CRANBERRY SAUCE: AN EXAMINATION OF THE PAUL IS DEAD HOAX (2010 - 2020, 10th Anniversary Remaster)!

FINALLY!!! AT LAST!!! 

In time for its 10th anniversary, I was able to upload a remastered version of my Beatles documentary, "Cranberry Sauce: An Examination of The Paul Is Dead Hoax." You see, I created this film length retrospective and study of one of the quirkiest and morbid chapters in Fab Four history way back in 2010, which gained tens of thousands of views, only to have it taken done over rights issues. Ugh. But with some selective editing, it has returned!

About its original removal from YouTube: Let me be clear, I asserted then, in 2010, and now that my usage of music and video footage in the creation of my documentary falls under fair usage. Yes, too many people uploading full movies and music videos and such make a similar claim, despite their work being clearly in violation. However, I believe my work definitely falls within guidelines (and even more so now, with my remastered version). 

Fair use allows a work to use select copyrighted materials for criticism, commentary, research, and educational purposes. All of which I feel my work meets in terms of requirements. Additionally, my work is transformative in most of the materials that is used in it. Still, to make certain my new version would not get taken down, I made several edits and replaced some audio, which seems to have worked in as much as being allowed on YouTube.

This is especially gratifying, as over the past decade, I had learned of a number of times where someone else took my video and uploaded it to their own channel. It seemed separate individuals were using the same version, which was a version that someone downloaded, split in two parts, and, for some reason, chose to alter my beginning credits to remove my name. Interestingly, the editor left my final credits intact, so I am unsure as to the purpose as those final credits also mention my name several times.

I am actually not against others sharing my video, even uploading it elsewhere on other sites. I created my work to be seen, after all. I just would like my video to be left unedited by others. I created the documentary with no intention of making a profit from it. It was never meant to be monetized, and was strictly a fan creation meant to be shared with other fans.

Okay, on the subject of the video itself: Do I personally believe the story of the hoax? Well, not in that I believe Paul McCartney truly passed away back in 1966 and was replaced by a lookalike, with the Beatles leaving clues on albums of their mate's untimely demise. Even so, I purposefully left the conclusion ambiguous in my video. I am simply a fan who is fascinated with this chapter of Beatles lore. 

In fact, it was this fascination that actually led me to becomes a big Beatles fan. If the whole thing of "Paul Is Dead" was a put-on by the Beatles and the record company to sell more albums (which all have denied), it worked in my case. 

I was more of a casual fan, in my younger days, enjoying the selection of songs typically played in rotation on radio stations of my youth. But, in buying and listening to the full albums in my quest to hear these gruesome "clues", which also gave me opportunity to hear many songs that were not typically played on the radio, I was won over and the band became my favorite rock/pop band of all.

Even when I first heard about the hoax as a teen, I thought it was bogus. However, I have an affection for bizarre and oddball things, and the tale captured my imagination. In 2003, I first attempted a look into the PID hoax for a Halloween episode of my public access TV program, "The Happy Show!" 

I was not satisfied with that rougher look into the myth, and so in 2010 I revisited it in creating the documentary. By 2010, there began to be others who would post videos about the PID hoax on YouTube. Many of these took a decidedly more conspiracy slanted stance, trying to suggest Paul really did die in the 1960s, and the death is still being covered up. The people who really believe this can be pretty extreme. I chose to only focus on the origins of the hoax, and not get into the extended craziness that has evolved during the internet age on "real" conspiracies.

 

I would end up going in depth for this endeavor, researching the story more than ever before. I dug up decades old articles, interviews, sound bites, radio broadcasts, and anything I could that related to the hoax. I wrote up a script, and asked regular "Happy Show" contributor, Al Chantrey, to provide the narration. Al is gifted at coming up with character voices, but I asked him to use his normal voice for this, as being English as he is, I felt his accent would be a nice touch for a video about the Beatles.

I put a lot of time and effort into making the original version, and quite a bit still to make this 10th anniversary remastered version. I hope you will check it out, whether you are a Beatles fan, or not. It is an interesting look at a bizarre tale during the final days of the band.

Oh, and I slipped in a few little easter eggs of my own during the documentary in the spirit of fun. :-)

Enjoy, and feel free to share with others!

Just A Quintet of Wise Guys and their Doc Meet The Frankenstein Monster!

I love the X-Men! 

You might question that after this blog entry, and the previous one, too, but I truly do! 

Growing up as I did, in the era of Chris Claremont and John Byrne, "The Uncanny X-Men" was my favorite regular title from Marvel. At least, unless Byrne moved onto "The Fantastic Four," then both alternated for the top spot in my weekly comic book reading. I loved both the original team created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, as well as the "new" team created by Len Wein, Roy Thomas, and Dave Cockrum. I first "met" the original team in a reprints (which I believe I chronicled in my earlier blog entry. I started regularly reading the new guys with issue #122, just in time for the build up to the Dark Phoenix Saga.

When the X-Men title was good, it was GREAT! When it was bad, though, it was also the WORST! Mostly the worst stories of the run were during the Silver-Age of comics. It was the period of Roy Thomas's first run on the series, before joining with Neal Adams for some classic X-Men comics. But, boy... Thomas took some time to work uo the steam he let out during his time with Adams. 

In fairness, as I understand it, "X-Men" was Thomas's first professional comics assignment. He was learning the ropes, finding his voice. But truth is truth, and that first go round was a pretty horrid run. Not that Arnold Drake came up with masterpieces during his own brief tenure writing the adventures of Marvel's mutants, but Thomas's earlier stories were very wordy, and unnecessarily so.

It was stupid... and corny! I know it's harsh, and I do appreciate the great work Thomas put in with "Conan The Barbarian," "The Avengers," and "Squadron Supreme," and especially the aforementioned work with Neal Adams on X-Men, but there's no other way to put it with the early stuff.

Mechano, The Locust, The Warlock, all were the lame villains in cringe-worthy tales, but I think the very worst of the worst came in a stand alone story where Professor Xavier and his teenage students square off against what appeared to be the legendary Frankenstein monster! 

Xavier learns about  the discovery of the monster by a group of arctic explorers while he was, as he put it, "engaged in some, uh, mental experiments." Why he said "uh" about his experiments is something that never got addressed. Just what was that about? It was found frozen in a block of ice and brought back to America for study.

Anyway, the professor is certain this is the actual creature that Mary Shelley wrote about in the 19th century novel. He mentions to the team that he had suspected she was writing about a real monster, but that the monster was in reality an android and that its' creator was in all likelihood a mutant! Um... okay. Xavier is convinced that this monster is a vital threat and so he and the X-Men take off for the museum where it's being, so that they may prevent it from doing harm.

As feared, the monster awakens and during the X-Men's ensuing battle with it, we learn the monster is not only inhumanly strong, as described in the novel, but also can shoot eye beams, and has magnetic feet! Not long after the monster tosses a barrage of barrels at our heroes, it is stopped cold by Iceman's freezing power. Apparently, the cold is its' major weakness, and being frozen again causes it to explode this time.

Probing the android's artificial mind during its' final moment of existence, Xavier learns about its' true origin: It was created as an intergalactic ambassador by aliens from a tropical planet who wanted to use it to test the hospitality of humanity. Due to a malfunction, the creature went berserk and was pursued to the polar regions by its creators, where they left it frozen. It particularly was agitated by the X-Men's colorful costumes, as they reminded it of the flamboyant outfits worn by the aliens that created it.

Yeah... so... Brightly garbed aliens from a tropical planet created a monstrous android to make certain we Earthlings would treat it nicely as a condition for making contact with out planet's populace. And somehow Mary Shelley possibly caught wind of this situation and wrote her story loosely based in these "actual" events. Also, it was frozen in ice for years and years in the arctic, but for some reason it['s only when blasted by IceMan's powers that it becomes too cold and explodes.

Yep... stupid. I'm sorry, but what else would you call such a story?

I recently finished reading the entire Silver-Age run with the original X-Men, and so I think I am qualified enough to nominate this as the worst X-Men comic book tale ever! The story had some close competition, let me tell you, but it takes the cake, and the prize! However, like many a B-movie, I would say it is so bad, it's good! It's pure cornball, and silly beyond reason, but you almost can't believe what you're reading was written by a former teacher, an educated, adult man. I don't accept that comics are strictly for kids as a rule, but even that doesn't excuse how inane this story came out.

For a fun, little exercise, I decided to take a poke of rewriting the comic book, adding new text in the captions. I did so intending to make a spoof, but honestly one that probably has a better rationale behind the occurrences that took place in the original version. I write the team as a group of smart asses who have no respect for their leader, and whom in return grants them even less respect. For this reason, I decided to label them as the YZ-GUYS (pronounced "wise" guys, get it? um...).

The monster, in this parody, is written as a true misunderstood victim of circumstances. I won't claim it improves the tale, but I hope that it at least brings a new level of enjoyment from the comic.

So, here is my version, using the original artwork from "X-MEN" #40 (January, 1968):

NOTE: Click to enlarge pictures (on computer, right-click and select either "open in new tab" or "open in new window" to see at full resolution):

X-Men are Copyright 2020 Marvel. The usage of the characters and artwork here is strictly meant for the intent of parody, with ownership neither granted nor implied. The parody script is Copyright 2020 Matthew Hawes.