It surprised me that the Beatles didn't lose their popularity when their work went in unusual new directions after "Rubber Soul." "Yellow Submarine,""Sergeant Pepper's" and "Magical Mystery Tour" sounded more like musical theater than what we were familiar with from the lads. We had heard of Gilbert and Sullivan, but thought that to be antique and quite dead. But that tradition was long (operetta, minstrel shows, commedia del 'arte, all the way to the scatological Roman popular stage) and lived on in all the media forms of the 20th century -- vaudeville, radio, movies and television.
The appeal of irreverence, satire and skewering bureaucracy and especially officiousness increases in trying times. The tragic events and head-turning rate of change of the last 110 years called for an antidote in the repartee of Burns and Allen, the fast paced exchanges of Abbott and Costello, the madcap hijinks of the Marx brothers, Monty Python, Benny Hill and Robin Williams.
The Beatles would have known about a fellow Liverpool native and multitalented singer, Tommy Handley, whose show "It's That Man Again" held the record for the largest radio audience ever. It ran on the BBC from 1939 to 1949. Absurdity reigned at 8:30 on Thursday nights, helping in no small way to get Britons through terrible times.
A crew of 70 characters presented a rapid fire, up-to-the-minute topical comedy sketch show -- doesn't that seem a lot like "Saturday Night Live"? One of the most popular, Mrs. Mopp, with all the double-entendres, had to have been the model for the randy Mrs. Slocombe on the 1970s television riot "Are You Being Served?" Her famous tag line "TTFN" spoken as she ended a scene, went on to become part of the language. Television and movie characters have since had to have one ("Dynomite!" "All right all right all right" "Bond. James Bond" -- the list is endless).
Wherever it's found, we can always use a little silliness.
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