The band would appear briefly in a live action sequence at the end of the film, and consider their work done. The band allowed the use of several of their recent hits, 4 unreleased songs that hadn't made the cut on their last couple of albums, and at least one track recorded specifically for the film ( Baby, You're A Rich Man). Once again, voice actors would portray the animated Beatles. Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr hoped to follow the same basic routine with Yellow Submarine, and saw the animated film as an easy way to fulfill their United Artists contract. The band had no involvement in the production of the show, and were voiced by professional voice actors, but every week teenagers were able to tune in and watch a series of short, cheaply produced cartoons that were usually written around a 'performance' of one of the band's current hits (example: 'And Your Bird Can Sing'). ABC Television had been running an officially licensed Beatles(™) Saturday-morning animated series since 1965. Yellow Submarine was not the first animated version of The Beatles. In 1967, they were approached with the idea of a Beatles-centric animated feature. The creative failure of Help! cooled the band on the prospects of a third motion picture, but they still owed United Artists another film. Their second film, Help!, repeated the popular success of their first film, but disappointed critics (and The Beatles themselves). The first film, A Hard Day's Night, was a huge critical and popular success, with Andrew Sarris dubbing it "the Citizen Kane of jukebox musicals". When the Beatles became a marketing phenomenon in 1964, United Artists was quick to sign a contract for three motion pictures with the Fab Four.
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