Hi! If you're reading this, you're likely a visitor to The Rutles Wiki, which I started ten years ago this November (on a burner account).
It's been a bit of a passion project, which I figured only I would ever be interested in. But there are always Rutle fans in the world, and it seems we usually have one or two editors hanging around at a time, making things fun and interesting! So I welcome new editors and (obviously) new readers! And I hope people find something fun, creative, or enjoyable about what we've managed to achieve in the last decade.
Now, the Rutles Wiki is a bit of an anomaly, as it's actually a strange mix of two things: a wiki dedicated to covering a film property as accurately as possible, and a "fanon" wiki which is... Well, making stuff up. It's certainly true that the joy of working on this site is being able to be creative and parody Beatle properties, but we also can't get anywhere without the media which we are trying to cover here.
Thus, I wanted to make this little page discussing the different kinds of sources we have on here, and what specific things fall into those categories.
Primary Media
Primary media is media which we cover as if it is the gospel. This can be harder than one would expect because even a single piece of media can have contradictions to itself which we have to explain away. Take the first Rutles movie, which mentions three versions of The Beatles' song "All You Need is Love" ("Love Life", "All You Need Is Lunch", "All You Need is Cash"). But, Nevertheless, these are considered primary media:
- The Rutles: All You Need is Cash, the original 1978 film which started the story. This is the version of the band which we are choosing to cover, in our eyes this is the moment that they "started," even if they have a history before it.
- In-universe writing featured in the 1978 soundtrack to the film. These descriptions feature a re-tellings of the history of the band which includes new details. The only contradictions lay in things the film itself gets confused about (such as if certain scenes took place in 1961 or 1962, and if the Cavern is in Rutland or Liverpool).
This is where we get the solo album White Dopes on Punk. - Ron Nasty's April 1977 appearance on Saturday Night Live (as "The Rutle who lives in New York") where "Cheese and Onions" is first heard. This is notable because it was SNL basically treating The Rutles as their own skit, and Ron Nasty as a character who could re-appear from time-to-time. But in-universe it's just a celebrity going on SNL. This is the only pre-1978 piece of media which is considered a primary source.
- Almost all of the in-universe promotional material for Archaeology. As the site currently stands, we cover Archaeology 1:1 with reality, except of course for using the names "Ron," "Stig," and "Barry". So when the band appeared as themselves on CNN? We cover that like it's one of the films. The same for The Rutles: Together Again, a mini-documentary about the band playing a rooftop concert in 1996 (which is where we get things like Goodnight Vietnam and All Things Fall Down). (Now, there are some minor exceptions, but that'll be in section #2. And, to again clarify, this is only for if the band is in character!)
- The Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch, the 2002-follow up. The film is a re-telling and purposefully changes the story in many places just to be different. This is annoying! But challenging. For instance, if you watch the first film, Arthur Sultan is an expert in Ouija cessions. In the second, he's a former chef who cooks really good curry. Likewise, Barry's marriage is covered totally differently in both films, despite the same footage being used. The answer is to be smart, try to combine the details when it makes sense, and to admit when two primary sources contradict. This film also includes new things that fill in the gaps of the original, like the existence of Carinthia Pleasant and The Triangular Album, both things you'll see covered on the site a lot.
- In-character solo work from the band members. Outside of the original Rutles film and the two albums, each actor has returned to their roles separately of the others several times. In each case, we typically treat these as valid events in the lives of their characters.
- Eric Idle and Ricky Fataar did a single as "Dirk and Stig" of "Ging Gang Goolie"/"Mr. Sheene" in the late 1970s. An important note is that a music video was supposedly recorded for GGG. This is lost media, and has never been found.
- Eric Idle performed "I Must Be in Love" as "Sir Dirk McQuickly" on his live-comedy album Eric Idle Sings Monty Python
- The song "Don't Know Why" first premiered in 1995 on the TV show Rory Bremner: Who Else?, where it was presented as a Ron Nasty song spoofing Free as a Bird. This later lead to Archaeology. The song is now uploaded to YouTube [1] and is thus considered primary media.
- Neil Innes also created the single "Imitation Song" in 2009 as a pastiche of "Imagine," which served as a bookend to his character.
- John Halsey recorded a new song, ENOUGH!, as Barry Wom in 2019. Three other songs were included on his DVD Plenty-Mental Journey the same year (which is available on eBay).
- The final two Rutles albums, The Rutles: Live+Raw and The Wheat Album. Like Archaeology and The Rutles (album), we will be covering these albums as real albums released in 2014/2018, but will also use new songs introduced as if they have been part of the catalog since the 1960's. This means that we believe that The Rutles toured in 2014, which is controversial to Eric Idle and no one else in the world.
Secondary Media
Secondary media is pretty similar to primary media, in that it's still content we try to pull from when writing articles. But it's content we need to carefully pull from, with details that need to be taken with a grain of salt or ignored.
The main example of secondary sources is, obviously, The Beatles' history itself, which we can use to inspire new articles, but it's not all totally 1:1, especially after 1980.
Websites
This is split into two categories:
- The official Rutles websites. These are Rutles.org and the-Rutles.com. The latter was mostly used to post tour dates, there's not a lot there. But in the case of the first website, this is typically used as if it were a primary source. For instance, this is where we get "My Ronnie" being the parody of "My Bonnie," and the fact that Tony Sheridan's name isn't different in the Rutle-verse. This is also where we get the incorrect spelling of Capatol Records, found at the site's own retelling of the band's history. But, there are some details we ignore out of necessity.
For instance, the press releases for Archaeology are in-universe but contain info which is only true out-of-universe. One release states that zero of the songs on Archaeology have ever been heard before. Now, of course, this isn't how we treat those songs. The site also uses the real names of the band-members from Wings as members of Punk Floyd, which we don't do (although maybe we will someday? it's not clear.) - Fan made sites. I'm talking, specifically, about places like RutlesLunch.net, which we use as the basis of our Lunch article and also features some "historical details" about the band after 1970. I typically like to think of Lunch in our category of "albums which really exist," but obviously it's still a fun project! So while I think we could (and should!) add some of this, if a fan-site contradicts any primary sources it those bits of info be ignored. So for instance, the website acting as if Archaeology didn't happen is something to ignore.
- Also, for a good out-of-universe website detailing the band's history, check out rutlemania.org, a Rutles fansite from 100 years ago.
Deleted scenes and extended interviews
The thing about The Rutles movies is that they were heavily ad-libbed. Eric Idle would sit down with someone like Paul Simon or Mick Jagger, and they would just make stuff up. And a lot of it wasn't included for a reason! For instance, in the extended interview with David Bowie, the Bowie and Idle joke about "Number 9." This doesn't mean Number 9 exists in the Rutle-verse (Neil Innes gave us "Evolution Number Ten" in 2018) but it's still irresistible to add some things David says to articles (such as the bits about Old Bag and 1). It's more like we're pulling inspiration from these deleted moments, and having fun in the process!
Also, this only applies to videos of extended interviews. The transcribed, edited interviews printed on the sleeve of The Rutles (album) are primary sources. This is where we get Christmas Records.
- Incidentally, there's a big contradiction you can find between the second Rutles film and its deleted scenes. In the film, Tom Hanks discusses The Triangular Album. In the deleted scenes, Salman Rushdie discusses The Shite Album. Both are clearly parodies of The White Album, and in this case, we choose to cover what happened in the film. But, as a compromise, the article does mention The Shite Album as a nickname for the early octagonal edition also mentioned in the movie
- Also, to make things worse, Neil Innes released a Rutles album titled The Wheat Album in 2018. This is my personal favorite joke, but we still choose to cover Wheat as if it's a stand-alone, 2018 album and not a White Album parody.
Rutle appearances before 1977
This includes the first appearance on Rutland Weekend Television and all subsequent mentions and cameos in other Rutland Weekend Work. The biggest problem, obviously, is the casting of Stig being different, but more generally it's hard to imagine Melvin Hall shooting the same scene twice. We do use these as a basis for articles, and we make cheeky references to errors, but just don't expect it all to match.
There are examples of pre-1977 Rutles content:
- Neil Innes appearing as a Lennon spoof (later called "Ron Lennon") in season 1, episode 3 of Rutland Weekend Television. Ron Lennon plays a song titled "The Children of Rock 'N Roll" and then vanishes, said song later being expanded into "Good Times Roll" for The Rutles.
- The original skit from Rutland Weekend Television, which aired on November 12, 1976. In said skit, Stig is played by David Battley (who is presented as the Paul parody, while Dirk is the George parallel). The skit features a 1975 rendition of "I Must Be in Love."
- The cut-down version of this skit, which actually aired in America before the UK, as Eric brought it with him and played part of it on Saturday Night Live on October 2, 1976. This features Lorne Michaels introducing the segment (Lorne had recently offered The real Beatles $3,000 to re-unite, which you'd imagine was about an hour's worth of royalties for them).
- The 1976 book The Rutland Dirty Weekend Book, which features a fake magazine inside titled "The Rutland Stone." Inside is a full-page ad for The Rutles, which includes their current single ("Ticket to Rut") and their next album (Finchley Road).
- The Rutland Weekend Songbook, a 1976 soundtrack of sorts for RJT which features "I Must Be in Love." On the sleeve, the band is incorrectly listed as "The fab four... Dirk, Kevin, Stig and Nasty..." The song's full title is also listed as "I must be in love (is all you need, apart from the money which I can't buy everything.)". The band is also said to be "together again for tax purposes," implying this is a 1976 Rutles reunion. Other Rutle hits are listed as "Can't buy me Rut," "My Sweet Rut," and "Ticket to Rut."
Promotional material and ads
Ads for both of the Rutles movies (1978 and 2002) should be considered when covering the band, but like the Archaeology, press material must be questioned when necessary.
- An ad in the January 12 1978 of Rolling Stone magazine printed a fake article titled "Got to Get You Into My Rut." Said article claimed that The Rutles had secured all of the top 30 songs in the billboard charts, and the records were selling so fast that the nation was facing cardboard rations, with tweed being planned as a replacement for record packaging. Sgt. Rutter's Lonely Hearts Club Band is also listed as a "tune," which would later be retconned by Major Happy's Up And Coming Once Upon A Good Time Band.
- Another Rolling Stones ad on March 23, 1976, advertised The Rutles (album) as "The album The Beatles didn't make!" and listed several songs. Curiously, Ouch is listed as O.U.C.H., implying it stands for something.
- The magazine "Wax Paper," which was printed by Warner Bros. Records and used to promote their records, printed a cover story on The Rutles on March 3, 1978 (in the real world, Warner Brothers was the company who released The Rutles (album).) The full article is archived here. In the brief, in-universe segment, The Rutles are treated as a mythical and influential band who finally can be proven to be real thanks to an album of their music coming out. The article also jokingly implies that The Beatles are actually a parody of The Rutles and not the other way around. The "real" section also incorrectly lists the origin of the band as "Rutland Weekend News." In the end, slipping back into an in-universe perspective, the article jokes that the band has been offered "upwards of fifteen dollars" to reunite. Additionally, it seems to refer to the character we accept as Melvin Hall as "Sultan D'Swat," although perhaps I'm reading that wrong.
- The UK Warner Brothers magazine did their own article, which was entirely straight. It featured the headline "Rutles For Sale."
- Fred, a radio industry magazine, featured an interview with Rutles Press Agent Eric Manchester on March 27, 1978. It can be read here. Notable details include Leggy Mountbatten also being a tea user and Barry leaving Arthur Sultan early because he "didn't like the food."
- A promotional T-Shirt from 1978, which is very rare, features the words "Rutlemania" printed on the back. This is a direct spoof of the 1977 musical Beatlemania. This is where we get the article Rutlemania (1977 musical), alongside a fake review printed in the aforementioned Rutles fanzine.
Fan Magazines
In 1978, the Rutles received its first (and only) fan magazine, in the form of Rutles Forever, written by a fan David L Rosenbaum. The piece is half-in-universe, half out. So, one page might be a piece of news about a Punk Floyd performance, and the next is part of an interview with Eric Idle. It ran until late 1979 and had four issues.
Both Idle and Neil Innes were interviewed in separate articles, and in both cases insisted that there would never be more Rutles content, as the story was finished (both would go back on their word, creating Archaeology and The Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch respectively). Thus, for quite a while, Rutles Forever was the only attempt to continue the Rutles' story. However, as is noted on the front cover in big letters, what this essentially boils down to is fan fiction.
Not that fan fiction is bad, but it's essentially what we do. Now, this fanzine is an amazing piece of Rutles history which should be respected and used as inspiration as often as is possible (this is where we get Lame Duck). But on that note, it is entirely within our rights to occasionally say "what we have today is better than what they thought of in '78."
One notable detail is that issue 3 includes (fan-made) lyrics to the song Sgt. Rutter's Only Darts Club Band, which is notable today because we don't consider that song to exist. Instead, Major Happy's Up And Coming Once Upon A Good Time Band serves its place. It also claims that the Sgt. Rutter's movie "stars the Bee Gees," while our site claims it stars ZZ Top.
There is also a discography listing in the (incomplete) issue 5, planned for 1996, which is totally contradictory to our own. It lists The Charcoal Album as the parody of The White Album (apparently a fourth alternative?).
Also interesting is an on-going piece about a reporter and interviewer named Marvin Gardens, who is possibly supposed to be the interviewer from All You Need is Cash. This name was perhaps an inspiration for Eric Idle eventually naming said character Melvin Hall, as he was reading the magazine as it came out.
For the most part, the in-universe articles are just fun and lighthearted Beatle-spoofs, and we should try to cover them as legit pieces of journalism where possible. But we also need to be fully aware that these things will contradict, and we should be prepared to dump details which contradict, aren't funny, or we just don't like. But a lot of this is gold!
You can find a full reprint of the magazine on Amazon.
The 1996 Goldmine Interview
In 1996, to tie into Archaeology, an in-universe article was released in a special all-Beatles issue of Goldmine Magazine (titled The Rutles: Turn Left At Greenland). This retold the band's history, adding in a few new details and interviewing the three band members involved in the reunion album. This is a fun article that goes out of its way to not be too contradictory. The only significant contribution it makes is referencing an album called Rubbery Mole (we still prefer Rutle Sole despite this).
The article's main oddity is that, halfway through, it begins discussing the lives of the bandmembers' actors as "personas" they took-on after the break-up. "Nasty took on the persona of 'Neil Innes' and went on Monty Python!" etc. This is obviously tongue-in-cheek, and should not be added to pages. Like other things in this section, we can draw quotes and details from this article but we have to doubt some of the details, often depending on what we think is funny. also, again, the article talks about Archaeology as if none of these songs have been heard before.
The 1996 Goldmine article is where we get Travolta, an abandoned concept album.
Things we don't cover
- Anyone source, moment, or outtake where someone claims that Ron Nasty died in 1980 or Stig O'Hara died in 2001. This is just a thing we don't do, it's a big "no." In a big way, as Neil Innes pointed out, once The Rutles left the 1970's, they stopped being a parody and became, instead, a loving tribute. We have decided, transversely, to treat the death of Rutle's actor as the Rutle passing, if just for respect.
- This is obvious, but things set in the real world. This gets a little hard to judge near the end, but we usually deem this to be anything written or presented as if The Beatles exist and The Rutles don't.
- The inner sleeve of Rutles Highway Revisited. Sorry, haha, it's just so weird that it doesn't fit the tone of articles. It's also a scene from a Douglas Adams book I think? Maybe we can cover it as if it's in-universe fiction, but Ron Nasty flying through the air by the sure force of his farting isn't going on his page.
I'm not sure?
There's very little in the Rutle-verse that we haven't spoken of yet, but there's at least one more important thing to discuss.
- The stage show Rutlemania! (2007). I'd have to see a complete or near-complete copy to judge, but of course, a video of the show was never released. What I have seen indicates band banter exclusive to the show, expanding the lore. It's my guess, without any research, that it's fair to look at the show as an in-universe stage show, and thus we should selectively treat said banter as reality (but keeping in mind that, just as a Beatle book might say things that aren't true, so might a Rutle musical)
- I can't find any promotional material for The Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch, but I'd imagine something exists? It was a quiet release after five years of network searching, so maybe not.