picture of a stern gentleman with the quiet small occasional twitch of his moustache, as he reminds the passengers of the yellow submarine of the ergency of time : )

second up, the simple poetic story-telling and witty linguistic gymnastics in the dialogues provided just the salt to make it a delectable visual and audio experience. puns were sprinkled liberally across the entire animation - for example, when the captain asks of ringo not to pull the lever, presumably not to wake the sleeping frankenstein, ringo replied, "i am a born liverpooler [lever-puller]". and when the blue meanies invaded pepperland, it was amazing how a whole new set of vocabulary based on the word "blue" (or bloo) could be put into use e.g. the blue meanie chief commanded his blue army to "ob-bloo-berate" (obliberate) the happy inhabitants of pepperland.

third up, the upbeat messages of friendship, love, empathy and forgiveness. we watch the fabulous four's total acceptance of one another, actions and decisions, despite quirkiness and mistakes made, and hence we gain a more in-depth understanding of friendship and love for others. and in the middle of their travels across the different seas (of time, science, monsters), when they arrived at the sea of nothing, the fabulous four met jeremy hilary boob, PhD, otherwise known as the nowhere man. they scooped him along on their adventures instead of leaving him in the middle of nowhere, and in the end, it was jeremy who, literally and figuratively, made flowers bloom in the hearts of the blue meanies :) there was the classic imagery of "make love, not war" where jeremy pulled the trigger of a blue meanie's gun at him and intead of firing cold icy shots, a flower grew out of the gun barrel :D

one interesting trivia about the animation is that though the songs were belted out by the beatles, the voices for the characters in the animation were not. the beatles had too busy a schedule then that year to do the voice-over :)

dash gives thumbs-up for the beatles' "the yellow submarine"! ^_^