LAUGH WITH LENNON

Long before Rock 'N Roll arrived, one of John Lennon's passions was writing and illustrating satirical pieces in his school notebooks. A great fan of Lewis Carroll, his imagery could be surreal and distorted, cementing a style in childhood that would carry over into his later work as an author and musician. Lennon grew up listening to The Goons and his sense of humor can be traced to the context of Britain's own satire and surrealism boom in the late 1950s and 1960s. I honor John Lennon's passing today with a brief into this lineage of comedic pioneers, from Peter Sellers and Peter Cook, to John Lennon and Monty Python. Videos below: Lennon reads two poems in the mid-1960s and offers humorous ads for Tobias Sportwear during a radio DJ show in the 1970s.

With the rise of youth culture and a questioning of traditional class roles, social satire became the new frontier in late 1950s/early 1960s British humor. Following in the footsteps of Peter Sellers and The Goons, who offered a wild send-up of British characters and institutions, young comedians like Peter Cook and Dudley Moore of Beyond the Fringe and the future members of Monty Python became the acerbic voice of their generation. Some of the popular targets included class, the generation gap, authority, official media, media styles/conventions, education, family, and the job market. Comedy fans may recall Beyond the Fringe skits like The Great Train Robbery and my favorite below, One Leg Too Few. Film fans may remember John Schlesinger's Billy Liar (Tom Courtenay/1963) for its blend of satire and fantasy. John Lennon played a key role in this satirical climate, with his James Thurber-like books of cartoons and poetry, In His Own Write (1964) and A Spaniard in the Works (1965).

Surrealism experienced a major renaissance in the early-mid 1960s. Long before the mind-altering psychedelia that we associate with the decade was introduced, influential artists like John Lennon were already thinking outside the box. Inspired by the surrealism of Lewis Carroll, Lennon and others challenged the status quo with a playful and eschewed view. One figure who loomed large in this movement was an American ex-pat in London named Richard Lester, who had worked with The Goons on television projects. At the dawn of the sixties, he collaborated with Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan on a short film called the Running Jumping & Standing Still Film (1960). John Lennon, a fan of The Goons, loved the movie and kept Lester in mind when it came time for The Beatles to make a motion picture. Seeing a clip from Running Jumping below, readers will recognize a gag which emerged in Monty Python years later called the Fish-Slapping Dance.

Richard Lester was picked to direct The Beatles in A Hard Day's Night (1964), also groundbreaking for its surreal segments, and he went on to direct the band in Help! (The Beatles/1965) and Lennon in How I Won the War (Tom Courtenay/John Lennon/1967). Lester also teamed with James Bond composer, John Barry, in two major pieces for the 1960s, The Knack... and How to Get it (Rita Tushingham/1965) and Petulia (Julie Christie/1968). Fans of The Monkees might recognize a surreal scene inspired by The Knack, where the characters wheel a bed through traffic.

The surreal and whimsical work of Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) resonated throughout the Arts in early-mid sixties England. John Lennon often listed the author as a big influence on his own imagery (see I am the Walrus below). A notable celebration of Lewis Carroll came in 1966 with the BBC's production of The Wednesday Play. With a soundtrack by Ravi Shankar, this surreal Alice in Wonderland film starred a who's who of British talent, including Peter Sellers (Goons/Pink Panther), Wilfrid Brambell (A Hard Days Night), Leo McKern, Sir Michael Redgrave, Eric Idle (Monty Python), Sir John Gielgud, and all four members of Beyond the Fringe, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett, and writer/director, Jonathan Miller. Most of the cast would appear again in a 1972 Alice film. Spy fans will recognize a number of actors in the film for their appearances in surreal action shows like The Avengers and The Prisoner. Video below: clips from Alice in Wonderland.

An element that is pointed out when discussing the performance style of the period is the breaking of the fourth wall (when actors speak directly to the audience). This was not a new technique. Eugene O'Neill is one playwright who employed it in his play, Strange Interlude. This was parodied in the 1930s by the Marx Brothers, when Groucho actually spoke of "corridors." The convention was also seen in the wartime and post-war comedies by Bob Hope and the Warner Brothers animation studio. The sudden, snappy interplay between character and viewer was hip again in the 1960s. This convention of storytelling had an element of participation that I believe created a deeper level of engagement with the largely young audience. As viewers saw Julie Christie interact on-screen with a TV soap opera in Fahrenheit 451 (1966), films like Alfie (1966), How I Won the War (1967), and The Knack...and How to Get it (1965) actually put the movie-going viewer right into the action. Below: Lennon segments in How I Won the War.

Additional Viewing: Essential favorites from the satire/surrealism boom also include The Wrong Box (Michael Caine/Peter Cook/Dudley Moore/1966) Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969-1974), Not Only But Also (Peter Cook/Dudley Moore/1965-1970), Bedazzled (Peter Cook/Dudley Moore/1967), The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (Peter Cook/1970), The Bed Sitting Room (Richard Lester/Peter Cook/Rita Tushingham/1969), and Magical Mystery Tour (The Beatles/1967). Lennon incorporated an odd dream into the movie where he shoveled pasta onto a "fat lady's" plate. My particular favorite sequence is this musical visualization for I Am the Walrus.