Yellow Submarine first US TV question

The first time Yellow Submarine was shown on TV in the early 1970s, it was on either ABC or CBS and I swear that "Only A Northern Song" was cut from the film. Does anybody remember? It was 46 or 47 years ago!

 

No one?

 

I didn't even know it was on TV.

 

I never knew it was on TV either

 

I think (THINK, now..), I saw it every Thanksgiving, in the '70's, but, not on the 'big three'.
For the New York/Long Island erea,I wanna say either the 'channel 5' or 'channel 11' station played it.
Oh, and they showed it with "Only A Northern Song", too.

 

It was, in fact, run on network TV periodically for several years. I'm thinking probably from around 1973-1978. Me memories may be fuzzy, but I believe it ran on ABC, then on CBS. I think it was usually on during the summer as I clearly recall watching it while my parents had a pool party. I was young and looked forward to it every time it was on.

Unfortunately, I cannot recall if Only A Northern Song was on the network broadcasts, but I do recall watching it on a local independent channel in the early 80s and it was included.

 

Are you mistaking OANS with Hey Bulldog perhaps. I don't think HB was in the initial showing.

 

I remember it being shown on the day after Thanksgiving for a few years in the late 70s. Definitely on channel 5.

 

I remember seeing it on ABC back in the 70s. OANS was in it as I always remember the box scene...the one with the flaps representing the ears opening and closing and the sine wave, vocal waveform coming out of George's ear blowing my psychedelic mind.....

 

October 29th, 1972. I remember the date because I got married that day and my bride and I watched it that evening. BTW still married. I don’t remember if any songs were cut, it was shown with commercials.

 

CBS at 8pm.

 

The broadcast was 90 minutes long, with commercials. Since the film is nearly that long, I'd expect edits/deletions.

This is too inaccurate to be reliable, but does list Only A Northern Song.

 

I was in about 3rd grade when I first saw it on tv in the early to mid 70's. Didn't really get it as a kid though.

 

I saw it in probably '74 or '75 on TV. I know it was late at night, and I believe it was on one of the local, non-network channels. Might have even been PBS-?

 

Given my age as a second-generation Beatles fan, this is how I first experienced the movie as well. It surely was Thanksgiving time, and I'd wager it was Channel 5 -- WNEW -- in the NYC-metro area.

This is a bit after the time to which we are referring, but cool to see, nevertheless:

 

One feature film which defied network predictions, however, was “Yellow Submarine,” an animated film with voices and songs of the Beatles. The pic was played as a Sunday special, preempting MASH, Sandy Duncan, Dick Van Dyke, and Mannix and wound up in 53rd position with a 14.8 rating and a 22 share. The film managed that lowly feat despite a strong lead from “You’re Elected, Charlie Brown” replacing the languishing “Anna and the King” at 7:30. The special managed to knock NBC’s Disney show down to 24th with a 19.4 rating and a 29 share, but the failure of the Beatles cartoon vaulted ABC’s “FBI” into its highest spot of the season - third with a 25.8 rating and a 38 share.
Variety - November 8, 1972

If you’re wondering which shows rated worse than Yellow Sub that week, here ya go:
54 - Banyon
55 - Owen Marshall
56 - Julie Andrews
57 - Streets of San Francisco
58 - The Men
59 - Sixth Sense
60 - Night Gallery
61 - Alias Smith and Jones

 

Here's an excellent podcast about Yellow Submarine...

143: Yellow Submarine at 50 - Something About The Beatles

 

That song list is quite amusing:

All Together Now
Yellow Submarine
All You Need Is Love
Northern Song (I guess its not the Only one)
All Too Much
Eleanor Rigby
Sgt. Pepper
With A Little Help From My Friends
Strawberry Fields (not Forever?)
When I'm 64
Nowhere Man
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
Fool On The Hill (Maybe another song for Jeremy?)
You're Too Much (Too many songs that are Too Much!)
Michelle (maybe they meant to say Think For Yourself?)


I have a VHS tape from 1980 when YS was shown on a local indie station, and it included
"Northern Song". It also included Mod Oddysey, which looked much better than on the DVD or Blu-ray

 

I probably first saw it around 1975 or 76 on a Boston station, WLVI-56. It was likely a Saturday or Sunday afternoon show, and I don't recall ever seeing Northern Song on TV broadcasts.

I'm kind of disappointed to see it didn't do all that well on its first network showing. I would have thought this would be a big hit, it was in theaters only four years earlier.

 

Actually, it was still a matinee feature where I lived in October 1972 and had been shown many, many times on midnight bills. Its audience penetration had likely peaked and those who turned to the FBI may not have been Beatles fans.

 

All cool information so far... Any dates for other CBS network runs? (Was it rerun on CBS? Surely it was...) I don't know why, but my memories of a CBS network showing was in the summer. As for that October date... I wonder what was on after it at 9:30pm to 11pm? // Answering my own question: According to online TV listings: MANNIX followed YELLOW SUBMARINE from 9:30 to 10:30. So it was not pre-empted as suggested in the one article shown. Looks like all 3 networks signed off at 10:30pm back then. (???)

Prime time TV listings from Sunday October 29, 1972

 

>>>My memories of a CBS network showing was in the summer.

Now here's what I remember!!!... (From IMDB): The film made its primetime television premiere on October 29, 1972 (Sunday) on CBS Network and was rerun again on CBS Network on July 5, 1974 (Friday) and July 4, 1975 (Friday) before going into syndicated runs. The tradition of broadcasting around Independence Day was a perfect family film with it's brilliant colors and music. It was the perfect lead in as by the time it was finished, it was late enough and dark enough outdoors for the 4th of July firework celebrations to begin. /// Now I remember... Later on one of those July 4th showings, Our local CBS affiliate showed YANKEE DOODLE DANDEE at 11:30pm after the news.

 

That day was during the very short period that the FCC limited the networks to three hours "Prime time" per night for all 7 days of the week. For many years network "Prime time" had been 3.5 hours Mon-Sat and 4 hours Sunday, just by custom as TV evolved. ABC used theirs on Sunday that night from 8 to 11, the other two used 7:30 to 10:30, and at the same time all networks were agitating to make at least Sunday 7:30 to 11, or other 3 1/2 hours in other time zones.
Soon that was granted by the FCC for Sunday only.

 

Yup. It was channel 5 here on Long Island/New York. Even remember, and have on VHS somewhere, a yearly showing on channel 5 with Cousin Brucie doing a bit when the movie cut to commercials. Hated Cousin Brucie....voice just went right through you. The only good thing about it was he interviewed Al Brodax who was at the time a professor at NYIT I think in Old Westbury. But yeah, I don't ever remember them cutting Only A Northern Song.