The original concept for Yellow Submarine was to make a theatrical version of the Beatles TV cartoon show. Al Brodax quickly nixed that idea. Instead, he wanted something innovating, groundbreaking, everything the TV show wasn't. He hired director George Dunning and animator Heinz Edelman, wrote a high-concept script, brought in a whole new cast of voices(although Lance Percival from the TV show did do the voice of Old Fred.) and even got the Beatles themselves to appear at the end of the movie in a sing-along segment.
Yellow Submarine took a while to catch on, but it would become one of the most highly acclaimed animated features ever. The movie actually helped start a sort of animation reaissance. Other highly-accliamed features would appear over the next decade, like Fritz The Cat, Heavy Traffic, Fantastic Planet and Watership Down to name a few. Even the folks at Disney took notice, re-releasing "Fantasia", a movie many would compare Yellow Submarine to, and training a whole new group of animators to help carry on their tradition.
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