The Beatles Anthology - Documentary Series

Documentary Series

Approximately coinciding with the release of the "Free as a Bird" single and Anthology 1 album (the first of three double-CD albums), The Beatles Anthology series of documentaries was broadcast on ITV in the United Kingdom and ABC television in the United States in 1995. The Anthology series takes a form similar to that of the Anthology book, by being a series of first-person accounts by the Beatles themselves, with no external "objective" narration. Footage in the Anthology series features voice-over recordings of all four Beatles to push the narrative of the story, with contributions from their producer, road manager and others. As well as telling their story through archival footage, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison appear in interview segments recorded exclusively for the series itself; John Lennon appears only in historic archival footage. The Beatles' wives, past and present, do not appear (excluding archival footage such as video from India and the music video for Harrison's "Something").

The series, which was made over five years of planning and production, is composed of numerous film clips and interviews that present a complete history of the band from the Beatles' own personal perspectives. When it aired on ABC, the series comprised six hour-long programs, aired on three nights in November 1995. The series was later released, as eight expanded episodes, on VHS, laserdisc and as a boxed set of five DVDs (4 discs with 2 episodes apiece and a disc of extras).

Air dates on ABC:

• Sunday, 19 November 1995: 9-11 p.m.
• Wednesday, 22 November 1995: 9-11 p.m.
• Thursday, 23 November 1995: 9-11 p.m.

In promoting the series during this time, ABC identified itself as "A-Beatles-C"—an homage to the mid-1960s Cousin Brucie-era "77 W-A-Beatles-C" call sign of the network's flagship NYC AM radio station—and several of the network's prime-time sitcoms replaced their regular opening credit themes with Beatles tracks.