Beat Bugs

I don't know about you, but I grew up to shows filled with talking aardvarks, big red dogs, and even Spanish explorers. The generation before me had futuristic shows like the Jetsons, stone-aged families, and a talking green frog. Years before that kids were enjoying stories told through radio, sending children on wild adventures in their living rooms. A new generation has now been born, thriving, breathing, and about to grow up on a show that will literally rock their world, with Netflix's new series, Beat Bugs.

The Beat Bugs will be coming to streamers around the world for exciting episodes of music inspired by the Liverpool Lords themselves, and life lessons through adorable characters, such as Jay and his friends! The series was created by Josh Wakely, a writer and producer in Australia, who in 2013 found himself lucky enough to achieve what was thought of as the impossible; getting the rights to use The Beatles songs.

“I was wildly naive,” Wakely said. The Australian writer-director-producer had no idea that it would be such a long process — three years in total — to secure the rights to classic songs such as “Eleanor Rigby,” “Hello, Goodbye,” “Getting Better” and “Blackbird” through Sony/ATV Music Publishing.  - LA Times How Netflix 'Beat Bugs' creator scored so many Beatles tunes and  got Sia and Eddie Vedder to sing

Despite, the struggle Wakely had no intentions of using any other artist or band. In fact, the creator spoke out saying,

"My vision was to take Beatles songs to tell love-filled moral messages for children. The writing in their music is so ripe for reinterpretation, and the characters and world that I created was so tied to the imagination of their songs that I knew I needed them. People in years to come will talk about the Beatles like we talk about Shakespeare.”

The following is the Beat Bugs trailer via Youtube 

Getting the rights to use The Beatles songs sounds pretty impossible right? Right. It took Wakely years to secure and use the Fab Four's songs, starting with the company that holds all of the mop topped men's catalog; Sony/ATV. He was appointed to Damien Trotter who quickly told him that the rights to The Beatles songs "aren't just granted..."
However, in an article posted by Rolling Stone magazine, Josh Wakely 's idea of having a children's television show just inspired by the boys music, instead of a show about The Beatles themselves. (There's no bug rocking the mop topped look, scouse accent, or even named after one of the band members), helped pursued the company to be more freeing with the songs.

This however would not be the first Beatles children show, as the Fab Four had their own cartoon about them that aired between 1965 - 1967, being aired in America by ABC (The show was later shown as re-runs until 1969. Re-aired by MTV in 1986 and 1987 and would later appear on Disney Channel for a short while). The show was based around the boys, starring one of their songs in which each episode was based around. Widely entertaining for fans, The Beatles however, where not found of the show. Voices were played by various actors, the characters themselves the boys found annoying, and so forth.  As mentioned above, having a show not based on The Beatles themselves, maybe a positive factor in Wakely's project.  Although, The Beatles will not even play voices in this new series, songs will be performed by artist of today's generation, such as Pink! Sia, Eddie Vedder, and More!

Below is an Episode of The Beatles Cartoon for "Help"

Time will only tell what The Beatbugs have in store for us and the generations to follow. Personally, I would like to thank Josh Wakely for keeping The Beatles music alive and well.

So "Roll Up" and  make sure to check out the new series this coming Wednesday 31 August, 2016 on Netflix.