Here's a wrapup of the solo comedy careers of The Beatles:
Usually the most famous people in the world do not have a very good sense of humor about themselves, or a capacity for self-effacement. Angelina Jolie and Bob Dylan, for example, look to be joyless chores of boring and seriousness. Fortunately the Beatles, the biggest celebrities who have ever dared to walk amongst us and change the weather with their moods, were perhaps too famous to ever not be completely weirded out by fame, and thus had a pretty witty attitude about the whole thing. What I’m saying is that unlike Jolie or Dylan, John, Paul, George, and Ringo, have been consistently funny and game over the years. (I’m not counting the innately funny Beatles projects like A Hard Day’s Night or Help! — strictly solo stuff here.)The big highlights to me are Paul McCartney being interviewed by Chris Farley on SNL and the fact that we it not for George Harrison, Life of Brian would not exist. Also pretty great was George Harrison trying to get the $3000 Lorne Michaels had offered for a Beatles reunion:
"$750 is pretty chintzy." ~ George Harrison to Lorne Michaels on an SNL episode, upon finding out he'd only get 1/4 of the $3,000.And of course, the urban legend that John and Paul almost surprised Lorne Michaels by showing up.
During the first season of "Saturday Night Live," (April, 1976) producer Lorne Michaels parodied the multimillion dollar offers for a Beatles reunion by publicly offering the "generous" sum of $3000 live on the air. Little did Michaels know that the offer nearly succeeded, with John and Paul going so far as to call a taxi to take them to the studios from the nearby Dakota. (Where the duo were watching the show together) As John relates in his "Playboy" interview, "We nearly got into a cab, but we were actually too tired."They were laugh out-loud funny the second they got off the plane at JFK.
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