"In 1977, I made a documentary about The Rutles." "The prefab four:" "Dirk, Nasty, Stig and Bary." "It made quite a splash." "Today, I'm here in Hollywood to take a look back at The Rutles to look back on those mop-topping, foot-tapping, happy-go-lucky days of Rutle-mania and ask the question:" ""Where are we today?"" "Well, obviously, I'm here in Hollywood and you're at home or at a friend's or at Veronica's or wherever you're watching." "But tonight, I want to pose the question:" ""Did The Rutles change the world or did the world change with The Rutles?" "Or did The Rutles not change and the world did?" "Or perhaps we should all go and change now."" "Tonight, I'm going to be asking deep and probing questions." "I shall be using modern interviewing techniques to harass and badger people whose only fault was they knew The Rutles." "Indeed, I should be making a documentary that will hopefully bring me a bloody Emmy." "Oh, for heaven's sake, come back here." "Yes, tonight we tell The Rutles' story." "The full" "Jesus Christ!" "Oh, I'm sorry, lady." "You better" "What--?" "Get the hell out of my house!" "Seriously, we're doing a documentary." "Who cares?" "This man right here?" "Yes, this man right here." "You creep." "AII right, ma'am." "Calm down." "All right, you, what's the story?" "Well, it all began in England in the 1950s." "In the 1950s in England, popular music was very boring." "In fact, everything in England in the 1950s was very boring but popular music was particularly boring." "There were The MacGuffins." "There was Nigel Pap." "There was Jimmy Glimmer, "The Wallasey Warbler. "" "There was Vera Pickles, "The Singing Granny. "" "A large frog." "The Rutles had been playing together from quite an early age." "When they grew up, some people believed they changed the world." "The Rutles changed the world." "They completely changed the wold." "They changed the face of music throughout the world." "They changed the world." "They changed the world." "Absolutely, they changed the world." "They never changed socks." "I think the best thing was their asses." "Their bums, as you call them in England." "These are four young men in their prime, wearing very tight trousers." "They created, I think, the best music before ABBA." "A lot of bands at the time were trying to sing like American boys, like American boy groups." "The Rutles, I felt, were trying to sing like American girl groups." "Essentially, they were black girls." "Before I heard The Rutles, I wanted to be a musician." "And afterwards?" "I didn't anymore." "I shall be doing my new album, probably, starting next week." "I've been working very hard on the material for it." "I'm probably writing better than I've ever written, but terribly excited." "And who was your favorite Rutle?" "It's not about my album, this show?" "No, actually." "This is about The Rutles." "There wasn't any real personal rivalry between The Rutles and the Stones." "We were quite, you know" " Later on-- You know, met each other." "But even at the beginning" " But people like to make it like that, you know." "We were the South's answer to The Rutles." "And when we go to Preston, we'd" "People would boo us because we weren't from the North like The Rutles were." "Or the South was very proud of us because they had got something to combat Rutles with." "I mean, The Rutles took us through the latter part of the '60s." "They took a generation by the hand and said:" ""Come, let's learn history." "Let's take the Tragical History Tour." "Let us walk down Shabby Road together." "Let us join up in Sergeant Rutters' band."" "And I don't know where we would have been without them." "Twenty-three years ago today" "Well, not today, I mean more like 23 years and a bit." "Actually, it sort of depends when you watch this." "But anyway, about a quarter of a century ago I came here to this very spot in front of The Plaza in New York to make a documentary about The Rutles." "I'm actually standing outside the actual hotel in which The Rutles actually stayed in 1 964." "Actually, in this room here." "And it was actually inside this actual room 1 3 years before the 23 years before." "So that's, like, 36 years ago." "About 30 years ago today they-- Well, not today." "Then, when it was 30 years ago they stayed here in The Plaza when they first took New York City by storm." "Look out!" "They're coming!" "They're coming!" "It's Rutles Day!" "It's Rutles Day." "This is Bill Murray the "K," coming to you out of the WC." "Nobody wants to know anything but when will The Rutles be here." "They've just flown in, they've landed, they're in." "They're in." "They're at Kennedy Airport." "Wonderful to be here." "Did you have a good flight?" "Wonderful flight." "Arms are a bit tired." "Why do you wear tight trousers?" "Keep the legs warm." "To hide the knees." "I can't hear you." "Where did you get your hair cut?" "Shut up a minute." "Shut up." "The Rutles invented rudeness." "Shut up!" "Well, I think the Americans took a moment to get used to the Rutles, because America's very polite." "And so these yobs coming off the plane and being rude to everyone they took a moment to get the point of that." "They're here." "What can I say?" "I'm going to put on my wig." "Hold it." "It's Rutles wig time." "That can mean only one thing." "We want a record." "I can't even keep my wig on straight." "I've gotta twist and rock." "How about that, then?" "What's he saying?" "They said to me, "Bill Murray the 'K, ' we want to meet the American girls." "We're coming over to meet the American girls. "" "Wait." "I got an idea." "I'm going to say a word." "I'll say a word." "I want you to react to whatever it is." "What do you say when I say the word "Dirk"?" "I got to go now, because I gotta sleep." "Okay?" "I've been a big fan of Dirk's." "I always had a crush on him." "How about Nasty?" "I had floor-to-ceiling pictures of Nasty." "And I had his picture on my pillowcase and I would lick it or kiss it and cry with it before I would go to sleep." "Yeah, dig it, baby." "What about a guy named Stig?" "How come you never say anything?" "He's the quiet one." "Yeah, he's the quiet one." "He's a dark horse, he is." "I was very, very fond of Stig." "Liked him the best because I loved the way he played." "I loved his length." "Excuse me?" "His length." "AII right, The Rutles." "The Rutles" "What do you mean?" "What word could I possibly have forgotten?" "I said "Dirk," I said "Nasty"  and I said "Stig."" "You don't mean "Bary," do you?" "To start off loving Bary, especially when you're young" "There's just something funny about him." "He was the funny drummer." "Oh, my God." "Bary...." "Not a good-looking man, and yet the women were screaming." "I was hoping, when I was of age and got out behind my mother's apron strings that I could sleep with some of them as soon as I could." "I think it's the kind of thing that rightfully should have been kept off The Ed Sullivan Show." "Ladies and gentlemen, The Rutles." "Let's hear it for them." "A lot of us saw them for the first time when they played The Ed Sullivan Show." "I saw The Rutles' first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show." "It was a cultural phenomenon." "I saw them first, I think, on The Ed Sullivan Show." "And, you know-- I mean, I was captivated and just short of being turned-on." "I thought, "My gosh I'm going to do most of my hair like that."" "And that's what I did." "So through high school, I had this side of my hair like The Rutles and this side was short because they didn't like long hair in the schools." "So I would sit like this in school." "But then outside the school, I would go like that." "A lot of people thought I looked like Dirk." "But how did The Rutles get to number one?" "Ron Nasty had been born in 1 940 and raised by his uncle, a well-known Liverpool ventriloquist." "Who's a pretty boy, then?" "He was a very sensitive boy whose only fault was violence." "At the age of 6, he blew up his local school." "It was a cry for help, really, when you look at it truthfully." "I mean, it's quite common in young children, in boys, particularly." "It's sheer high spirits, you know?" "At 6?" "It's normal adolescent stuff." "So how did he channel this aggression?" "He took up the banjo." "The banjo is the perfect instrument for the antisocial." "Steve, you play the banjo." "Yes, I do." "And would you play something for us?" "Oh, sure." "I'd be happy to." "I'm sorry, would you play a Rutle tune?" "No." "No." "He was always playing with his little banjo day and night, just strumming away." "Sometimes locked in the bathroom, you know for hours, just playing with it." "If you know what I mean." "Yes, yes, I think I" "Rubbing away until he had something to show for it." "Yes, yes." "You know what young boys are like." "I mean, they're constantly, constantly playing with it." "Yes, I think we get your drift." "Rub, rub, rub." "Yes, thank you." "Shut up." "At first, they couldn't decide on their name." "They were The Silver Rutles, The Ruts, The Tuls, The Sluts even Alma Cogan before finally becoming The Rutles." "Ron Nasty, an ex-banjo player of no fixed ability." "Dirk McQuickly, a left-footed guitarist." "Stig O'Hara, a very thin man." "And Barrington Wumble, or, as he was better known, Bary Wom." "The Rutles were still very bad." "And there was only one place they could play and that was Hamburg." "There was only one place they could play, and that was Hamburg." "And that was Hamburg." "And it was here in Hamburg that The Rutles would discover leather amphetamines and shagging." "Hamburg sowed the germs of their popularity." "Indeed, one might almost say, sowed the Germans of their popularity." "Astro Glide, a German photographer, who took these shots gave The Rutles their mop-top haircuts and put them into leather trousers." "Yes, I made them very, very tight leather trousers because you want to see" "Everybody wants to see their, how you say:" "Talent?" "Yeah, the balls." "Yeah, it's very:" "Disgusting?" "Yeah, exciting." "You know, I mean I hate to, you know, blow my own" " I wish I could, but...." "I came up with the trousers." "And they're very, very tight." "And that was important because, you know, they had to wear something." "But it's as if they weren't wearing anything." "They played the Rat Keller in the heart of the ancient hooker district." "Ancient hookers were everywhere." "Hans Hankie is a German rockologist who came from Hamburg who has studied The Rutles and their effect on the world through his work as a rockologist." "That was Hitler's design for a plane called the Shtupa which was designed to drop large penises on the enemy." "Screaming penises." "The Shtupa would fall from the sky dropping penises." "But they changed it to the Shtuka because they are afraid because Hitler only had one ball and Goring had no balls at all, and that" "Hans, what about The Rutles?" "Oh, the Frauleins." "Crazy for them." "Yelling at them:" "Which sounds like, "I want dick."" "But no, it means, "I love you." "I love you."" "And they loved them." "More than just love, they wanted" "Thank you very much indeed for agreeing to talk to us today." "Oh, it's great to talk with you, and will the check clear?" "It'll be a small one from the BBC." "Oh, BBC." "I remember listening to them as a child." ""The chicken has lips."" "We would hear your broadcast-- "The fox is in a nightgown." "I repeat, the fox is in a nightgown."" "You crazy people." "I wonder how you won the war with these strange riddles you're broadcasting." "But yet the French blew up a train afterwards." "I remember my uncle said, "The fox is in a nightgown," and the train blew up." "Yeah, I have bad memories." "So with their haircuts and their trousers The Rutles returned home to The Cavern." "One day, a strange man with a pronounced limp hopped down the stairs into The Cavern." "He'd been asking a sailor for" "Well, never mind what he was asking for, because the rest is history." "The man who hopped down the stairs became Leggy, their legendary manager." "You remember The Cavern?" "There was only one doorway." "When somebody opened the door, light came in." "I saw this dark apparition, strange apparition." "Leggy was a strange man." "Even in profile he was strange." "Leggy, at the beginning, would walk around saying:" ""The Rutles are gonna be bigger than Elvis." And he'd be laughed at." "He was laughed at because of how he waked." "So he waked into these meetings at a disadvantage." "When he said, "My band will be bigger than Elvis," they laughed all the more heartily." "But he was right, of course." "I asked all the roadies who this guy was." "They told me he was Leggy Mountbatten, and he was gonna manage The Rutles." "But everybody knew that he didn't really like music." "So, what did he really like?" "He loved the trousers." "I was amazed that they could sing in trousers so tight." "They did sing high." "It was the trousers." "I know it was the trousers." "And I went out and I bought women's extra-small trousers." "These were trousers that were meant for a little girl." "They were" " They were pink." "And I buttered my legs, and I squeezed into these trousers so that you could just-- Nothing was left to the imagination." "And let's just say my love life improved dramatically several years after I put those trousers on." "The Rutles were now legends." "At the Lunchtime Achievement Awards they met the queen, who awarded them the MBE." "Must have been an honor meeting the queen." "She's a lovely lady." "She'll be nice when she's finished." "Stig, how did you feel?" "He felt very, very proud." "And honored." "He'd like to say hello to his friends and pets at home." "And he'd like to request Vera Lynn singing "Far, Far Away."" "She doesn't sing "Far, Far Away."" "She sings far too close." "Lady Beth Mouse-Paddler is the wife of the British ambassador." "That's "Minto."" "It's written "Mouse-Paddler," but it's pronounced "Minto."" "It's an English thing." "The Rutles visited you here in 1 964." "Yes, that's right." "I remember the occasion." "Dreadful, horrible, lower working-class boys with appalling accents." "One couldn't understand a word they said." "What happened?" "The evening with the ambassador was an absolute disaster." "They came in very late, very drunk staggered around, shagged the staff, and left." "The Rutles?" "No, no, the ambassador." "The Rutles were famous." "Perhaps more famous than anyone ever before." "They had reached the very barnacle of success." "But the irony was, they had now become prisoners." "Prisoners of fame." "The whole world was in love with The Rutles but they couldn't leave their hotel room." "What are we going to do today?" "What?" "Hey, look who's in the cupboard." "Everywhere they went, they were stalked by girls." "There's a couple of Judys here." "AII right, come out." "They're everywhere." "They must be under the bloody bed." "Think there's one in me corn flakes." "In Hollywood, The Rutles rented this house in Benedict Canyon." "Two girls hired a helicopter and leaped from it into their pool." "We made it." "So, what was it about The Rutles that made them so successful?" "Was it the women, or was it the trousers?" "Maybe it was their sense of humor, or was it their hairstyles?" "Perhaps it was the Cold War." "Maybe it was the Kennedys." "What are--?" "What are you doing?" "I'm doing a documentary on The Rutles." "I'm doing a documentary on The Rutles." "Get your own idea." "This is my idea." "Well, get your own crew." "This is my crew." "So it was here where The Rutles first began" "What was it about The Rutles that made them so--?" "Maybe it was their trousers, or perhaps it was" "What was it about The Rutles--?" "This is my" "Trousers." "Trousers!" "You shit." "Get out, you Yankee swine." "What was it about The Rutles that made them--?" "Maybe it was their sense of humor, or perhaps it was" "What was it about The Rutles that made them so successful?" "Maybe it was their trousers!" "Can you believe this guy?" "Or their hairstyles!" "Would you--?" "What was it about The Rutles that made them so successful?" "Maybe it was" "Massive." "The shagging was the fuel." "I think a lot of it was the shagging." "The Rutles is not all about shagging." "It's not all about that." "It's largely about that." "The word "rock 'n' roll" itself, after all, essentially means shagging." "And so of course The Rutles were all about shagging." "That's" " What is this music about?" "Isn't all music about that?" "I mean, didn't Bach essentially want to get it done, so to speak?" "Didn't, you know, Der Bingle there, making all those records in the '30s?" "Artie Shaw, I think, was all about what's happening after the show, you know." "Carl Perkins and Elvis in the '50s." "I think it's always been about, "Let's dance and then let's dance," if you know what I mean." "I'm sure they wanted The Rutles." "There was no doubt about it that at the" "You were ready to have sex after you listened to some of their records." "I even knew that when I was 1 0." "There had always been girls hundreds of them." "But some were more permanent than others." "Nasty had been married early, about 7:30, maybe a quarter to 8." "And his Liverpool girlfriend, Carinthia, was pregnant at the time." "But Nasty was constantly on tour." "It was no recipe for a happy marriage." "Somehow, Carinthia was always left behind." "Bary was the next to be married, to his childhood sweetheart, Brenda Liola." "The wedding arrangements were so secret that even Bary didn't show up." "When they were married, she was at St. Bede's Church, Wigan while Bary was on-stage at the Scunthorpe Coliseum." ""Why don't we do it in the middle of the road?"" "Well, obviously because it's uncomfortable." "You'll hurt your knees, and she'll get her bottom scraped." "And then again, it's cold." "It's very difficult to maintain an erection while anywhere, really, out in public." "Actually, even in the bedroom, it's kind of hard." "The point is that there's just too much traffic." "There isn't any room to do it in the middle of the road." "Madonna's house." "And we came here to ask Madonna the influences of The Rutles on her music what she thinks about The Rutles and whether she loves and adores The Rutles." "But sadly, she sold the house and moved to London." "We flew to Paris to ask celine Dion what she thinks about Rutle music but she lives in Miami." "So we flew to Puerto Rico to ask Jennifer Lopez about the influence of The Rutles on her music." "But sadly she's in New York." "I'm in New York, and it's tremendously exciting because I've actually bumped into Jennifer Lopez here on the street." "Jennifer, apparently you live here." "Is that right?" "That's true." "That's correct." "This is so cool for me." "I mean, I've been trying to get a hold of you to ask you about The Rutles." "Oh, I love The Rutles." "I love The Rutles." "No way." "Yes, they're so cool." "I think there must be a big influence on your music." "Oh, definitely." "They're one of the biggest influences." "That is so exciting." "I'm just so thrilled." "Thank you so much for agreeing to give us the time today." "Oh, you're welcome." "Anytime." "So from New York and Jennifer Lopez back to somewhere else." "Golly." "Oh, look, there's Madonna." "The Rutles were always innovators." "Perhaps never more so than when they released The Triangular Album." "When this triangular record came out you couldn't get enough of them." "First of all, because most records were round." "And here, man, this was triangular." "And then when you put it on your record player and instead of this round thing just going around in a circle you had this spinning triangle." "I mean, we didn't even turn the volume up on the record player." "We just looked at it spinning around." "It was so great that it's never been-- No one's tried it since." "You can't even touch it." "No one else has put out a triangular record because The Rutles did it." "Period." "They didn't do it first, they did it." "Period." "That was unusual when you went out and bought the album." "Everybody was waiting in queues to buy the album." "Then when you pulled it out, it was triangular." "Everybody was like, "Wow, cool."" "But how did The Triangular Album come about?" "Kevin Wongle was a record designer in London." "To actually get into a photo session with Ron and Stig and those guys, it just floored me." "I'm not gay or anything, but to be around these guys I was totally starstruck." "But anyway, I'II just give you a little idea." "This is one of the mockups of the album, some ideas I had for the shot." "As you can see, this was taken out of a toilet bowl looking up, and they're all looking down at the toilet bowl." "This one was actually on the market for, I believe it was three months." "And it was selling well, but a lot of returns." "Because, again, people were missing some of the songs." "It'd play part of the song, the needle would fall off and then it'd come back up again." "Sorry, it's upside-down." "This jacket sleeve, and with the album in there, became dangerous." "Kids were doing drugs." "They were chasing each other with the album and some, I believe, were actually stabbed." "This image of the boys looking down...." "As it spun around, we found later on it almost looked like turds going down the toilet." "The silver screen beckoned." "The Rutles came here to Hollywood." "Oh, fuck." "But it was here in Hollywood" "Hollywood." "We're here at the Hollywood Bowl." "It was from here at the Hollywood Bowl-- Well, over there that The Rutles then went on to become movie stars." "I loved A Hard Day's Rut." "I loved A Hard Day's Rut." "I loved A Hard Day's Rut." "That has influenced all of my work." "That and some of the stuff The Turtles did." "I remember when they all came out of the train and then piled onto the tracks and tried to kill themselves." "So when the train left, they almost got run over." "That was hilarious." "And then they all came...." "Then they got out of the train...." "They watered down the train." "You know what, I have A Hard Day's Rut confused a little bit with Schindler's List right now." "Hard Day's Rut was" "It was like an advertisement, in a way." "It existed as propaganda." "It was there to celebrate these four characters." "The music is, you know, what it is." "It'll always be legendary, and those guys will" "But A Hard Day's Rut was just, like, being with them on a personal level." "That was wonderful." "I thought it was funny." "It was neat to see their personalities shining through." "Anyone who doesn't like Hard Day's Rut should be beat." "Oh, Jesus." "I would pay money not to go and see A Hard" "Wild horses couldn't drag me in to see that." "I hated it." "I hated it." "Just how good were Rutle films?" "Well, we flew all the way to New York to talk with legendary film director Mike Nichols about the Rutle films." "Mike, hello." "Hello." "Oh, you don't mind if I call you Mike?" "No, no." "Great." "Thanks." "Thanks, by the way, for agreeing to talk to us about Rutle films." "Glad to do it." "Mike is one of the greatest film directors of all time in the entire world..." "...and one of my personal favorites." "Thank you." "And I love your movies." "I've seen all of them." "I'm very glad." "If I can start with A Hard Day's Rut." "Yes, the black-and-white one." "Mike, you directed The Godfather, which was always one of my favorite films..." "...and I was wondering if" "Are you kidding?" "No, I really liked it." "I thought it was great." "Oh, fuck this." "What?" "I love Ouch!" "It's hilarious." "The funniest part to me in Ouch!" "is when Dirk steps on the sticker the little tiny thorn in his bare feet, and he yells, "Ouch!"" "I heard a few bars of "Ouch!" from somebody's car as they were passing by." "They had it on the radio, and I just heard, like, three phrases." "And I heard, "Ouch, ouch, ouch," as it was going by." "And I immediately went out and found that record." "And I just started listening to that record alone." "And I listened to that record for" " Straight." "For 1 7 weeks." "I thought their movies were fucking endless." "The only one of The Rutles' films not to achieve success was the Tragical History Tour." "In many ways, it was a disaster." "Dirk will always say, "It was the best." "It was wonderful, and it all comes together."" "No." "It's...." "No, I'm sorry, Dirk." "It's a mess." "It's just a big mess." "It was a mess." "Mexico!" "And we're here in Mexico because, well, we're actually here in Mexico because the travel agent screwed up." "He sent us via Cancun." "He got a cheaper deal on the plane" "It really doesn't matter why we're here." "We're here in Mexico because it's here in Mexico that The Rutles never played." "They were supposed to come here but they decided that San Francisco would be their final gig." "San Francisco, everyone's favorite city by the gay" " Bay." "I'm standing at the very spot" "Well, over there was the very spot where The Rutles played their last concert ever in Candlestick Park." "Right there." "Here, the legend came" "Well, didn't come to an end, but was beginning to come to an end." "Well, maybe beginning to come to the middle of the legend which would finally end somewhere else." "The Rutles' last live appearance was actually out where I was in San Francisco at Candlestick Park in...." "'66." "That was the big show." "And I did have tickets to it and then I traded it to a friend, my tickets to see The Rutles for 35 hits of acid." "Now, this is a true story." "That's" "So I met The Rutles in a different way." "The Rutles had finished touring and now they threw themselves into the recording studio." "When they emerged, they were very strangely dressed." "They were also behaving very weirdly." "The Rutles were under the influence of tea." "The resulting album was the classic Sgt. Rutter." "I mean, you'd thought the world had changed when Sgt. Rutter come out." "Leggy sent me an advance copy of the tape and I had The Turtles-- You remember The Turtles?" "They were at my apartment, and I said:" ""I've got this tape for you to hear."" "And I put Sgt. Rutter on my tape recorder." "Well you've never heard of The Turtles since." "When I heard Sgt. Rutter, we ran." "I had my trousers under my arm." "I was out the window." "I used to play that album over and over and over." "Yeah." "And did you like it?" "I, you know" " I used it to fall asleep." "And, you know, helped myself fall asleep, and it was great because you get into maybe one or two songs some nights." "You can be completely wide awake and thinking:" ""I am never going to fall asleep."" "And I would put on Sgt. Rutter, and immediately, I was out." "The effects of Sgt. Rutter were interminable." "Some people even believed there were messages hidden in the lyrics." "The Rutles always deny that they had intended to have any message on the records, but we've all done this when we were, you know, kids." "We all play back Sgt. Rutter and play back Dark Side of the Sun at the same time while you're watching The Wizard of Oz while you're slightly high." "And it's amazing how it all syncs up." "And it's an episode of Bonanza." "Sgt. Rutter led to the Summer of Lunch." "The Summer of Lunch, when there was all that free food going around?" "Yeah, I got diseases." "That was when I was really eating everything." "You know, as The Rutles say, "AII you need is lunch."" "In June 1 967, the Summer of Lunch came to a fitting climax with a live recording by The Rutles on worldwide TV." "The "Love Life" sessions were" "You knew something was really happening." "I mean, it was the first round-the-world, round-the-world thing where everybody round the world could hear The Rutles singing "Love Life" and be a part of it." "But I was actually really a part of it because we were on Shabby Road together, you know, in" "You know studio two there, where you waked down that thing?" "That wasn't the studio." "It was studio one where the big orchestra goes in." "I was sitting in front of Nasty." "Mick and Keith were there." "AII the lads were there." "Stig now discovered the meaning of life right here at this Indian restaurant." "It was curry." "He studied transcendental mastication under Arthur Sultan a former chef at this Shangri-la restaurant." "I remember the phase where they went to the Indian restaurant." "And they were eating curry and they found enlightenment and a higher power for $8.95." "Stig now invited the others to join Arthur Sultan for a weekend of curry in Bognor." "When it came to curry, they were anxious not to miss the boat." "With curry, The Rutles had grown almost too hot." "Now faith blew cold on their picnic lunch with a sudden and surprising loss of Leggy Mountbatten." "With The Rutles growing and taking charge of most of their activities he just slipped out of their lives." "Leggy had diverted into managing other groups and singers." "Troy Nixon was Leggy's assistant." "Lover." "Companion." "Whatever." "He had quite the stable of young boys." "Oh, yes." "He always loved attractive young men." "He always had his finger on the pulse of the young boys here." "They all had strange names, like Wild, Damp, Thunder, Clap." "He tended to name them after how they were in bed, you see." "You know, I'm...." "Tommy Wild, Dickie Furious, Jeffrey Willing, Billy Is-That-It." "How did he know what attracted teenage girls?" "He had the same taste in boys." "Had The Rutles' bubble burst?" "Not quite." "But night had fallen on their Broadway." "The loss of Leggy was a tremendous blow." "For solace, The Rutles turned to something stronger than a manager:" "Their wives." "Dirk met and fell in love with a young dog and its owner, Martini an exotic model." "Nasty visited an exhibition of broken art at The Pretentious Gallery, Soho." "Amidst the rubble of art, which had been specially dropped from planes he found the artist herself, Chastity, a simple German girl." "It was lunch at first sight." "Do you know there's this man in America who's done all this research into vegetables." "And peas, apparently, are very intelligent." "They can read people's thoughts." "So I thought I'd write a song saying, "Give peas a chance."" "Well, he took her everywhere." "I mean, even the shower." "That was the beginning of "shower power."" "The world is like a shower." "It sort of drips on people, you know, and it's supposed to get them clean but really you're only clean from the inside." "Isn't that what you said?" "That's what she said." "The Rutles' music will be remembered long after Mozart's paintings or Beethoven's after-dinner speeches have been forgotten." "But what was it that drove The Rutles apart?" "Was it their trousers?" "Or maybe it was their sense of humor." "Maybe it was the Cold War, or maybe it was the cold weather." "Give me that." "What are you doing?" "This is mine." "No, this is mine." "I'm making this documentary." "This is my documentary." "Stop it!" "I don't know who you are." "Well, you should know who I am." "Will you get away?" "For heaven's sake." "Get off me." "Get off me." "You stupid rat." "For God's sake." "That's hurting." "I'II sue." "What was it that drove The Rutles apart?" "I don't know." "It's a lot of things." "I guess women, really." "Women are a great divisive force in The Rutles, I think." "In a lot of bands." "Not in ours, of course, but in The Rutles, it was a big problem." "How could you be a rock 'n' roll singer if you're married?" "It's not possible." "No, you'd have to have rock or roll, you know?" "You can't have both of them if you're married." "As they broke up, they passed on to us the one great truism that I think all humanity can understand." "That in the end, the lunch you make is equal to the lunch you take." "And if you can abide by that, my friend then you will never ever say "ouch."" "The breakup of The Rutles is chronicled in their final film, Let it Rot." "It's like watching a marriage fall apart." "Only one moment enlivens the misery when The Rutles play live together in public for the very last time on a London rooftop." "That's crap." "Let it Rot was so bad, The Rutles were arrested." "Let's go." "Get your hands off." "Go on." "The end for The Rutles came quite suddenly and unexpectedly." "The Rutles had made a tremendous impact" "The breakup was the nicest part of their entire career, I thought, you know." "There was a sigh of relief throughout the business that maybe we could get back to inanity and the driving drumming that is the essential key sign of rock and roll instead of all that complicated bullshit and bringing in orchestrators and video and all that nastiness." "Sure." "I thought, "Well, they're broken up." "Good idea."" "As a matter of fact, it was the best idea they had." "That kind of populist music is-- Won't last." "It can't last." "Too many people know it." "Everybody can sing it." "Everybody knows every word of every song." "How can it possibly last?" "It's an ephemeral kind of flotsam and jetsam." "It's nothing." "It's small." "It doesn't matter." "It's insignificant." "It's of no consequence." "Of course it'll fucking last." "I will not do what The Rutles did." "I will not break up." "Where would the world be without The Rutles?" "Where would it be without Dirk and Nasty and Stig and Bary and all their shenanigans and all their whoop-de-do and all their normal stuff and, "Here we are." "We're all lads from Liverpool"?" "Where would we be without them?" "Where would we be?" "Could you think of any great communist rock bands?" "No, I don't think so." "There was nothing called the Village People's Republic, you know." "There was no bands with two million gay Chinese." "Here was a shining example of what it could be like." "You could, like, go make music and make fun of everybody and get away with it, you know?" "It was great." "Really, the crowning glory, I guess, to their career is this piece of marketing extravagance." "What am I getting for this?" "They did say that you'd be getting, you know, you would waive a fee." "I would waive a fee?" "Yes." "Really?" "They told you that?" "That's what the office said, that you'll be waiving the fee." "Wrap." "We should just" "I can't do anymore." "I've gotta go." "Can we just wrap it up?" "And honestly, it's not you." "It's the whole crew." "It's just too much." "They're trampling over what's left of my" "Honestly, they've killed my dog." "I've gotta" " Finish up, and out you go." "This is fantastic." "Say hello to all the people in England." "I've just" " I gotta go." "I've got two other interviews to do." "Just one question." "Bye-bye." "Bye-bye." "Bye-bye." "Twenty-three years ago today, right here in front of The Plaza in New York" "Was where this documentary all began." "Here was" "Why are you doing this to me?" "I'II tell you why." "Twenty-three years ago, here" "Actually, here." "Twenty-three years ago and here and over here, twice, you met my mother." "Big Wendy?" "Dad." "I don't believe it." "I don't believe it." "I'm real." "Oh, my God." "And what accent are we doing now?" "I don't" "It's all right." "Stop the filming." "The songs." "Did you like the songs?" "No." "Goddamn it." "So shameless." "So shameless." "It's hard, because I'm not a good" "Comedian?" "Not "comedian."" "You're a wonderful comedian." "You're very good." "[ENGLISH]"