The Rutles
One show introduced The Rutles, a four-piece band fronted by Innes as a man "suffering from love song" spoofing The Beatles, singing "I Must Be In Love", a masterly pastiche of some of the early Lennon-McCartney songs. This was followed by the beginnings of a documentary feature about the band, cut short when the camera, mounted on a car, speeds off. This scene was later remade in the spinoff film, All You Need Is Cash, featuring Idle, Innes, Rikki Fataar and John Halsey (who also appeared in many of the musical items in the series) as the "Pre-Fab Four". Innes wrote the music for the film, most of which was parody of well-known Beatles songs.
On RWTV, "The Rutles" are portrayed by : Eric Idle as the Harrison character, Neil Innes as the Lennon character, David Battley as the McCartney character, and John Halsey as the Ringo character. They are introduced as: "Dirk" ( Idle ), "Nasty" ( Innes ), "Stig" ( Halsey ), & "Barry" ( Battley ) . ( "Barry" is inexplicably changed to "Kevin" on the RWTV soundtrack album. ) The original version of "I Must Be In Love", is performed by Neil Innes & Fatso, and is slightly different than the 1978 "All You Need Is Cash" version. Also of note, on RWTV, "The Rutles" are quite clearly a product of Rutland, whereas in "All You Need Is Cash", they are relocated to Liverpool.
Innes would later appear in another sketch, as "Ron Lennon", performing a short song titled, "The Children of Rock-N-Roll". This 30 second piece would later be expanded into a full Rutles song, "Good Times Roll", for the "All You Need Is Cash" film and album.
Read more about this topic: Rutland Weekend Television