Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

To listen/download, click here!

We at Here Be Spoilers have long argued that musicians trying to act is rarely, if ever, a good idea. Take, for instance, the entire film oeuvre of Elvis. Blech. It's garbage.

There are a few exceptions to the rule. Eminem in 8 Mile, for instance, although he is really just playing himself, so it's iffy, at best. There's also Prince. For the record, we're all Prince fans here, and it's hard to deny that he had an amazing ability to draw people in, and Purple Rain was an amazing film which, like 8 Mile, was semi-autobiographical, so it barely counts as acting. Really, it's the movie's soundtrack that is the major draw.

But if you want a perfect representation of our argument that musicians shouldn't act, you have to travel all the way back to 1978, and the musical film Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which features a storyline very loosely based on the Beatles' album of the same name, plus one or two of their other songs.

Heartland is a tiny town in Middle America where there are white picket fences everywhere, everything is wholesome and the people are the friendliest. Hell, even the town's mayor(?), Mr. Kite, is played by George freakin' Burns, who also acts as the narrator of this movie.

The town's big claim to fame is, of course, Sgt. Pepper and his world-famous Lonely Hearts Club Band, which was solely responsible for ending both World Wars I and II. The stock market crash, the New Deal, Korea, Vietnam, the hippie movement...The band played on. Until one day, while performing in the town square, Sgt. Pepper dropped dead. It was a sad period, and the town did its best to find someone to become the new Lonely Hearts Club Band.

The best option...of whoever was available.

For reasons that will never become clear, they chose Billy Shears (Peter Frampton) and his best friends from childhood, the Henderson brothers, Mark (Barry Gibb), Dave (Robin Gibb) and Bob (Maurice Gibb), to take up the mantle and make the town famous again. Billy's brother, Dougie (Paul Nicholas), takes on the mantle of the band's manager, and Billy's girlfriend, Strawberry Fields (Sandy Farina), takes it upon herself to look alternately bored and sad.

A man from a Big Record Company (Donald Pleasence as B.D. Hoffler) hears the band's music and wants to make them hugely famous, which, according to the movie, will take about a week. And what a busy week it will be!

The band whisks themselves away in a hot air balloon, which gets hit by a jet, and it takes them to Hollywood, where they begin a whirlwind of activity, starting with a party involving lots of booze, lots of food, and lots of women rubbing their tits against Billy and the Hendersons. The Henderson boys sign their contracts without even taking their eyes off the women. Billy takes a particular interest in Lucy (Dianne Steinberg), who is one of Hoffler's acts and, for some reason, his chauffeur. Lucy slips Billy a roofie and gets him to sign Hoffler's contract, and then they head to the Bone Zone on a bed shaped like a record.

Mustard accidentally pressed the "Robo-Colonic" button.

The next day begins a flurry of activity, as the band heads to the studio to record their first album. Back in Heartland, a van rolls into town carrying Mr. Mustard (Frankie Howard) and his assistant, The Brute (Carel Struycken). They have been sent their by a mysterious organization called the FVB, to steal Sgt. Pepper and his band's instruments, which will somehow send the town careening into the darkest pits of hell. Or something. This involves a lot of people moving and a bunch of strip clubs popping up out of nowhere.

Once Mustard steals the instruments, the FVB orders him to send to instruments to different locations, which he does, keeping the bass drum for himself. Strawberry, disheartened at how things are going in town, as well as missing Billy, sneaks out of her parents' house and gets on a bus to Hollywood to find him. Mustard, who was looking for a chance to grab her, misses this because he is sleeping, despite his weird sex robots trying to wake him.

For the record, this is not his special purpose.

Back in the big city--possibly the next day, the band goes on tour with Lucy and her group, The Diamonds (Stargard). They become an instant smash hit, and everybody loves them. So the obvious move is to go back into the studio and make another album. (Please note, this is the second album in two or three days!) Strawberry, who has reached Hollywood in record time, suffers a hallucination about Billy and his friends banging Lucy and her group, and then goes searching for the band, which she finds within minutes, and just wanders into the studio to interrupt recording without so much as a single person asking her, "Who are you and why are you here?". Billy, super-psyched to see Strawberry, drags the band out of the studio to talk to her, and she tells them about the instruments being stolen. They all decide to do a Scooby-Doo style investigation.

Upon leaving the studio, Strawberry and the band discover Mustard's van outside. It seems he actually did figure out where Strawberry went. They get inside the van, which is empty aside from the sex robots, and find the bass drum. A bit of dicking around with the computer shows them where the other instruments are, and they head out to find them.

The disembodied head of Frank Zappa commands you to DANCE!

First stop is Dr. Maxwell Edison's (Steve Martin) plastic surgery factory. He has Sgt. Pepper's coronet, and the group quickly gets it back. Not quick enough, however, to avoid Steve Martin singing a Beatles song. Off to the next stop, which is the Church of Sun King (Alice Cooper), who also sings a song at the viewer, but he adds psychedelic video effects. it doesn't help. From him, they re-steal the tuba. While doing that, Billy is almost electrocuted to death, but he is brought back to life with the help of the sex robots and Strawberry's tears, because why should that be the only thing that makes any sense?

The band then sneaks into FVB headquarters and steals back the saxophone, and then they head back home, where the town celebrates their return. Mr. Mustard also comes back to town, and he kidnaps Strawberry, taking her back to FVB, setting up a showdown between Billy and his bad, and the mysterious FVB itself (Aerosmith). But who will win? Will they all survive? If not, will it be Billy's fault? Will the Henderson boys ever stop mugging for the camera? Will Mr. Kite truly rock out, showing the town they should have picked him to lead the band instead?

Way too stoned to have realized this was a bad idea.

You'll have to tune in to find out!

Larry, surprisingly, liked the movie. His only complaint was that there was almost no dialog at all, other than Mr. Kite's narration. Otherwise, he feels that this film is flawless. Or not, because of Star Wars sounds. It's hard to explain, really.

Derek has all kinds of problems with this movie, from the terrible musical arrangements, to the "middle American" heroes who are, clearly, not from America. Also, what's with Mustard's robots? And why is Billy such an idiot? God, this movie sucked.

So don't do anything special. It's not worth it. the movie is crap. Just listen this week's episode!