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"Strawberry Fields Forever" Animated Musical

Date confirmed in“Washington Post” (February 24, 1988) (“Al Brodax… is planning an animated musical called ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’”)

Al Brodax, director, Washington Post (February 24, 1988)

The Fab Four -- or, more specifically, their songs -- will also be making a comeback on the video front. Al Brodax, who made the still-delightful "Yellow Submarine," is planning an animated musical called "Strawberry Fields Forever," while Michael Jackson, who owns the Beatles publishing catalogue, is reportedly contemplating feature-length films inspired by "The Fool on the Hill" and "Eleanor Rigby."

"21st Century Radio" (March 6, 1994) (archived)

BH: Now, we understand that you're still very much involved in future projects on Beatle subjects. Could you tell us a little about "Strawberry Fields", and your work on publishing material about a, hopefully publishing some more material on the Yellow Submarine? 'Cause you're the guy to do it Al.

AB: The "Strawberry Fields" project started some years ago, but it was brought to me..., I was in England at the time doing what they call a "reckie" over there, looking for a sight for a picture I was going to do for Cornwall this spring, hopefully. And I was called back from England to do the "Strawberry Fields" project by ITC Investron. Vestron has since gone bankrupt, ITC is not in very good shape. And they wanted me to produce it.

I chose the computer graphics lab out on the Island as the place, they are the avant-garde of computer graphics. And I thought it was just the perfect medium for Beatles songs. And so the production did start, but the thing was that the Beatles didn't like the idea. They didn't like the idea because basically Paul was miffed at Michael Jackson because he bought their music library you know.

BH: Yea, there was some discussion...

AB: For 35 million dollars he bought the publishing rights. Now Paul's wanting to buy it back, I think for 150 million, but anyway, they really didn't want their songs covered, you know using other artists, by anybody. And they didn't want their stuff out but I had to proceed with this production, I was called into it. So we had other people, and we actually made tracks of Luther Vandross and Cindi Lauper and actually Michael Jackson singing "Get Together" oh, "Come Together."

BH: "Come Together."

AB: So we had eight marvelous tracks and then everything went wrong. By that I mean Vestron went bankrupt, ITC was in bad shape and the lab got into trouble with the Government. And so it was padlocked and it's on hold. Which is sad, because a lot of good stuff was done. And now it's just in the courts.

Tommy Shannon, bassist of contributing band “Double Trouble” “The Guitar Magazine” (January 1996) (archived)

`Several years ago, it was either `86 or `87, Michael Jackson was doing an animated movie for which he wanted to use all Beatles songs,' recalls Tommy Shannon, Double Trouble bassist and Stevie's longtime friend. `All these different musicians were doing Beatles' songs so we did `Taxman'. Something happened and the movie never came out so it's been sitting in the can for several years. We took a listen to it and thought it sounded real good and decided to put it on the record.'