Publisher at The American Bystander
is Blogmom of Hey Dullblog. His novels and parodies have sold 1.25 million copies in 25 languages. He lives in Santa Monica, CA, and runs The American Bystander all-star print humor magazine.
Latest posts by Michael Gerber (see all)
- From Faith Current: “The Sacred Ordinary: St. Peter’s Church Hall” - May 1, 2023
- A brief (?) hiatus - April 22, 2023
- Something Happened - March 6, 2023
It’s nearly impossible for a modern person to understand the white-hot, spittle-flecked paranoia that The Beatles generated in certain quarters of American society. But it’s really essential to their story—how they perceived themselves, how they interacted with fans (and haters), their transit from performing band to studio magicians, and the peculiar pressures that they were under from February 1964 on. This earnest four minutes of insanity was uttered by Judge Benjamin Schwartz of the Cincinnati Juvenile Court, in the aftermath of the Fabs’ concert in August 1964. Chair-kissing took place people. Chair-kissing.
As we all know, Western Civilization ended soon after.
Related posts:
The Beatles on Shindig
Bert Parks Sings “Let ‘Em In”
The Beatles in Pittsburgh, 1964
Ringo special from 1978
The Beatles First American Concert
Three Cheers for the Girls School Bus
Eddie Cochran Documentary on Arena
Prince Plays While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Best Beatles Magazine Covers
A sneak preview of Peter Jackson’s Get Back
Socal Dullbloggers: Beatles on the Pier!
The Beatles in St. Louis, 1966
LOL thank you so much for sharing! I love these blast from the past clips. That gave me a good laugh. Especially the part with the bug analogy.
Thoughts watching this is to chuckle at the patronising term “children” when majority of the “children” I assume would be in their mid to late teens early twenties.
Also $5 a ticket in today’s money would be $44. The travesty that we could have seen the Beatles for less then $50 compared to the outrageous prices of tickets for today’s acts. You were underselling the Beatles Brian!
I can only imagine the Beatles must have laughed amongst themselves and got a kick out that Judges “hysteria”.
That being said I’ve recently been reading into and watching documentaries in regards to the Britney Spears Conservatorship case and even as recent as the early 2000s parents and the media were waxing puritanical about Britney showing her midriff turning all their young impressionable girls into sex crazed maniacs to the point one congresswoman said she should be shot. So perhaps parents just perpetually need someone to blame for corrupting their children.
Haha! They went into comas? OMG. (Thank you for sharing.)
.
Strangely, the girls do not seem to have felt as threatened. There’s a recent academic book by Christine Feldman-Barrett called “A Women’s History of the Beatles” that explores how some of the screaming fans were inspired by their experiences.
.
It’s interesting to me how fear of societal change — especially public expressions of personal freedom from marginalized groups (in this case women) — inspires some to exhort us to think “but what about the CHILDREN.”
Lol I believe it. I have seen clips of Beatles concerts that show massive throngs of people and you can see unconscious teenagers being passed through the crowd and into the arms of medical personnel.
Thing is…that dam was ready to break by 1964. You’d had Elvis, but that was 1 man and he was sort of snuffed out for a while due to military service. But then you had the Beatles…4 of them. And right behind them was another band to evoke similar responses…and another…and another. It was a tidal wave because this sort of stuff had been bubbling beneath the surface for some time and these kids were feeling choked and suffocated by what society had become at that point. They were starting to ask uncomfortable questions about the treatment of blacks in society, of women and the roles they were forced into, about sex, drugs etc. And here were the Beatles singing to them, accepting them as they truly were, and supporting/advocating for the things they cared about but feared speaking out on
There are some today who would argue that it did.
They’re all over the Fox network and other conservative outlets. They wish to return to their golden age of the 1950s or 1910s or 1850s, depending on who is doing the wishing.
Well. I’m not American and/or over 70 and therefore cannot tell whether American Society has changed over the past 60 years or not.
However, I work for an American company, and when I recently sent a number of emails to a business partner located in a Northern European country who goes by the glorious family name of “Kock”, I was dumb enough to wonder for a few days why I wasn’t receiving any replies. When I reached out to IT to find out whether anything was wrong with my email account, I was informed that my contact’s replies had been intercepted because the word “Kock” was considered “offensive” as per corporate guidelines for electronic communication.
The only colleagues apart from myself who had a good old laugh about this were either fellow Europeans or exiled Europeans living in the US. The “genuine” Americans to whom I mentioned this kept quiet across the board.
Chair-kissing? But that’s uncivilized!
I want to mention that Ann Hood recently wrote a charming middle-grades novel about a girl in love with the Beatles (Paul in particular) called “She Loves You.” It’s based in part on her own childhood love for the band.
To so many young people of that era — girls especially — the Beatles represented freedom, including emotional freedom.
Well what this guy was alluding to did come to fruition (Sexual Revolution/Liberation) Now of course it didn’t just start with the Beatles…there was Elvis several years before. But the Beatles really did kick things into high gear after Elvis(who was perhaps neutralized a bit due to his military service) with many others following. What this guy is lamenting is the lack of control (HIS generation losing control and influence) and chaos, promiscuity, and permissiveness that would come out of this wild behavior. Part of him I’m sure is also a bit jealous that he never got to experience a phenomenon like this when he was young, and thus wants to deny the current youth generation of what he missed out on.
It was a tidal wave and it couldn’t be stopped. And thank God for that.