Hello Jana here,

I fell in love with The Beatles when I was a kid. I loved their sound and that it wasn’t dependent on synthesizers and gallons of hairspray like most popular bands in the 80’s. To me the sound was fresh and a very welcome change. This made it easy for me to follow them into their later years where their sound was more psychedelic. Their iconic musical catalog has been purchased, from Sony/ATV Music Publishing, to make an animated children’s series called ‘Beat Bugs‘. The project is currently in development for the US/Australian production company, GRACE.

‘Beat Bugs‘ comes from Josh Wakely, a key player with GRACE. The series will use original narratives interwoven with Beatles songs to tell the story of young bugs that live and learn life lessons in the magical universe of an overgrown backyard. Kind of sounds like ‘Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch Friends‘ but without the annoying music that gets stuck in my head for days after the kids watch a single episode. Beatles songs are frequent ear worms that stick with me for days, already, so that’s already a plus.

Wakely has pitched the animated beastie idea to Sony/ATV and their managing director Damian Trotter responded with enthusiasm saying, ”Josh’s ingenuity and creative exploration of these iconic songs in a wholly imaginative world was too good to pass up and the idea of opening up the single greatest music catalogue of the 20th Century to the next generation is something we are particularly excited about”. 

The Beatles publishing rights have been a source of contention for years.  Paul McCartney, who co-wrote, or wrote the majority of their songs was famously outbid by the King of Pop, Michael Jackson in 1985.  MJ’s purchase put his and Macca’s previous friendship in the doghouse. However, Macca has said that his memories with Jackson are happy ones. A US Copyright Act will see the former Beatle regaining rights to all his own music in a few years.

So the deal to grant catalog access comes as an unusual move. When you look at how their music has been deployed over the years, this corroboration only comes as more of a head-scratcher. The albums have been slow in every new music adaptation that comes along. In the 80’s when music was changing over to CDs it was very slow and it wasn’t until 2010 that their tunes were available on iTunes which was founded in 1976. If you can’t wait for ‘Beat Bugs’ to get your animated insect fix, pop in some ‘Yellow Submarine‘ and enjoy.