Jack Stokes is listed with Bob Balser as Unit Director of the Yellow Submarine production.

Here are a few of his professional accomplishments before and after Yellow Submarine: 1947-50 - The Rank Organization, Animation Film Training by Disney Artists under David Hand, Director of Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs

60-61 - Started Stokes Cartoons Ltd., and joined TV Cartoons as Animation Director and Storyboard 1963 - "Wonderwall" 90 minute feature film, I have a lot of questions about that wonderful production.

From 64-67 - Beatles TV series. Series Director and Storyboard. Also titles and special inserts for "Magical Mystery Tour"

67-69 - Yellow Submarine Feature Film. Animation Director and Storyboard

69-70 - "Tiki Tiki" 90 Minute cinema Feature film

72 - "Little Mermaid" TV Special Director, Designer, Special Sequences

77-78 - Director Animation Sequences "Water Babies" 90 Minute cinema feature film

80-81 - Sequence Director and Storyboard of "Heavy Metal"

83-84 - "Nessie" TV series. Series Director and Storyboard

85-86 - Layout Direction "The Big Bang" Paris

92-93 - Director Layout Storyboard "Tailor of Gloucester," part of the Peter Rabbit Series currently showing on the Family Channel in the USA. Numerous awards including: International Broadcasting Awards; 1st Prize "Cannes" International Festival; Television Mail Advertising Awards; 1st Prize Venice Film Festival; International Advertising and many, many more.

My heavens, that's some introduction, but I wanted to get that on record.

Thank you so much for joining us on 21st Century Radio's Hieronimus and Company, in our probe of the Beatles Yellow Submarine, Jack.

Jack Stokes: Yea.

Bob Hieronimus: Now, when did you first become aware of the project for an animated film of the Beatles Yellow Submarine ?

JS: Well, we'd done two years with..., a Beatles series that was for the States, which had very high ratings at the time. And King Features then got on to us and said would we think it possible to do a feature film somewhere in that area, but when it came to it, of course we didn't really want to do that, we wanted to do something a bit more modern. And so that year, in the summer, I think it would have been '67...

BH: '67?

JS: Yea, George Dunning got Heinz Edelmann over, he was a very good designer. And he designed this stuff that's now in the Yellow Submarine, and from that, of course, we started to get carried away. Which we did.

BH: Yea, I'll say, boy I think this is one of the most wonderful unsung stories of an entire era. Boy, I can't wait... wait 'till we get to some of these wonderful questions here. Now, in what capacity were you originally asked to serve -- and did that change throughout the duration of the project?

JS: No, not really, we did some early stuff, early test stuff. A little piece of it, if you remember the crocodile with a drum and the dog hitting the drum with his paws...

BH: Yea, yea!

JS: That was done in some of the test stuff we did originally on.

BH: Really? So that's where that came from. And what was that about, by the way, I don't want to get too far into that, but what was the crocodile and the drum?

JS: Oh, it was just being ridiculous as usual. Most of it was like that.

BH: OK, I'm sorry I have often wondered where that fit in. So you stayed with the capacity of, I wanted to get to exactly what a "storyboard" is, and what an Animation Director does. So, if you could let our listeners know, cause all of us are curious about animated film production. It's like magic to us, needless to say, as simple as we are. For example, could you tell us what is a "storyboard"?

JS: Well, normally speaking, you get a script first of all. Which is a written script, of course. And then you need to think of how you're going to put that onto film, into film so that people can view it. So you have to start working on, for instance, where there's long shots, where there's close-ups, where tracking and panning, what the action is, what sort of action you're thinking will take place for, whatever the script is doing, and so on. It gets quite complicated of course. And you can finish up with a hell of a lot of drawing.

And then you need to go also on the storyboard a bit, into lighting, color, all sorts of stuff, you usually start, when you've got fairly well into it, you usually have meetings with, say the head background artists, and go through and you do some, color every so often and it, for instance if it's going to be nighttime, or daytime shots on the ground or water or things like that, so you can tell what you're going to do with it.

BH: Well is animation..., what does an Animation Director do, does he or she do any of the drawing?

JS: Oh yes, quite often. Normally speaking you set up the scene you're going to do, probably could do some key, but if you're doing a big thing such as that, you usually have got key animators under you. You control, you see, you have meetings with them. And you sort out the action that you mean to do with the characters, and what's going to take place in that, the action that's going to take place within those scenes, what the scene length is, etc. So you're really timing the whole scene out as you go along. From the storyboard.

BH: I understand now. Now did you have... What kind of script did you have in front of you, before you started?

JS: Well, to be honest, the first script we had, we weren't all that struck with. And...

BH: Where did that come from? Was that Lee Minoff?

JS: It came from King Features originally. But, really what happened was we went, we were going by the basic idea of the Meanies. And we wanted to do something with the Meanies. Basically, what we finished up with were the Meanies taking over Pepperland and then being defeated roughly by the Beatles. So we needed to work that sort of stuff out, also we needed to do the ideas of getting to Pepperland. And all the time we were trying to use the Beatles' songs, you see. So basically the Beatles' songs were in a way, described in what we wanted to do. Such as Nowhere Man and the Sea of Holes and things like that.

BH: But the script was kind of minimal in the beginning?

JS: Yes. And we kind of, well we did a number of recordings, each time, we did a hell of a lot more recording than actually was ever used. Because for one thing, the Beatles songs took up quite a bit of space, if you think about it. So it wasn't a terrible lot of time, and also we wanted to get this rather, I don't know, gaggy chat taking place between the lads, which they do anyway. Well, they did at that time.

BH: Well, we understand that you and Bob Balser divided the film in half and that Bob was basically responsible for the first unit or half of the film, and that you headed the direction of the second part -- with the exception of the opening sequence, which is just a powerful sequence, I'm telling you, it's just, it just, it makes the heart beat faster is all I can say, really it does! The gorgeous colors involved in it and then what was going on, but you did the opening sequence of the film before the credits, Is that right?

JS: Yea, and then I also, well late, I storyboarded and basically timed the arrival of the Submarine in Liverpool and Ringo's house.

BH: So you've started from the beginning 'till the time...

JS: It's just at that point, then Bob took over and I went, I then went right on until the arrival in Pepperland. And when the Submarine finally lands on top of the pyramid. From there on, 'till the end.

BH: But was it always consciously thought of as a pyramid it was landing on?

JS: No, it was just, I suppose in a way it might have been, I just think it's something that Heinz designed. Cause he was always doing things like that.

BH: Yea, because in the beginning, it looked like a series of bandstands on top of one another in a pyramidal form and it can be translated as both, which is kind of interesting, cause Heinz likes to do stuff like that.

JS: Yea, that's right, but we had a bandstand in it as you remember.

BH: Yea.

JS: Which I quite liked playing around with. We did a lot of stuff in there, which was very intriguing to do. You've got to remember at that time, there weren't any computers or videos, we had to do it all by basic film technique. So all that trickery, lighting and anything like that, we had to do the hard way.

BH: Well, you know I think that's the way things are in a lot of different fields today. Being an artist myself, my heavens, if I'd have some of the technology available to me when I did my murals, back oh, twenty some years ago, they certainly would have gone a lot faster. I'll tell you! The kinds of things that one has today, twenty- thirty years later, is considerably more advanced. Now, the beginning of the film depicts the utopia of Pepperland. Was the English countryside used as a model for Pepperland?

JS: In a way, I suppose it was. A very rural idea of the countryside, you know. A caricature of it if you like.

BH: But there wasn't any particular location of the countryside that inspired it?

JS: I don't think so, I mean, Heinz basically worked out the color idea. I mean some of the layouts, I suppose would have been English if you think about it, because some of them came from myself. For instance when the Glove, you first see it way up high in the air, and then it comes down in a great sweep across the country. That was a very bent sort of perspective type shot which I worked out. And since I storyboarded this, it was English countryside, yea. Not deliberately so, you see what I mean.

BH: You know, because all of us have questions as to and now this wasn't the unit that you were directly involved in but I'm sure you saw some of it being created, like the parts of the movie in which you see faces, it looks like individuals I can almost recognize Jack. But I can't quite.

JS: In the very beginning?

BH: Yes.

JS: Yes, well we used all sorts of people from the studio and round about in Soho.

BH: Oh really?

JS: Yes, the dog for instance, with the man outside, he was the local pub owner.

BH: Isn't that wonderful? What about the cat?

JS: The cat belonged to that too, and also the two ladies in the window, they were our two accounts ladies for the studio.

BH: Isn't that... that's just wonderful to know because it seems like something is going on, there's a man...

JS: And incidentally, for your benefit, the man on the roof, with the umbrellas is Heinz Edelmann.

BH: Is it really? The man on the roof with the umbrellas is Heinz Edelmann. What about, there's a fella that's smoking a pipe, standing out there on, I don't know if it's on the roofs or the docks or something like that. Now, I saw a little production called "The Mod Odyssey" on the Yellow Submarine, I don't know if you're familiar with that. It's kinda like a promo, like a 15 or 20 minute promo, which really didn't tell you too much about what was going on, but I'm sure that on the level that it was done, most people were very satisfied with it. It showed a lot of people within the film, that created the film, and didn't identify any of them, so I'm always looking now for, after seeing that little piece, I'm always looking to identify some of those people in that film within the Yellow Submarine film. Because I was told earlier that there may be some of these people around.

JS: That's possible, but I don't remember having been in anything like that myself.

BH: Well, in the unit production...

JS: ...Bob would have said so, if he'd done it.

BH: Yea, now the day to day work, how long did you have to complete your work? That is in a months time.

JS: Well, actually, what happened, once we started, actually started production, we did it in 11 months, which is very fast really. And we finished up with about 200 people on it of course in the end. There were about 30 animators I think, and about 8 layout artists and 8-10 background artists, things like that.

BH: Now, it's my understanding that in this 11 months was at least near the end, around the clock...

JS: Oh yes.

BH: What was a typical, and I don't know if there's any such thing as a typical anything, but what was a typical day at the studio like from morning to night as far as you were concerned?

JS: Well, I'm not exactly a late, or an early riser, I'm a late riser, but then I work very late, so I'm usually very off with people. I used to get up there with John Coates, 'cause he lived in this direction, then we used to drive up. We'd get up there about 10:00. And then probably stay at least until about 7:00 and even maybe, I've been known till up in the studio there, until oh, 2:00 in the morning before, quite a number of times. And that was early on as well.

BH: Yea, early on as well?

JS: With Heinz and Charlie Jenkins, who was doing quite a lot of effect stuff.

BH: Was there ever any feeling that this might not get finished in time?
Did that ever enter anyone's mind?

JS: Oh yes, that's why we finished up, we used so many people in the end. It built up as you went along, you suddenly realized, Christ, you know, are we going to make this or what, you know?

BH: Yea, I understand it.

JS: And it just got heavier and heavier.

BH: I understand that you had to bus in some artists from different parts of the country.

JS: Oh yes, and we finished up, John finished up going around to the local art schools, we were taking students in, you know on the more simpler stuff.

BH: What an experience.

JS: In fact, we even got George Dunning, the overall Director, painting.

BH: Really?

JS: Yes, he's a diabolical painter I must say. I thought we weren't going to get away with it, but... I could tell you the part he painted.

BH: What's that?

JS: You know when, John is having a punch out with the Glove and builds a kind of a castle out of wood.

BH: Um Hmm.

JS: Well, George painted quite a lot of that.

BH: Oh, now. That's interesting to know these kinds of things. Now, the lettering of the Yellow Submarine, who was responsible for that?

JS: Well, all the design stuff was Heinz, of course.

BH: OK, that was his.

JS: What used to happen was I'd be story..., I'd storyboard a section and then go and drag Heinz in and say I've got this far, have you got any ideas? And we'd mess around with the storyboard and obviously anything like that I'd stick in, you see, the way he saw it. He's very good. He's never done a film, at that stage, he'd never done any film work before. But because he was so cock-eyed about things and it made it more interesting for somebody like myself that had been doing it a long time you see.

BH; Yea. When you say cock-eyed, you're probably referring to what would be an English interpretation of that.

JS: Yes, well I suppose an odd way of doing things, not straight forward.

BH: Right, right, the way one would just plunge into something and then without any previous experience you just reinvent the wheel many times.

JS: That's right.

BH: Yea, now, the animation film itself, the techniques have been..., actually they were pioneering, they pioneered a number of things within the Yellow Submarine, the techniques. Could you mention a couple of them?

JS: Well then, about time. We were usually after... I suppose the basic idea of animation, you know with the 24 frames a second, you know were the same. It was just that every now and again we'd run into an odd problem, we weren't sure how to deal with it. And then we'd have to make up our minds some of them, it wouldn't be much these days. But, for instance, the lighting in the..., in the bandstand, when the search lights came on it, we'd got about, oh, five levels of animation with characters on different levels. And we were trying to find a way of getting the light on one level and not on another. For instance, underneath and on top.

And we finished up using colored gel and in certain times putting it over one level and not over another. Or cutting out for one lever so you could see through to..., I don't know whether I can explain myself. But that kind of thing happened.

At the very end, Charlie got very hooked on..., we found that cello-type, if you treated it in a certain way, with certain lights, it reflected. So, you know all that strange diamond design stuff, well if you put that..., if you'd had the cello-type now, I don't think it does that now, with the way it was made, if you cross that over in diamond shapes and get your light in right, you make that kind of strange lighting happen.

BH: Well, I'll be. I'm telling you it is just gorgeous. It reminds me of the one..., the watercolors who I'm greatly inspired by, I always mispronounce his name, it's Paul Klee. When he gets into his palette of blues, you would think that nobody in the world has ever seen blues like that in so many variations. Oh, it's just gorgeous and that in part is what the ending of the film looks like. That's an astounding ending, you worked directly on that, is that right?

JS: Well, I was at that end, but basically that was Charlie Jenkins. I did a rough, scribbly storyboard, wasn't sure what we wanted, and he came up with these designs and that one working and we were only too willing to use it. So we did it that way.

BH: Well, maybe some day we'll be able to talk with Charlie Jenkins.

JS: Oh, you should do it, he's quite an interesting...

BH: I think he's in Argentina though.

JS: Probably, he's somewhere like that. Another lunatic.

BH: I don't know where in the world..., we've tried to locate him, we might get locked up down there just trying to find him down there. Now, in your work on the film, did you ever come in contact with the Beatles, and if so under what circumstances?

JS: Oh, I met them quite a lot actually. I got fairly friendly with them. We'd met them at slightly early on as I said, with the series. But we didn't know them. So we went up..., they had finished recording Yellow Sub, but they were doing recording on "Good Morning, Good Morning" and one or two others, which we wanted to use if we could, in the film. And "Hey Bulldog" which we took... incidentally I don't think you've got "Hey Bulldog" in your ...

BH: No, we don't, we have a different version here in America.

JS: Yes, that's right. Well, the one we had over here had a section in it, you know, about 3 or 4 minutes or so, with this crazy bulldog.

BH: Yea, well, we missed that whole thing.

JS: And with 4 heads and bodies joined together in the middle, chasing the Beatles about.

BH: Yea, that's right, it reminds me of the mythology of Ceres, I believe it is, I'm not sure, the dog, the multi-headed dog, well, whatever. Now, did they ever comment to you as to, when you were working in production on the film, did they ever ask you about it?

JS: No, we did that, and it was something that happened afterwards, actually I think they decided that for the States they'd leave that out and slightly lengthen the end, which they did. It didn't make much difference it just meant that we had to..., well, the end had to be slightly extended by about 3 minutes. You know the march in, with all the people.

BH: But you also worked on the "Magical Mystery Tour".

JS: Now, that was something that the Beatles did themselves and they got on to me and said would I, sort of get mixed up in it, which I did. I didn't do a hell of a lot, just was designing stuff for them, for odd things they wanted to get into.

BH: What's some of your handy work in that film?

JS: Oh God, that's a long time ago. I can't remember really what the devil I did do. It was mostly artwork, stuff that would have been mixed up ...

BH: I understand, but you did the actual lettering.

JS: Some of it, yes.

BH: You designed some of the lettering, that gorgeous stuff, yea, I mean it was really... I think it's an underrated piece, frankly. I enjoyed that particular movie.

JS: Well, it was completely their idea, it's their thing. You know, it's the Beatles' thing. It's not really anybody else's at all.

BH: Yea, was Paul McCartney in charge of that production?

JS: Mmm, yea, well as much as all of them were in charge of each other.

BH: Um hmm, well, let's get back to the Yellow Submarine. Other creators who worked on the Yellow Submarine in various capacities have noted the extraordinary effort they needed to put out in order to complete the film on time. What was your perspective on the schedule given, and we know it was eleven months to complete this monumental task? I need to touch on this again, because I think a lot of our listeners... You see, when you see the movie for the first time, you think ... one is led to believe, at least myself, my heavens, what a smooth flowing production, these guys must have thought it out well in advance, had all this laid out so that there would be no mistake, and that everything was interrelated and then... And then I find out that the work schedule was a pretty heavy burden under any circumstances.

And how did you react to this, you were married and had a family I believe.

JS: Well, you see, as far as I was concerned it was just a question of getting your teeth stuck into it. I'm a bit like a bull dog, myself. Once I start on something, I won't let go. The main thing that I always think is if you can, get as much organized in the storyboard and timing with the script before you start any of the animators the better it is. If you can get a fair good size of stuff to work in itself and shoot the storyboard so you can see it's all working.

Then when you do..., if your continuity and everything is OK at that stage, then it will be when you make the film, or when you do the animation, or it should be. The only trouble that happened was, of course we were going so fast in the end, that I was shoving things into production almost as soon as I storyboarded, you know drawn the storyboard for it. And that was gone in before I'd gotten my next scene, then it became a bit tricky, because I'd got to watch the animators from one scene to the next because I haven't before one started, worked out what the next one was going to do. Do you see what I mean?

BH: Yea, sure.

JS: And that became a little bit tricky. And it could run right the way through everything, then once that happened. So we had to watch it a bit.

BH: Yea, I bet you did.

JS; It was tough, but it was good fun really, there's no doubt about that. Oh there were lots of riots and explosions and things, but...

BH: There were some riots and explosions? In quotes of course.

JS: Yes, yes.

BH: Tell us about a couple of them. Share a couple of them with us because again, it's just wonderful to note that something that looked so perfect, took an enormous effort to do. A lot of people today, you know one of the worse things about our nation, America, is that most people kind of think that if you put your 9:00 to 5:00 in, everyday, five days a week, you're going to succeed at what you do. Well, fat chance.

JS: Well, we're not like that really. I mean the idea, as far as I'm concerned, when I'm working with anybody, is I don't give a damn when they work, how they work as long as I get it.

BH: You get it done, right.

JS: If they want to come in late and go late, that's all right with me. And most of them were like that anyway. When your dealing with the sort of people we were dealing with a lot of the time, there's no way you could have ever... If you had said that you would never have got it done.

BH: Is there any particular memory in your mind of something that made it... that was a difficult problem that everyone had to be pulled in to resolve?

JS: Well, that really, it was the whole thing towards the end, it started to get very heavy, because we'd got so much to do. You've got to remember, that the first half as well as the second half began all at the same time. So it wasn't just the end of the film that I was running up to the end of. It was Bob running up to the end of all of his you see?


BH: Did you discuss it much? Did you discuss that...

JS: Oh yes, we were just down this corridor from each other so we used to go to lunch together as well you see. So we knew what we were doing between us.

BH: Well, we understand that the Beatles played a minimal role in the Yellow Submarine production, but that upon its completion, they assisted in the editing as it was determined the film may have been too long. Erich Segal remembers Paul McCartney making several helpful suggestions as to how to make it more effective. Is this correct?

JS: Well, I don't know, we didn't have a lot, they didn't do a lot... they did come in and talk to us, but then I had been talking to them for some time. I don't think they really interfered very much. I mean they... in fact, they didn't really come and have a proper look until after it was all over.

BH; And what was their feeling then? Do you know?

JS: Well, then, it was rather funny because we wanted to use their voices originally, they didn't want to do that. So we had to get some actors to do this. And I was walking down the road... and each of them said to me, like Paul would say to me, "I like John's voice and George's voice is very good, Ringo's is great, mine wasn't very good." And then John said exactly the same thing. They all did the same thing. So they all thought everybody else's voice was all right except their own. This was going on all the time, that kind of thing.

BH: Erich mentioned that the one particular scene that may have been cut a little bit, Paul McCartney thought was too long was the battle scene. Is that true?

JS: Well, that's the one they added to actually.

BH: Oh, they added to.

JS: Yea, because actually what happened, well the trouble with that was... We put in sound effects obviously on all the bumps and bangs. And we had music going through there and they didn't really like the bumps and bangs over their music, but this kind of thing you have happen all the time with the film. You always have the problem between the musicians and the sound effects people. Both of them want their things heard, you see. So you've always got this kind of thing going. And as a director, you've got to kind of smooth them out. Somehow.

BH: Well, when was that last scene, the live scene with the Beatles shot? Was that...

JS: Well, that was a very, that was supposed to not be like that you see? And you notice it's got funny lighting.

BH: Yea.

JS: Well, originally, if we'd have had time, unfortunately we never did, we were going to super-impose that type of ... that final stuff that Charlie Jenkins had done, these final things, in the shadows on the faces of all of them, on the closing. They'd have not looked like they'd have been tattooed, but they'd have had all those colors and things going on them, while they were doing that little spiel. But, it was a tricky thing to do, we more or less got it worked out, we worked out what we were going to do with the live action, then to come up with a shot like that...........but then when it came to the end, we haven't got time to do it. So it was left in that way. It's a shame really.

BH: I was just wondering, did they shoot that, because I understand it was hard to get all these guys together at one time. Was that done in the last, I guess the film was finished, somewhere in August of ...

JS: Well, they did it, when they came and saw what we were doing and they quite liked it, then they decided they'd do that little bit, so they did. So we shot that with them.

BH: Well, they seemed to, frankly, they seemed to be working together well there, from that stand... They seemed to cooperate on camera better than what most other individuals would do in private.

JS: They were quite friendly, or they were at that time between themselves, you know. I went out to, or took them out to lunch at a couple of dives a couple of times and they were quite happy.

BH: Hey, was it, were any of those dives so to speak, like... Heinz mentioned one particular place in which you went in and you sat in holes, and then...

JS: I forgot about that. It's called, where I think he means, is called, it was called The Caver, which is really the Cave. And it was run by a French couple.

BH: The Cave?

JS: Well, it was down under in some cellars underneath the...

BH: Uh huh, did you go there? Did you eat with them there?

JS: Oh yes, I took the Beatles down there.

BH: What kind of... what did you eat?

JS: Well, the funny... Well, it was mainly French food, it was very good really.

BH: Really?

JS: Right, south-bank stuff, you know. But what happened once was I took them down there and this French cook was really overcome by the fact that he got the Beatles down there. He produced this fantastic meal with these sauces and right as they put it out, John Lennon said, "Do you have any ketchup?"

BH: Oh pardon me! I'm sorry. I'm sorry, that got me a little bit there. Well, in your opinion, what were the most successful scenes within the movie?

JS: Well, actually, I like "Nowhere Man" very much. And I quite like the Bandstand section that I got hooked around with, in the end. Oh, you know, I suppose nearly all of it I quite enjoyed.

BH: Did you ever think that what you were creating at this time, that this movie was going to be a standard by which many other movies were going to be judged against?

JS: No, I mean, you don't do that while you're working on it. We were just very intrigued with what we were doing. Especially with the kind of styling and that we got from Heinz. And so we were really just enjoying ourselves at the end, I suppose. And you know, I think of course if you do a film like that, if you don't enjoy yourself it shows. And the audience won't like it. You have to be enjoying yourself while you're doing it.

BH: Well, in your opinion, let's turn this coin over a little bit, what were in your opinion, the least successful scenes. And why might that be?

JS: Well, there's a couple of, there's 2 or 3 real bad ones. One of them was the Glove going into the net of words which I would have loved to have done again. And I'm trying to think what else, there were one or two things, I know that... I always have problems after we're done. And I'm trying to think. Oh, the very beginning, there was some stuff done with, when the Captain first arrives at the door of Ringo's house. I wasn't all that struck on that.

BH: What was wrong with that?

JS: Well, I didn't like the animation. That was it. I can't remember, it's a long time ago now, you're asking me to... I've done a lot of stuff since then.

BH: In your opinion, were there any mistakes that made it into the final version of the Yellow Submarine film?

JS: Yea, well, there was quite a few, but I'm not going to tell you 'cause you'll notice them.

BH: Well, it's hard to notice them, because I've seen it, I guess 682 times.

JS: Oh God! More than I have.

BH: Now, there are many successful artistic productions whose creators were not conscious of the numerous levels of meaning that can be found in their work. In some ways this can be applied to almost anything that's written or done, you know, some people believe that everything came from their intuition and yet, it follows a certain type of order, a certain type of message. In some ways this can be applied to the Yellow Submarine theme. Do you have any thoughts or ideas on the possibility that any type of messages within the film that wasn't consciously put there?

JS: Well, no I think it's fairly obvious what we were after. I don't think there's any different... There are one or two little types I suppose you might say in there, but basically it was just, you know good wins, if you like, in the end. It's kind of an adventure story. I mean the first part was basically a travel log, if you like. And the second part was an adventure story. And it was just, if you would like to think, if you were thinking about Lord of The Rings, or something of this sort, it's really, basically the same thing.

BH: Yea, and of course J.R.R. Tolkien would tell you over and over again, don't read anything into this, this is a creation, and the meaning of it again, is very obvious. And I think it's one of the reasons why his work and the work found within the Yellow Submarine are so significant Jack! There are..., my daughter is approaching 6 and 7/8's years old. She's going to be 8 very soon, and we watched the Yellow Submarine, we watched it again last night, and we watch it several times a year, and it is a very moving experience for children.

JS: Whether you can stand it.

BH: Pardon me?

JS: I said whether you can stand it.

BH: Well, the... because of the... You see, I didn't have part in the actual, hard day to day... Well, when I, I never..., give you an example, I never really like to look at my own paintings or go to see my murals. I just never. You're tired of them, at least I am. You don't want to talk about them anymore. And they're done, they're done and you're doing other things.

So it's always been surprising to me that young and old love this movie, and it's done a great deal to bring certain generations together. I don't think we have as free a world as we had back in the 60's. Our nation is suffering from, it used to be that, it used to be that you were guaranteed certain Constitutional rights in this country. That is no longer the case.

And it's almost as if a story like J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of The Rings or the Yellow Submarine, gives one a lot of hope that under the worst possible circumstances, even when the darkest hour, as corny as it sounds, something can bring about a change in the type of regimentation that we all fear. Cause I'm certain that there may be others in England at this time that could be saying the same kinds of things.

JS: Oh yes, it's very similar things going on, I suppose, that we all start grumbling and kicking here. And you've got to remember really, that the Meanies were the Nazis, you realize that don't you?

BH: Pardon me, what did you say sir?

JS: The Meanies were the Nazis, you realize that.

BH: Yes! The Meanies were the Nazis and this is the, this is really a key in understanding the emotional aspect of it. Because the whole Holocaust aspect of it. When you look at the people that lived in Pepperland when the Blue Meanies were there and they're all turned to stone gray, they're not dead.

JS: No, they're just turned into flat cut-outs.

BH: Flat cut-outs reminds me of all the concentration camps that existed in, throughout Germany and now, we are discovering in our nation, here in America that our government is setting up what could be concentration camps for people that are politically incorrect.

JS: That doesn't sound very good, does it?

BH: No, it doesn't, and you know we're meeting, this is the type of rebirth of fascism within this nation which we greatly fear because fascists aren't the least bit concerned about your Constitutional rights.

JS: Oh no.

BH: They're right and the younger people of this nation can't see this yet. It's only individuals that have lived through a little bit that can see when they say you can't do this and you can't do that and that it leads to something larger. Like you can, in the past in America, your home was your castle. Today, you can have someone knocking on your door without a search warrant or any circumstances, come in, search your house, put you in jail, take you away, and then later on say we made a mistake.

JS: Well, that's bad, I don't know whether we've got quite that far here yet.

BH: No, I don't think you have, but we have.

JS: Of course I am getting a bit worried with the IRA, see, I mean, that gets everybody uptight.

BH: Indeed.

JS: Of course, that's only a very small minority really.

BH: Well, it's one of the reasons why we believe the importance of things like the Lord of The Rings and the Yellow Submarine, really do give hope to people, because the power that lies within governments, such as the United States, and we have 2 governments in the United States. We have the one that's openly acknowledged and then we have a shadow government which literally controls our government and now Americans are becoming aware of that.

JS: I didn't know that either.

BH: Yea, it's very fearful. Well, let's get off of that terrible subject, but that's some of the reason…..

BH: When you're working on your own project, say for instance and you're not under someone else, you can take the time to work those things out and somehow put them back in, but unfortunately, when you've got budgets and things like that and time constraints, it can go a long way into eliminating some stuff that was really important.

JS: We didn't lose a lot on the other side, I must admit, we didn't lose very much.

BH: Since you brought that up, can you have any remembrances of things that found themselves on the cutting room floor, that you would have liked to have seen...

JS: Well, not actual sections, you know, the only thing that happened was we may have done scenes 2 or 3 times, you know, done it and then decided that it wasn't right and done it again. But we didn't have very many pieces completely cut out, except the Say Hey Bulldog, which was cut out on your side and not on this side.

BH: Yea.

JS: Which I never quite understood.

BH: Well, I don't either. But that seems like that's one of the problems in all kinds of situations, when... Of course the bulldog has certain significance in Great Britain that it doesn't have here. Maybe that was part of it, I don't know. I'm just speculating.

JS: Maybe that. But we did hear that, I don't know, one of your University's got a bulldog for a ...

BH: Yea, Yale.

JS: Yale, is that true?

BH: Yea, where Erich Segal...

JS: Because that's one of the things why we were playing about with this as well.

BH: Ah ha! Well, I know that Erich must have loved that symbolism, he is obviously was teaching at that particular time, when all of this was going on up there. Now, did working on the Yellow Submarine movie in any way, change your life?

JS: Oh no, it would have been fun if we had got something else to go straight on to, because by that time, we'd got the studio very well worked out. And we could have gone on to quite big things. But, nothing else came up unfortunately, so of course, everything broke up. By then, we were back to doing other things, I went to Canada just after that and worked on Tiki Tiki. Which is a Cinemascope job.

BH: You also mentioned here Nessie, a TV series. What was that about?

JS: Well, that was a series over here, which is television of course. And based on the Loch Ness, idea of the Loch Ness Monster.

BH: Really? That's fascinating!

JS: I was only Director on the Storyboarding, I didn't ... It wasn't basically my idea, that one.

BH: Well, believe it or not, we've done maybe 20 different shows on the Loch Ness Creature and the, you know, you're obviously familiar with the 2 photos of '72 and '75. Not much more has come since then, but we're in touch with the individuals that took those photos and has done that research. That's a fascinating area.

JS: Well, this is just a fun thing. You know, there all just funny monsters actually.

BH: Well, maybe most monsters are funny. What are you presently working on?

JS: Well, at the moment I've got, I've completely storyboarded Tam 'O Shanter the Burns story.

BH: The who story, the Bones story?

JS: Yea. You know it's about witches and warlocks and things like that. And so we've certain amount of money from Channel 4, we've developed it, we're up to the stage, with all the Storyboarding done and the characters designed, but now we're a bit stuck, because with what's been happening with the money in this country is all..., everything's sort of come to a grinding halt. It's a shame really.

BH: Yea, that is. That is a great shame. And lot of different areas, projects are being begun and just can't finish up, at least not finish up in the quality in which they were started. And I..., one's internal feelings when that happens, is not, or not too positive. That's a nice way of saying it Jack. Really.

JS: We might get into it later, and I'm hoping we do, because it's the..., it's 200 years of his death in '96, so. And there's no way I can do this thing in a few months, I need a year at least, to do it. I've got to do it, I have to get a move on.

BH: What was the individual's name again?

JS: Robert Burns.

BH: Robert Burns! Oh of course. Oh, yes indeed. Well, in this country, Robert Burns is basically known for cigars.

JS: Oh, he was the greatest Scottish poet. You can't ...

BH: I know, I know that, it's just, to show you the level of cultural development we have here at times, when you say that, that's one of the first things I think most people want to talk about. Are there any other things that you would like to mention about the Yellow Submarine production that were important to you personally?

JS: Oh, well, not... I suspect you've gone over it all anyway. I mean I don't see... it was just a very good, big film to make and get on with. And we all enjoyed doing it. I suppose everybody put a bit of themselves in it.

There were a hell of a lot of artists involved, apart from the basic animators that we were using, for instance on the main action staff, and we had things like Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, which was done by Bill Sewell, which was another technique altogether, where we took live action and beat the hell out of that and flung paint about all over it. And that was one thing. And there were 2 or 3 things like that in the film where people were doing their own thing. It's very tricky when you're dealing with a film like that, because it's all these artists, that all got their own ideas. And as a Director, you're almost like somebody with a stagecoach with 16 horses. And they all want to go in different directions and you're trying to keep them going in the one direction.

BH: Um Hmm, but you didn't seem to have any real problems with that.

JS: Well, we did, but we didn't. They were worked out.

BH: Well, Jack I want to thank you for joining us. You have helped unravel some of the great mysteries found in the Beatles Yellow Submarine universe. We are thankful for that. We look forward to sending you as noted, a complete set of all the interviews we've done so far, as well as a Corgi Yellow Submarine "toy", boy, those are some of the most difficult things to come by, and as...

JS: I haven't seen any of those.

BH: And then of course, a complete set of the Beatles Collection Trading Cards. I think what you're going to like most of all, in my opinion, is The Tolkien Family Album by John and Priscilla Tolkien. It actually goes through the diaries of J.R.R. Tolkien and they're illustrated. This is in a hard-back form, one of those 100th anniversary publications by Houghton and Mifflin. And you know, it is interesting that many of us who love the Yellow Submarine as being much more than just an animation film, are also great lovers, as we noted before, of J.R.R. Tolkien. Because Heinz Edelmann, who I understand worked extremely hard on trying to put together some type of production in that area. And again of course there wasn't all the money to finish everything.

JS: No, this is what happens over here.

BH: That's what happens over here too.

JS: I'm afraid I've found out they're not very get up and go, you know, they're too safe.

BH: Well, I want to, I'm want...

JS: You haven't got a few million you don't know what to do with have you?

BH: Well, if I do Jack, you're going to be one of the first people, one of my first...I think I have a check coming in that's about 55 million, now you just let know what project you want completed and then we can lend you a hand. Thank you very much for joining us, you've really added a great deal to our knowledge in this area.

JS: Well, OK.

BH: And we'll be sending you some stuff...

JS: And thanks for giving me a call.

BH: And thank you for taking the call. Because you're obviously a very busy person, and I'm just amazed at..., every time I talk about this particular subject, learning so much more about what I consider to be an important part of the animation history, is the kind of thing most people enjoy. Not just because it's entertaining, but because it kind of opens...'cause you know how artists work Jack, when we're in our studios, when you're in your studio, and there's no, with the exception of maybe some classical music playing in the background, you are in a suspended state.

When you're creating something that you love, you can be sitting there for 10 hours, 12 hours, you're not, you know, you're not as hungry as other people would be, you just are totally concentrating on something and that warmth, that feeling within you that you've accomplished something, especially when you've done it well, is just something I wish we could all share with other individuals to make their lives a little bit more meaningful. But that, the studios to me, especially my own, are really, I hate to sound so corny but are really sacred little havens of sanity. Because I can make better decisions when I'm working...,after working in my studio, than I can if I'm involved in the day to day stuff.

JS: Yea.

BH: I can control my ups and downs a lot easier, let's put it that way.

JS: I think you're right.

BH: Well, I know every artist goes through this. And the act of creation in my opinion, makes us live longer. It's healthy to work on that, I just wish other people could have share in that experience, and everyone can, it's just that our culture basically says that an artist does this and a banker does that. Well, we know, like...

JS: You don't have to be like that at all.

BH: Yea, you could be like a Paul Gauguin or something and really enjoy life. I'll talk to you again Jack and thank you ever so much.

JS: OK.

BH: God bless you. Bye bye.

JS: Bye.