Original subtitles

♪ Workin' up a fever in a one-horse town

♪ Was a jockey by the name of Joe

♪ He didn't have a lot of what you might call luck

♪ But he had a lot of get up n' go

♪ Get up n' go Get up n' go

♪ Get up n' go back home

The Rutles story is a legend. A living legend,

A legend that will live long after lots of other living legends have died.

Tonight we are extremely proud to present the semi-legendary life story of the prefab four:

Dirk, Nasty, Stig and Barry who made the sixties what they are today. The fabulous Rutles

♪ Tall in the saddle in a one-horse town

♪ Joey knew someday he'd hit the road

♪ He traded with a dealer for a pick-up truck

♪ And he went looking for a medium load

♪ Get up n' go Get up n' go

♪ Get up n' go back home

♪ Get up n' go Get up n' go

♪ Get up n' go back home

From these streets, very close to the Cavern Rutland

came the fabulous "Rutland sound", created by the prefab four:

Dirk, Nasty, Stig and Barry

Who created a musical legend, that will last a lunchtime

They were discovered by their manager 'Leggy Mountbatten' in a lunchtime disco very close to these streets

Their first album was made in 20 minutes, the second took even longer

Tonight we examine the legend of The Rutles. We look at their lives, their loves, their music

We examine some of the problems that made them what they are today

And we shall also be asking some of the people who worked with them

If they were really the sort of lovable people they were made out to be

We shall be asking many people who knew them what they were really like

♪ When I fell for you

♪ I didn't need a shove

♪ Now that we are two

♪ It all adds up to love to love

♪ Love Life Love Life

♪ Make up your mind Love Life

♪ In your own time Love Life

♪ Hey diddle diddle

♪ The cat and the fiddle

♪ Piggy in the middle Doo-a-poo

♪ I feel rich I feel poor

♪ I'm in doubt I feel sure

♪ Am I in love? I must be in love

♪ Time goes by, as we all know, naturally

♪ People come and people go, naturally

♪ Let's be natural ever since the world began

♪ Let's be natural every woman, every man

♪ Let's be natural as follows nature's plan

♪ Let's be natural

♪ Oh, yeah

Yes tonight we examine the entire legend of The Rutles

But where did the story start?

The answer is: right here!

For on this very spot

Ron Nasty and Dirk McQuickly first bumped into each other

At this precise point, just a few feet back here

Ron Nasty invited Dirk to help him stand up

Dirk, merely an amateur drinker, agreed. And here, well a few feet back there

a musical legend was created.

They were soon joined by their guitarist, Stig O'Hara, a school-leaver of no fixed hairstyle

But it would not be for another two years, before they found their drummer, Barrington Womble, hiding in the van

When they did they persuaded him to change his name, to save time, and his haircut, to save Brylcreem

He became simply Barry Wom

Goose-steppin' Mama

♪ Undercover charge

♪ Goose-step Mama

♪ Taken by an' large

♪ While you tinker with some tailor

♪ Someone sold yer to a sailor

♪ Goose-step Mama, oh yeah!

♪ Goose-step Mama

♪ Goose-step Mama

♪ Boogie all night long

♪ Goose-step Mama

♪ You can do no wrong

♪ You know how to reassemble

♪ Clumsy hands and knees that tremble

♪ Goose-step Mama, oh yeah!

♪ Goose-step Mama

In October 1961 Leggy Mountbatten, a retail chemist from Bolton, entered their lives

Leggy had lost a leg in the RAF in the closing over’s of WW2

and had been hopping around Liverpool ever since

As a child, Leggy's mother never allowed him to play with the other little boys

His father was so snobby, he wore swimming trunks in the bath

to stop him looking down on the unemployed

But it was here, in Liverpool th...

But it was in Liverpool, that we spoke with Leggy's mother Mrs. Iris Mountbatten

Well he told me that he'd been to see these young men in a dark cellar

Yes

He was always very interested in young men

Oh, yes

Youth clubs, Boy Scouts, that sort of thing

Yes

But... these he said were different

In what way?

Well... their hair and... their presence

and their music

He liked it?

No, he hated it

Well what did he like?

Well

The trousers

What about their trousers?

Well... they were

They were very... tight

Tight?

- Yes, you could see quite clearly - Oh I see

Everything

Outlines... clear as day

Yes, yes thank you yes So... tight trousers and

- Nothing left to the imagination - Yes, thank you

I am standing in the world's naughtiest street, the notorious Reeperbahn, Hamburg

For four hungry working class lads

There are worse places than prison

And the Rat Keller, Hamburg is one of these

This is where they found themselves

Far from home and far from talented

Inside here is where they actually played

Come with me now inside, or...

As the Germans say, "mit mirer gekommen inside"

In those early days, there was a fifth Rutle - Leppo

A friend of Nasty’s from art college

Who mainly used to stand at the back, he couldn't play the guitar

But he knew how to have a good time, and in Hamburg that was more important

I am standing in the original Rat Keller, and indeed these are some of the original rats

It was to this small back room that Dirk, Stig, Nasty, Barry and Leppo

came to relax when they weren't upstairs entertaining the other rats dining in the other Rat Keller

Here they had bed & breakfast. there's the bed, the breakfast of course long since gone

Rodently chewed, mouse masticated, in a word, eaten by rats

Here one weekend Leppo crawled into a small trunk with a small German Fraulein and was never seen again.

Incidentally, Rat Keller means literally, in German, cellar of rats

That's not seller of rats, a seller of rats, a person

Who sells rats for a living to another man as it were, of course not

It means a cellar full of rats

Indeed you might say, cellar full of Ratles

In October 19... ah... err... Hello! Oh dear, there's a rat up my leg

In October 1961 Leggy was busy hopping round London, trying to sell their tapes

Well, one day this rather odd chap hopped into the office... he'd...

He'd been to see virtually every-one in the business, and been shown the door

He asked to see my door, but I... I wouldn't show it to him

Instead he showed me the photographs, and the tapes of The Rutles

They were pretty rough... but they had something

What was it?

I think it was the trousers

Well I liked the trousers right away

Well I mean I've been in the garment trade myself and I knew a thing or two about inside legs and these were winners

Dick Jaws, an unemployed music publisher of no fixed ability

signed them up for the rest of their lives

Lucky really

♪ Number One, Number One

♪ You're my Number One

♪ You're my second-to-none

♪ Number One, Number One

Leggy Mountbatten in his autobiography "A Cellar Full Of Goys"

wrote of the excitement of those early days

When they rode the go-kart to fame and took the ferry across the Mersey to a land of riches, wealth and heartache

Leggy put them into suits, he put them into the recording studio and he put them into the newspapers

For The Rutles success was only a drumbeat away

♪ A teacher couldn't teach me I had no time for school

♪ No one there could reach me But baby I'm no fool, no fool

♪ Number one, number one You're my number one

♪ You're my second to none

♪ Number one, number one Wooo!

♪ One and one make two and I look after you

♪ Number one, number one You're my number one Wooo!

♪ I'm looking at you

♪ You're looking at me

♪ Between us, it's oh, so easy to see

♪ We were made for each other, girl

♪ We were made for each other

♪ Between us

♪ Love has begun

♪ Between us

♪ Two hearts are one

♪ Between us

♪ Nothing can come between us

♪ Whatever we do

♪ Whenever we kiss

♪ Between you and me, it's not hit n' miss

♪ We were made for each other, girl

♪ We were made for each other

♪ Between us

♪ Love has begun

♪ Between us

They chased me, and they caught me, and they beat me up

Who did?

Those little girls

One of them screamed in my ear

♪ Between us

♪ Nothing can come

♪ Nothing can come between us

I asked Mick Jagger, when he first became aware of The Rutles

We we living in, you know, squalor and we didn't have any money

And there were the Rutles on the TV with girls chasing them, we thought...

"This can't be that difficult", so we thought we'd have a go ourselves

What's your ambition?

To be a hairdresser

Or Two. I'd like to be two hairdressers

The first time I met The Rutles, they came down to see us at Richmond and they...

And we had just completed a number and all of a sudden they were standing there

In their black suits, they had just come off a TV show

And they were just standing there... sort of... checking us out, the opposition

And then they introduced themselves

Dirk, Stig, Nasty, Barry.

I'd like to own a squadron of tanks

They were very nice, you know

because they'd heard about us...

Because we were the south's answer to The Rutles, you know, at that time

What Ron and I will do is probably to write some songs, you know, and sell them to people

We tried to write some for the Rolling Stones and they're probably going to buy them

The one for that was Dirk. He was a real hustler for the songs I think

Always wanting to sell a song, you know, for any old slag he'd sell a song to

And they came down, they came down, and we were trying to rehearse and they said: "Do you want a song?"

And we said: "Yeah we're always really open for songs" because we didn't write our own

And of course The Rutles were always well known for their hit-making potential... ability

And so, they ran round the corner to the pub, to write this song, and came back with it

And played it to us, and...

it was horrible

So we never bothered to record it

It was a busy week for the prefab four, as the fever of Rutlemania rolls over England

Monday saw them arriving for a civic reception given by the mayor in corporation of Liverpool

to say thank you to it's famous four sons

On Tuesday Rutlemania comes to London

As Rutles fans jammed Piccadilly Circus and bring London's traffic to a standstill

Nobody's seen anything quite like this since the war

Look out girls! Here come The Rutles!

And for some, the event is clearly too much! Oh well, she's safe in the arms of the law

First to arrive is Rutles fan Princess Margaret

Escorted by her husband Lord Snowdon Tony Armstrong Jones

Her Majesty herself was there to greet the Rutles on this royal glittering occasion

The Annual Royal Command Performance

Thank you very much thank you

And now we'd like to do a number dedicated to a very special lady in the audience tonight

Barry's mum

And now, without anymore ado here's your own, your very own

Dirk McQuickly!

♪ Shoot me down in flames if I should tell a lie

♪ Cross my heart I promise that it's true

♪ I've been in love so many times before

♪ but never with a girl like you

♪ With a girl like you

♪ to hold and be beside

♪ With a girl like you

♪ to fill my heart with pride and joy

♪ With a girl like you

♪ I know where I belong

♪ With a girl like you

♪ I know I can be strong, you know

♪ I won't bring you any pain

♪ I won't run around again

♪ There'll be nothing to explain

♪ with a girl like you

The Queen too is a Rutle fan

And she enjoyed the performance so much that on Wednesday they went back to her place to receive MBE's

Well done lads! England's proud of you!

- It must have been a great honour meeting the Queen - Yeah, it must have been

- What did she ask you? - She asked us who we were

What did you say?

I said I was him

I felt more like him than me

- Do you feel better after seeing the Queen? - No, you feel better after seeing the doctor

- Not my doctor you don't - Not your doctor, no

- What are you going to do now? - Back to your place!

But all rest an no play makes Rutles dull boys

And on Thursday they fly to America, to see if they were more than nine day wonders

They needn't have worried America loves Rutles too

In many cases, even more

Ten thousand girls are here to say hello to these four guys from Liverpool

It was the most famous arrival on these shores since Christopher Columbus.

-Hello there -Thanks a lot

After briefly greeting the press, they drive into the heart of Manhattan

to get their first glimpse of New York.

It's Rutles day in Flushing Ladies and Gentlemen...

He's good this guy is, called Murray "The K"

Soft in the head sounds like

Come on! Flushing Animals! What do you want to know? What do you want to hear?

If you call me up at 555-21-60 and say you wanna hear anything but the Rutles

I'm gonna come lookin' for ya!

I mean it! Because it's Rutles day, they're going to be here tomorrow, talking about their trousers

It's a big big day here in Flushing!

Lets give 'em a big round of applause! I know I can't hear you!

But I know I can pick up what you're saying baby!

The scene is here in Flushing!

The whole world's eyes are on Flushing!

Because the prefab four are coming to town tomorrow...

To talk about their trousers

I don't know about this, do you? - No

And then it's back to the hotel for some fun and games!

This is tea, you know we drink it. We put the water in the tea, there's the tea, there.

- And we pour it into the pot - One for Uncle Mamy and one for Auntie Betty

But it's all in a day's work for England's ambassadors of musical fun, The Rutles

That's show business

I'm actually standing outside the actual hotel, in which The Rutles actually stayed in 1964

Actually in this room, here. And it was actually inside this actual room

That I actually spoke with the actual Paul Simon

Well the show where I remember Ed Sullivan saying that

"Calm down now, every-one calm down" you know, "We can't hear" or some... some kind of silly warning you know

They opened the show, I think, and they also closed the show

Which I thought was a... astute planning on Sullivan’s part

Because it would've made you very angry if you had to sit through the whole show to wait to see The Rutles you know

So clearly every-one had tuned into that week's show, just to see The Rutles

Now yesterday and today our theatre has been jammed with newspapermen and hundreds of photographers from all over the nation

And these veterans agreed with me, that the city never has witnessed the excitement stirred

By these youngsters from Liverpool, who call themselves The Rutles

Now tonight you're gonna twice be entertained by them, right now and again in the second half of our show

Ladies and gentlemen The Rutles!

♪ I'm not the kind of guy who likes to play

♪ Big Brother

♪ But I've just seen your date outside, he's with

♪ Another

♪ I saw you both come in

♪ And clearly, you're not meant for him, so

♪ Please, please, hold my hand

♪ Hold my hand, yeah, yeah

♪ Hold my hand, yeah, yeah

♪ Hold my hand and I'll see you home

♪ I want to tell you I'm in love with you

♪ Completely

♪ I'd like to take you far away from here

♪ Discreetly

♪ Our love was meant to be

♪ And darling, it's a certainty, oh

♪ Please, please, hold my hand

♪ Hold my hand, yeah, yeah

♪ Hold my hand, yeah, yeah

♪ Hold my hand and I'll see you home

♪ Hold my hand, yeah, yeah

♪ Hold my hand, yeah, yeah

♪ Hold my hand and I'll see you home

♪ Hold my hand, yeah, yeah

♪ Hold my hand, yeah, yeah

♪ Hold my hand and I'll see you home

♪ Hold my hand, yeah, yeah

♪ Hold my hand, yeah, yeah

♪ Hold my hand and I'll see you home

The Rutles music meanwhile had been attracting respectable critical attention

'The London Times' called it "The best since Schubert"

Sir Brian Morrison has been Regis professor of music at the University of Oxford for the past thirty years

We asked him just how good, musically, were The Rutles

Stanley J. Krammerhead the Third Jr. is an occasional visiting

professor of Applied Narcotics at the University of Please-Yourself, California

He is also a keen historian of pop music

We asked him just how good, musically, were The Rutles

Listen, look it's very simply, musicological and ethically

The Rutles were essentially empirical maise-longues so they rhythmically radical

Yet verbally passé and temporarily transcended lyrical content

Welded with historically innovative melodically material, transposed and transmogrified

By the angst of the Rutland ethic experience, which elevated them

From essentially alpha exponents of in essence merely beta potential harmonic material

Into the prime cultural exponents of Aeolian codensic cosmic stanza form

But he didn't really tell us either

So we went to New Orleans, to find out just how expensive it is to make these documentaries

I'm standing by the banks of the Mississippi. The First Na...

I'm standing by the banks of the Mississippi in Louisiana, the cradle of the blues

That's black music sung mainly by whites

And we're here to find out the black origins of Rutle music

I spoke with Blind Lemon Pie.

Well everything I learned, I learned from The Rutles

From The Rutles, really?

Yes, everything

But surely you were singing the blues back in the early thirties

No, I was working on the railroad

I worked on the railroad for thirty years or more

Until I heard The Rutles. and I decided, that that's my type of music

I'm gonna leave the railroad, and I became a musician and I've been starving ever since

- So where did Rutle music originate? - Next door

- Next door? - Next door to Ruttling Orange Peel

Yes sir, I originated The Rutles. They got it all from me. Every single bit of it

- Well how do you mean? - Well sir, they come here

And they took everything I ever written. Those four guys from Liverpool came here

- He's lyin'! - I ain't lyin'!

- He's always lyin'! - I ain't lyin'! I ain't lyin'!

Every time there's a documentary on white music around here, he claims he started it all

I did, I did, I did!

Last week he claimed he started The Everly Brothers

- Frank Sinatra and Laurence Wells! - I did, I did! - He's always lyin'!

Well we seem to be rather wasting our time here in New Orleans

Despite the expense

Still it's pretty isn't it?

Nasty had written and published a bestselling book:

"Out Of Me Head"

Only one media remained unconquered

The cinema

In 1965 "A Hard Day's Rut" changed all that

♪ I feel good

♪ I feel bad

♪ I feel happy

♪ I feel sad

♪ Am I in love?

♪ I must be in love

♪ I feel rich

♪ I feel poor

♪ I'm in doubt

♪ I feel sure

♪ Am I in love?

♪ I must be in love

♪ Any time of the day I can see

♪ Her face, when I close my eyes

♪ She's a dream

♪ She is real

♪ Can't explain

♪ How I feel

♪ Am I in love?

♪ I must be in love

♪ Any time of the day I can see

♪ Her face, when I close my eyes

♪ Am I dead

♪ Or alive?

♪ Can my poor heart

♪ Survive?

♪ Am I in love?

♪ I must be in love

♪ I feel good

♪ I feel bad

♪ I feel happy

♪ I feel sad

♪ Am I in love?

♪ I must be in love

♪ I must be in love

♪ I must be in love

♪ I must be in love

Roger McGough is a Liverpool poet

He's the author of many books set in and around Liverpool

Including "Mersey Sound", "Gig", "The Liverpool Scene" and two of his Liverpool poems are

In the "The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century's English Verse"

He was born in Liverpool, attended school in Liverpool, was even married in Liverpool

And his football team is of course Everton

He's a member of the "The Scaffold", a light comedy group

Who played The Cavern during the early sixties

And during those incredible years he lived, wrote, loved, watched football and drank in Liverpool

- Roger, did you know The Rutles? - Oh yes yes

Roger McGough, Liverpool poet, writer, author, humorist, bon-vivre, and a man who knew The Rutles!

Australia

Canada

Cleveland

The Rutles were now world-wide successes. They'd rubbed shoulders with the great

Their pictures were everywhere. Their names endorsed a thousand products

From tee-shirts to garter belts to pillowcases

Leggy was besieged by merchandisers

We felt every girl in America is gonna to want to sleep with a Rutle

Yes we have a complete line of Rutles products all ready to go

The Rutle tee-shirt, the Rutle plate, the Rutle cup, the Rutle acne cream, the Rutle hairclips

All a complete line of Rutles products, and all I need from you is just your word and

- We're in business. - We're in business?

I like the way you work

Brian Thigh was a top record executive in London in 1962

Mr. Thigh, you've been known for many many years as the man who turned down The Rutles

Yeah that's right

You said guitar groups were on the way out and

Would never make any money at all in the sixties

Yes I did

You turned your back on all those millions of sales, all those hundreds of gold records

Yeah, yeah that's right

- What's it like to be such an asshole? - What?!

Some people say you've been staying away from Liverpool now you're famous

No we haven't been staying away, as much as not coming here

Some people say it's six months since you came back here

- Well that's the sort of thing some people would say - Nevertheless it has been six months

Now you're saying it... why don't you ask me where I've been?

- Where have you been? - I'm not telling you

♪ I grew up in the country

♪ Beside a chicken shack

♪ So I left for the city

♪ And I didn't look back

♪ Now, I'm livin' in hope

♪ Livin' in hope

♪ I'm livin' in hope

♪ Livin' in hope

♪ Yes, I'm livin' in hope

♪ Livin' in hope

At the height of Rutlemania in 1965, their drummer Barry Wom, the noisy one

Returned home to Liverpool, to marry his childhood sweet-heart

The church was packed with Rutle fans

All of whom wanted to get a close look at The Rutles

Inside the dimly lit, crowded church Barry got separated from his fiancé

And ended up with a different bride

In the confusion, Barry's bride-to-be, twenty-three year old butcher's apprentice, Brenda Liola

Was accidentally married to a party of Scotsmen from Hull

Inspiring Barry's haunting ballad

"When you find the girl of your dreams in the arms of some Scotsmen from Hull"

Barry was heartbroken, but when he looked up and saw who he'd married, he soon cheered up.

Welcome back. And it's from Liverpool that we go immediately to London

Hello, London here

And it's from London that we go to Switzerland to The Rutles second movie "Ouch!"

Filmed in colour, on location very expensively, not in London

♪ Ouch!

♪ You're breakin' my heart

♪ Ouch!

♪ I'm fallin' apart

♪ Ouch!

♪ Ow, ow, Ouch!

♪ When we first met

♪ I must admit I fell for you right from the start

♪ I must admit I fell for you right from the start

♪ Now when we meet

♪ All kinds of things it seems upset the apple cart

♪ All kinds of things it seems upset the apple cart

♪ Ouch!

♪ Don't desert me

♪ Ouch!

♪ Please don't hurt me

♪ Ouch!

♪ Ow, ow, Ouch!

♪ What is this thing

♪ Called love why do they say it makes the world go 'round?

♪ Called love why do they say it makes the world go 'round?

♪ I can't explain

♪ The way I feel for you, my feet don't touch the ground

♪ The way I feel for you, my feet don't touch the ground

♪ Ouch!

♪ Don't desert me

♪ Ouch!

♪ Please don't hurt me

♪ Ouch!

♪ Ow, ow, Ouch!

♪ When we first met

♪ I must admit I fell for you right from the start

♪ I must admit I fell for you right from the start

♪ Now when we meet

♪ All kinds of things it seems upset the apple cart

♪ All kinds of things it seems upset the apple cart

♪ Ouch!

♪ Don't desert me

♪ Ouch!

♪ Please don't hurt me

♪ Ouch!

♪ Ow, ow, Ouch!

♪ Ouch!

♪ Don't desert me

♪ Ouch!

♪ Please don't hurt me

♪ Ouch!

♪ Ow, ow, Ouch!

Che Stadium. Named after the Cuban guerrilla leader, Che Stadium

And it was here, in 1965, that The Rutles came, well, not here in the car park obviously

But back there, in the stadium that The Rutles came in 1965 to a capacity house, a sell-out

The thing I remember about it is them running out into the middle of this field

And you couldn't see them, there they were, like, you know, just miles away

There... is it really The Rutles? It might be somebody else

♪ There was no one in my life till I met you

♪ You brought me love and taught me how to smile

♪ You picked me up when I was feeling blue

♪ From now on my future is worthwhile

♪ It's lookin' good, it's lookin' good

♪ It's lookin' good, it's lookin' good

♪ It's lookin' good!

♪ Now that you have given me reason to live

♪ I will stay forever by your side

♪ And give you all the lovin' I can give

♪ Just say the word, and be my bride

♪ It's lookin' good, it's lookin' good

♪ It's lookin' good, it's lookin' good

♪ It's lookin' good!

♪ I'm not throwing caution to the winds, oh no

♪ Love is not an easy game to play

♪ Though I may not be a man of words, yeah, yeah

♪ There is one thing I feel obliged to say

♪ It's lookin' good, it's lookin' good

♪ It's lookin' good, it's lookin' good

♪ It's lookin' good

You couldn't hear anything

How long did they play?

About twenty minutes and that was it, off, helicopter

Back to the Warwick Hotel, two birds each

In 1966 The Rutles faced the biggest threat to their careers

Nasty, in a widely quoted interview

Apparently had claimed that The Rutles were bigger than God

And had gone on to say that God had never had a hit record

The story spread like wildfire in America

Many fans burnt their albums

Many more burnt their fingers attempting to burn their albums

Album sales sky-rocketed, people were buying them, just to burn them

But in fact it was all a ghastly mistake

Nasty talking to a slightly deaf journalist

Had claimed only that The Rutles were bigger than Rod

Rod Steward would not be big for another eight years

That's all I said you know, now all this has to happen

- What do you think it proves? - I think it proves you're all daft!

I suppose I'll get into trouble for saying that now

Nasty apologised to God, Rod and the press and the tour went ahead as planned

But it would be The Rutles last

Playing all the places where we're supposed to play, and we hope we can, you know, bring a bit of

You know, je ne sais quoi to America

At the end of it they met Bob Dylan in the idyllic San Francisco of the mid-sixties

And he introduced them to a strange substance, which was to have an enormous affect on them

Tea

Despite warnings that it would lead to stronger things

The Rutles enjoyed the pleasant effects of tea

And it influenced enormously their greatest work: Sgt. Rutters

Of course the main thing that comes to my mind with the Sgt. Rutter album is

Getting stoned and listening to it with the earphones you know

Particularly the, you know, the chord that lasted forever you know

The release of this album, a millstone in pop music history

Contributed greatly to an idyllic summer of bells, flowers and tea drinking

It's music led thousands to experiment with tea

Eventually even the press found out and offered Dirk the chance to deny it

It's not up to me, if you come and ask me I'm going to tell you the truth

Because it is the truth, I have had tea

Lots of tea... Indian tea... ...and biscuits

Dirk's admission created a scandal, the press grabbed hold of the wrong end of the stick

And started to beat about the bush with it

Many pop-stars were arrested for using and possessing tea

Nasty himself was busted by Detective Inspector Brian Plant

Who brought his own, to be on the safe side

There was an immediate outcry against this Police persecution

and the London Times carried a full page petition calling for the legalization of tea

The Rutles meanwhile appeared live on TV

Before a worldwide audience of two hundred million with a song that expressed the feeling of the age

Tea was on every-one's lips

♪...In your own time ♪ Love Life

♪ To live is to live...

♪ Where there's a will, there's a way

♪ Love is the meaning of life

♪ Life is the meaning of love

♪ Love Life

♪ Love Life

♪ Love Life

♪ Love Life

♪ Where there's a will, there's a way

♪ Love is the meaning of life

♪ Life is the meaning of love

♪ Love Life

♪ Love Life

♪ Love Life

♪ Love Life

♪ Everybody!

♪ Love Life

♪ Love Life

♪ Altogether now!

♪ Love Life

♪ Love Life

♪ Love is the meaning of life

♪ Life is the meaning of love

♪ Love is the meaning of life

♪ Life is the meaning of love

♪ Love is the meaning of life

♪ Life is the meaning of love

♪ Love is the meaning of life

♪ Life is the meaning of love

♪ Love is the meaning of life

♪ Hold my hand, yeah, yeah!

A new form there, a slightly different form there of choral music, with a slight difference

We'll be back with Prince Charles in just a moment

"Love Life" is in many ways, the high watermark of their careers

From here the sands of time end, leaving them high and dry on the beach of time

as the tide of history rode relentlessly over them

For a start Leggy Mountbatten was rapidly becoming a worry

Always emotionally involved with them

He had far less to do once they ceased touring

Of course he had other artistes

The McKismo Brothers

Arthur Hodson and the Kneecaps

As well as the French Beach Boys: Les Garcons De La Plage

But his decision to put money into bull-fighters as a tax dodge

Plus his unusual personal life

In California he'd been arrested for giving the kiss of life to a rubber raft

Gave increasing grounds for concern

I asked Mick Jagger if he was aware of these tendencies of Leggy's

Oh yeah... Leggy yeah you're kidding, Leggy got around a bit you know

And that was alright, you know, until he started going off with the bull-fighters

I think, that...

That era, and then I think they got a bit disenchanted with him

And he didn't know where to go, you know, you know, in his life I think

And they wanted to control more of themselves, you know

Stig meanwhile had fallen under the influence of Arthur Sultan, the 'Surrey Mystic'

And Sultan had introduced Stig to his Ouija board work

Arthur Sultan now invited The Rutles on a getaway from it all

Table-tapping weekend near Bognor.

As usual the press followed

The Bognor thing was really funny, the "Bognor Express" they called it in the newspapers

Some-one was very late, one of the girls, they were always late

One of them, I can't remember who it was, maybe Nasty

Thought we were trying to get on the Rutles bandwagon, you know, The Rutles mystical bandwagon, which wasn't true at all

We were just as eager to find out what was going on in this board-tapping thing at Bognor as anybody

♪ In this day and age

♪ Love is all the rage

♪ Life goes on, it only goes to show

♪ It's not my cup of tea

♪ It's all the same to me

♪ For we are here today and gone tomorrow...

But while The Rutles sat at the foot of the Surrey mystic

Fate dealt them an appalling blow

It was here that they learnt the shocking news of their manager

Leggy Mountbatten, tired and despondent over the weekend

And unable to raise any friends, went home and tragically...

Accepted a teaching post in Australia

It was a kind of funny weekend that, and then of course at the end of it

We found out that Leggy had gone off to Australia, which kind of put the mockers on the whole thing really

It was a bombshell for The Rutles. They were shocked and stunned

- Well we're shocked - Yes shocked

Shocked

And stunned

Yes stunned

Very stunned

Did Arthur Sultan have any words of encouragement for you?

- No - Well yes

Well, yes and no

He said it took allsorts to make a world

And that we shouldn't worry unduly about were he'd gone

You know he said... we shouldn't become covered with grief at thoughts of Australia

Because...

He did say we could still keep in touch with him by tapping the table

- And postcards - Yes

Very stunned

Very stunned

It's significant that their first major flop 'Tragical History Tour'

Immediately followed the loss of Leggy. It was not the strongest idea for a Rutles film

Four Oxford history professors

On a hitch-hiking tour of tea-shops in the Rutland area

And it was slammed mercilously by the press

♪...Talk about a month of Sundays

♪ Toffee-nosed wet weekend as far as I can see

♪ Hey, diddle diddle

♪ The cat and the fiddle

♪ Piggy in the middle

♪ Do a poo-poo

♪ Bible punching heavyweight

♪ Evangelistic boxing kangaroo

♪ Orang-utan and anaconda

♪ Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, even Pluto, too

♪ Hey, diddle diddle

♪ The cat and the fiddle

♪ Piggy in the middle

♪ Do a poo-poo

♪ tekraaam ot tnew eiggip elttil siht

♪ One man's civilization is another man's jungle, yeah

♪ They say revolution's in the air

♪ I'm dancing in my underwear

♪ 'Cause I don't care

♪ Hey diddle diddle

♪ The cat and the fiddle

♪ Piggy in the middle

♪ Do a poo-poo Do a poo-poo

♪ This little piggy went to market

♪ And this little piggy stayed home

♪ This little piggy had roast beef

♪ and this little piggy had none

♪ This little piggy went Wooo..oooo!

♪ All the way home

♪ This little piggy went to market...

I'm sitting in a rented limousine in New York. And it was here...

Well not in the limousine obviously, but in New York

The Rutles came in 1968, to announce the formation of Rutle Corp

We're here in New York to announce the formation of Rutle Corp

Nasty and I have come over on behalf of the other Rutles

Yes they couldn't come

We're setting up Rutle Corp as a kind of enterprise that people can come to us

And we'll help them, we'll give them money

You know, if they want money, they just come to us

Yes, instead of going to a bank, we want to help people to help themselves

Rutle Corp did just that, people helped themselves for years

At one stage they were losing money faster than the British Government

There are continued allegations that Rutle Corp is going bankrupt

Eric Manchester, the Rutles press agent: Are these allegations true?

No, no, they're conjecture you know, it's only a rumour

I think you'll find the way you get success, you always find this kind of rumour. No...

So the stories of the thefts, they're not true also?

No, they're greatly exaggerated, greatly exaggerated

It's bad, you know, things are going

But nothing like the rate, that people indicate

The trouble is that people feel because these boys are The Rutles

People can come in and help themselves to whatever they want. And this is just not on

And we're putting a stop to this, and we're are doing, you know, it's almost dried up

Things have gone, I wont deny it, television sets

The odd car belonging to the company

Has disappeared

But... it's not extreme you know

I did come in once and found that my office had been nicked

But it had been nicked by Ron Decline, who we'd called in

To stop this sort of flow of goods from the building, so that was alright

So once you see this stop do you feel that Rutle Corp will continue into the future?

Absolutely. I feel that once we've put a stop to this sort of bit of petty pilfering

Rutle Corp will last for a very, very, very...

For awhile, three chapters of the Redditch Hell's Angels lived in the basement of Rutle Corp

Before Stig had the nerve to ask them to leave

- Who hurt Stig? - One of the girls

- Who? - Big Valerie here

We're very upset, but there's not much we can do about it

- Why not? - Well... she'll thump me

So... Stig injured by big Valerie

The Rutles next opened a clothes boutique in London

Which lost nearly a million dollars in only three weeks

Before Nasty blew it up

♪ I have always thought

♪ in the back of my mind

♪ cheese and onions

♪ I have always thought

♪ that the world was unkind

♪ cheese and onions

♪ Do I have to spell it out?

♪ C-H-E-E-S-E A-N-D O-N-I-O-N-S

♪ Oh, no.

♪ Man and machine

♪ Keep yourself clean

♪ Or be a has-been

♪ Like a dinosaur...

♪ Man or device

♪ For everything nice

♪ You'd better think twice

♪ At least once more...

♪ Man and machine

♪ Keep yourself clean

♪ Or be a has-been

♪ Like a dinosaur...

♪ Man or device

♪ For everything nice

♪ You'd better think twice

♪ At least once more!

♪ Man and machine

♪ Keep yourself clean

♪ Or be a has-been

♪ Like a dinosaur!

♪ Man or device

♪ For everything nice

♪ You'd better think twice...

Hey there, who's your friend? Get his teeth cleaned

- Oh hello Nasty - Hello Dirk

- Oh that's torn it - What are you doing Stig?

- Just getting out of here - Well I'm gonna get out of here too

Personal problems now began to split The Rutles into smithereens

They would sing together, but they wouldn't talk. Pretty soon they wouldn't even sing

By March 1969 things had got so bad within the group

that both Dirk and Nasty got married

not to each other, of course... to women

Dirk had become enamoured with Martini

A French actress who spoke no English and precious little French

When they married in London the service was conducted in Spanish

Italian and Chinese, just to be on the safe side

I love you...

It's you I love...

Today is our wedding day...

For you always I will wai...

G, B, B, E...

F...

- D - D... D...

That's nice...

♪ Time goes by, as we all know

♪ Naturally

♪ People come and people go

♪ Naturally

♪ Let's be natural

♪ Ever since the world began

♪ Let's be natural

♪ Every woman, every man

♪ Let's be natural

♪ Has followed nature's plan

♪ Let's be natural

♪ Oh, yeah

Nasty meanwhile visited an exhibition of broken art

At the Pretentious Gallery, Soho

The art exhibits had all been dropped out of tall buildings and then put on display

Amongst the little piles of rubble, Nasty found the artist herself

Chastity, a simple German girl, whose father had invented WW2

Chastity fascinated him with her destructo art

They talked all through the night as she outlined her plans

to drop artists out of planes

Nasty adored her

They announced their engagement, next day at a press conference held in his shower

What are you doing this for?

We're doing this for peace, and basically to show that the world is...

You know, going astray, in it's thinking

- What are you doing? - We're getting wet in a shower

Because basically we talked it over, Chastity and myself

And we came to the conclusion

That civilisation is nothing more than an effective sewage system

And so by the use of plumbing we hope to demonstrate this to the world

Nasty and Chastity now had plunged themselves into the art world

Together they made a film called A Thousand Feet Of Film

♪ You need feet, to stand up straight with,

♪ You need feet, to kick your friends,

♪ You need feet, to keep your socks on,

♪ And stop your legs from, fraying at the ends.

♪ You need feet, to walk to Scunthorpe,

♪ Or to dance, the hoochy-coo,

♪ Yes the whole world needs feet for something

♪ And I need feet, to run away from you.

Stig meanwhile, had hidden in the background so much

That in 1969 a rumour went around that he was dead

He was supposed to been killed

in a flashfire at at water bed shop

and replaced by a plastic and wax replica from Madame Tussauds

Several so called 'facts' helped the emergence of this rumour

One: he... he never said anything publicly

Even as the 'quiet one', he'd not said a word since 1966

Two: on the cover of their latest album, 'Shabby Road' he's wearing no trousers

An Italian way of indicating death

Three: Nasty supposedly sings "I buried Stig" on "I Am The Waitress"

In fact he sings "E burres stigano"

Which is very bad Spanish for "Have you a water buffalo?"

Four: on the cover of the Sgt. Rutter album

Stig is leaning in the exact position of a dying Yeti from the 'Rutland Book of the Dead'

Five: if you sing the title of "Sgt. Rutter's Only Darts Club Band" backwards

it is supposed to sound very like "Stig has been dead for ages honestly"

In fact it sounds uncannily like "dnab bulc ylno srettur tnaegres"

Palatable nonsense

Stig was of course, far from dead, although not in fact, far from Esher

He'd fallen in bed with Gertrude Strange

A large breasted biologically accommodating American girl

Who's father had invented the limpet mine

When they met, it was lust at first sight

Barry meanwhile had also spent a year in bed as a tax dodge

Eric Manchester thinks that he'd either received appalling financial advice

or that he was desperately trying to start a "Barry is also dead" rumour

When he finally got up Rutle Corps was in a perilous financial plight

Nasty had flown back in a hurry from his honeymoon rally in Nuremburg

To meet the most feared promoter in the world

Ron Decline

Decline had a reputation as a hard man

His only weak spot was dishonesty

Any-one was free to inspect his books, but no-one could find his accounts

He struck terror into the hearts of his subordinates

People would commit suicide rather than meet him

In business his left hand never knew who his right hand was doing

Nasty adored him, he was a man after his own wallet

Decline promised The Rutles that if they let him take care of their royalties

They would never have to worry about money again

Stig meanwhile was accepting the financial advice of Billy Kodak

Whilst Dirk had invited Arnold Schwarzenweisengreenenbluenbraunenburger

To handle his end of the name, Barry was consulting the I Ching every three and a half minutes

There was a plethora of lawyers

Suddenly every-one became amazingly

I remember, I'd get up in the morning, sue some-one, check in the papers I hadn't been fired

Go to the office, sue some-one, pick up the morning's writ, sue the bank

Go out to lunch, sue the restaurant

Get back in, collect the writs that had been received that afternoon

Read the papers, phone the papers, sue the papers, and go home

To the wife

They're asking me "Where's the money, where's the money?" I mean I don't know where the money is

I've never been good with figures, you know that

I don't know anything about math, it was never my good subject

I don't know where the money is, but if you need money, I'll give you money

But this... this, really, surprises me...

I'm really shocked

Because I thought we had something here a lot stronger than just business

I mean you know, I love you more than I love my own family, I do

I wanna protect you, I wanna help you

I wanna protect you from the outside world

Protect you... protect you from... ...people like me

You know... and I think I'm doing a good job

At the final meeting a hundred and thirty four legal people and accountants

Filed into a small eight by ten room

Only eighty seven came out alive

The black hole of Savile Row

Had taken toll of some of the finest merchant banking brains of a generation

Luckily that's not very serious

But The Rutles were obviously self-destructing fast

In the midst of all this public bickering

'Let It Rot' was released as a film, a album and a lawsuit

In 1970 Dirk sued Stig, Nasty and Barry

Barry sued Dirk, Nasty and Stig

Nasty sued Barry, Dirk and Stig

And Stig sued himself accidentally

It was the beginning of a golden era for lawyers

But for The Rutles, live on a London rooftop

It was the beginning of the end

♪ Workin' up a fever in a one-horse town

♪ Was a jockey by the name of Joe

♪ He didn't have a lot of what you might call luck

♪ But he had a lot of get up n' go

♪ Get up n' go Get up n' go

♪ Get up n' go back home

♪ Get up n' go Get up n' go

♪ Get up n' go back home

♪ Tall in the saddle in a one-horse town

♪ Joe, he knew someday he'd hit the road

♪ He traded with a dealer for a pick-up truck

♪ And went lookin' for a medium load

♪ Get up n' go Get up n' go

♪ Get up n' go back home

♪ Get up n' go Get up n' go

♪ Get up n' go back home

♪ Ketchup n' go Ketchup n' go

♪ Ketchup and go back home

♪ Get up n' go Get up n' go

♪ Get up n' go back home

♪ Ketchup n' go Get up n' go

♪ Get up n' go back home

♪ Get up n' go Get up n' go

♪ Get up n' go back home

Come along!

Come! Get going!

Like any of the other enormous music... popular music phenomenom’s

Sinatra, and Presley, and The Rutles, and then, you know, some people say...

Well you know "Its time, every ten years, who will be the next Rutles?" you know

I don't think there will be a next Rutles

Sixteen years after the fresh-faced prefab four first burst into the public eye

And eight years after they split up, just where are The Rutles today?

Dirk has formed with his wife Martini, a punk rock group

called The Punk Floyd

He sings, and she doesn't

Nasty has turned his back on the world and sits with his thoughts and his memories

Barry is a hairdresser in the Reading area, with two fully equipped salons of his own

While Stig works for Air India as a air-hostess

Fame is a fickle mistress

Just how many people remember The Rutles today?

We asked the public just what is a Rutle?

Excuse me madam, we're doing a documentary, and I wonder if you'd answer a few questions

Sorry I don't answer questions

It wont take a second of your time, really, we've just got the camera rolling right away here

We're from England, and we're making a documentary and we just want one question, please

- Alright - Thank you very much, just stand right here OK?

- Who were The Rutles? - I don't know

- Come on you must know - No I'm sorry I don't know

- Yes you do know - No well I don't know

- Who were The Rutles? - I don't know

- You do know! - No I don't know!

- You do know! The Rutles! - I don't know who they are!

- Who were The Rutles? Please tell us - I don't know who they are

- Who were The Rutles? - I don't know!

- You do know! - I don't!

- You do know! Who were The Rutles?! - I don't know!

Who were The Rutles?!

The Rutles were a mop-top English pop quartet of the sixties who set the foot of the world a-tapping

With their catchy melodies, their whacky Liverpool humour and their zany off-the-wall antics

Epitomised in such movies as "A Hard Days Rut" and "Ouch!"

Dirk and Nasty, the acknowledged leaders of the group

Were perfectly complimented by Stig, the quiet one, and Barry, the noisy one

To form a heart-warming, cheeky, lovable, talented

Non-Jewish group who would gladden the hearts of the world

- Thank you very much - In 1962 they played The Cavern.

- After that they spent several months in Hamburg. - Yes, thank you very much indeed

Then in 1962 they released their first single "Twist and Rut"

Yes thank you very much, thank you

Will you shut up?!

From New York back to London

I'm standing on the crossing, where the Rutles legend ended

Here it was that the prefab four Dirk, Nasty, Stig and Barry

The Rutles, the singing phenomena, who made the sixties what they are today

Here it was that indeed...!

Mick, why do you think The Rutles broke up?

Why do I think they did? Why did The Rutles break up?

Women. Just women, getting in the way

Cherchez la femme, you know

Do you think they'll ever get back together again?

I hope not

♪ People were proud in Doubleback Alley

♪ Neighbours were loud, but ever so pally

♪ People would shout, joking about

♪ The smoke and the soot, Mother would put

♪ The milk bottles out

♪ We had a good time in Doubleback Alley

♪ With fences to climb, and Father O'Malley

♪ To clip your ear, and steer you clear

♪ Of the funny man in the ice cream van

♪ Who talked so queer

♪ Doubleback Alley takes me back and in my mind I see

♪ Happy, smiling faces if I flog my memory

♪ People were proud in Doubleback Alley

♪ Neighbors were loud but ever so pally

♪ People would shout, joking about

♪ The smoke and the soot, mother would put

♪ The milk bottles out

♪ We had a good time in Doubleback Alley

♪ With fences to climb and Father O'Malley

♪ To clip your ear and steer you clear

♪ Of the funny man in the ice cream van

♪ Who talked so queer

♪ Doubleback Alley takes me back and in my mind I see

♪ Happy, smiling faces if I flog my memory