In Popular Culture
The Concert for Bangladesh was satirised in two episodes of The Simpsons: "Like Father, Like Clown" and "I'm with Cupid". In the former, Krusty plays the album while a visitor at the Simpsons household. In "I'm with Cupid", Apu's record collection contains The Concert Against Bangladesh, which features a picture of a mushroom cloud on the cover, reflecting Indian−Pakistani nuclear rivalry in the region. (In fact, India supported Bangladesh during its struggle for independence.)
The July 1974 ("Dessert") issue of National Lampoon magazine satirised Tom Wilkes' original cover design for The Concert for Bangladesh, by using a chocolate version of the starving child, the head of which has had a bite taken out of it. Two years before this, the National Lampoon team spoofed Harrison's humanitarian role on record, in their track "The Concert in Bangla Desh" on the Radio Dinner album. In the sketch, two Bangladeshi stand-up comedians (played by Tony Hendra and Christopher Guest) perform to starving refugees in an attempt to collect a bowlful of rice so that George Harrison can mount a hunger strike.
Crowd noises from the Concert for Bangladesh were put into Aerosmith's cover of "Train Kept A-Rollin'" by producer Jack Douglas. Some of stills photographer Barry Feinstein's shots from the 1971 concerts were used on the covers of subsequent albums by the participating artists, notably the compilations Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II and The History of Eric Clapton.
George Harrison himself sent up the benefit-show concept on film, in the Dick Clement-directed HandMade comedy Water, in 1985. At the so-called Concert for Cascara, he along with Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Jon Lord and others make a surprise appearance on stage, supposedly before the United Nations General Assembly, performing the song "Freedom".
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