Spreading the Message Through Propaganda
On August 25, 1966, the Beatles played at the Memphis Coliseum. It was one of their smallest venues that year with only around 10,000 in attendance. I was told that one of Douglas' last acts on earth was to travel to Memphis for this concert; I have no evidence to back this aside from the words of his parents. (Douglas committed suicide a few months later.) However, it was a year after this, in 1967, that the Beatles released "Magical Mystery Tour."
Magical Mystery Tour album cover
Note the furry-style costumes and the rainbow-colored words. Long has it been held that the cover was a part of the "Paul is dead" conspiracy. I personally feel the whole thing was false; I'd studied the whole topic in-depth, years ago, and as I understand it began as a joke on a radio station and people bought it. There were some clues in the music however, and it is my belief that out of all the myriad "walrus/death" references taken to mean Paul was dead, a few were genuine and were a reference to John's sexual experiments, some of which revolved around a furry lifestyle.
Within the track listing on the inside of the album was what I believe John either mocking or struggling with his fetish. Or did someone else who knew add the comment? I don't think he let the others in on it, though he had no reason not to put the reference in the album - especially since they often did odd things such as this. When he got them to dress as animals they likely had no idea what the significance was. I'm not sure if they ever figured it out.
Found inside the MMT album
Furthermore the song Glass Onion states quite clearly "The walrus was Paul." I'm not exactly sure what to make of this, though it is probably just something John told the others was yet another nonsense lyric and they bought it. However, a line on the John Lennon album Plastic Ono Band in the song titled God says "I was the walrus but now I'm John." I believe this to be a reference that he had "gotten over" the whole furry thing and moved on.
It was then in 1968 that the furry movement began being peddled to impressionable children.
"The Banana Splits Adventure Hour" was best described on the website
Progressive Boink thusly:
Quote:
|
Okay, you're in a room. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, an elephant, dog, gorilla, and lion slide in on fireman poles or come up through holes in the ground and just go ape-balls, running into each other, falling down, and screaming. Now imagine that they would like for you to watch some cartoons. That, my friends, is the Banana Splits... It wasn't like watching TV on drugs. It was like watching a TV made out of drugs.
|
Interestingly, the author refers to the four Splits as "sports team mascots," though this is surely just an amusing coincidence.
The Banana Splits
Note again the rainbow imagery. I hadn't mentioned it before, but I believe it was around this time that the furry movement and drug culture became somewhat entwined. Roughly three-quarters of the furries I spoke with were drug users; fully half of that number used LSD and harder drugs regularly.
I attempted to find any leads into the lives of the various actors on the Banana Splits show but came up empty. If any of them had any secret fetishes they kept them well-hidden and all went on to quite decent careers doing voices for various popular cartoons. The two directors turned up similarly; Richard Donner in particular managed to direct many decent movies and worked with Spielberg.
Obviously, there is much more supposition in this part than in the first; unfortunately, solid evidence of any of my beliefs is hard to come by, especially since I had the help of Douglas' family in part I, for which I am very grateful. A special thanks to them again, and I'll be back with Part III, "A Movement Within a Movement," later.