Reason # 4234 – Corn Flakes, Mind control, and Manipulation

John Lennon was inspired to write Good Morning, Good Morning by watching a Kellogg’s Corn Flakes Commercial. It made its way onto the hugely popular Sgt Peppers album. He found the catchy jingle irritating enough to make a song from to irritate the entire world.

Another Corn Flake inspired masterpiece came in the form of I am The Walrus.
Listen to this rare outtake as an example of how far Lennon would go to push the public in whatever direction he fancied.

[audio:Walrusflakes.mp3]

This particular version was scrapped for being much too blatant. Besides, they didn’t hold enough shares in Kellogg’s to make this pitch worthwhile. The beatles had more important things to sell, mainly themselves.

But really, advertising is the only reason this band exists today at all.

Does it strike you at all odd that when the Anthology Volumes 1 & 2 were released a few years back it made headlines internationally? Think about it, the same old shit you already own on cd, plus some outtakes and b-sides that have never been good enough to be released or played on the air to this day. That’s news?
How about the fact that to coincide with this release there was a six hour network TV broadcast on several channels?(available for purchase now) You would have to be an idiot to think this is all coincidence, goodwill, good timing, or even public interest.
It was a six hour infomercial!
If they wanted to sell you a beatle juicer and a beatle butt-plug, you would have bought those too.

This was a merciless, overwhelming assault on the general public for the sole purpose of putting more crap by these fake rock icons on the bestseller shelves. It didn’t start there, and it didn’t stop there. The entire reason for beatlemania in the first place was a well executed, well thought out, multi-billion dollar advertising blitz. Actors were paid to faint during their concerts and help incite the young crowds, their posters were hung in every record store and on every corner, their faces on the cover of every magazine, and when they travelled to the US they were already huge stars. In 1964…..WITHOUT EVEN RELEASING ANYTHING!

THEY HADN’T EVEN BEEN PLAYED ON THE RADIO YET!!!!

BEATLEMANIA WAS CREATED TO SELL MEET THE BEATLES IN AMERICA!

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Once again, if you think I’m making this up, here is a copy of the original December 1963 Capitol Records memo for sales managers and regional managers, outlining the initial “Beatles Campaign”. Click to open and read it for yourself, friends.

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I especially like the National Record News section on page two, where they describe how they created a magazine to promote the beatles with a four page spread. Here’s the excerpt:

“NATIONAL RECORD NEWS – BEATLE ISSUE”
Publicity Director Fred Martin has concocted a simply marvelous vehicle for spreading the Beatle story. It’s a four-page tabloid newspaper which looks deceptively legitimate. But of course it’s our doing, and all it contains is picture after picture and story after story on the Beatles.

You’ll be getting huge quantities of this tabloid. How to exploit it? Send bulk copies to major retailers for distribution to consumers. Offer bulks to jocks for give-away. But most important, make arrangements with local high schoolers to distribute them to fellow students after school (check with George Gerken on those arrangements).
The idea is to get as many copies of this tabloid as possible into the hands of potential Beatle buyers. Don’t, under any circumstances, end up with any large quantities of this tabloid sitting in your back room. They won’t help there!

Unless people wake up, the FF marketing campaign will never stop and the beatles will continue to exist as everybody’s favorite commodity. If you have to listen to them, at least know why you bought the albums. Love. Beatles Naked. Beatles One. Think about it, thats all I ask.

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In the words of the immortal John Lennon: “The Queen’s intelligent. It won’t spoil her cornflakes.”

22 thoughts on “Reason # 4234 – Corn Flakes, Mind control, and Manipulation

  1. Pingback: The Letter 'B'

  2. Mind Control

    No, I doubt you’re making it up. I’ve read of mind control devices in pervasive use these days- why, even department stores play subliminal music at a 60 beat per minute rate that urges you into a buying rage!

  3. bleh

    i didnt know about good morning, good morning written about cornflakes…
    go take some lsd and take the stick out of your ass and just chill out dude

  4. Das Post author

    Its funny how nobody ever intentionally listens to this band without the assistance of drugs.

    “I see colours in the music, man”

    “Far out, trippy. Octopus’s Garden is freaking me out dude.”

  5. Ida Sullivan

    Silly person! When they were flying American Airlines to the USA for their last concert at Candlestick Park, The stewardess was offering food to Ringo, and it fell into the bowl of Cornflakes being eaten by John. Milk and Cornflakes splashed all over John. He signed a photo to the stewardess, saying “thanks for the cornflakes”.

    Sometimes, ideas are born of funny life experiences, not plots or mind control.

  6. Steve

    U all suck except for Beatles fan anybody else I have two words for:
    F-u-c-k Y-o-u for all of you dumbasses on this site that hate the Beatles that includes the creator of this site to that spells

    FUCK YOU
    .-= Steve´s last blog ..Let it Be- Sailor =-.

  7. Mr. On

    Re: Cornflake ESPecially;
    Certain that the grain futures sector of the economy & breakfast food manufacturers wanted the ‘FF’ to hawk cereal more blatantly then just the commercials aired during their 1965 ABC-TV cartoon show; it was a license to print $$$, yet they never appeared in one commercial or even endorsed any up to that point in their careers, unlike The Rolling Stones on BBC’s “Top Of The Pops” w/ Mick & the boys singing ’bout the ‘snap-crackle-pop’ of Kellogg’s Rice Krispies:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZBmhEMFdl0
    or later the other manufactured faux 4, The Monkees:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMc9W2IQ7PM&NR=1
    They did at least 6 or so of ’em;
    The Beatles apart from the two Lennon corny compositions never actively made a reference to a a certain brand of cereal or even any of the characters, as the BIG 3 cereal manufacturers- Kellogg’s, GM, & Post -used kiddie friendly cartoon characters from either the Hanna-Barbera, Jay Ward, or Total Television stable.
    Except for maybe 1968, The Beatles ‘white album’- McCartney has two ditties that may have thiscloseasimilarity to kiddie ‘toon cereal pitchmen: “Rocky Raccoon” & “Blackbird” coincidentally on the “Linus The Lion-Hearted” cereal/toon fest there was a “Rory Raccoon – Hometown Hero” and his friend “Crowy”- a blackbird;
    Don’t forget also that Lennon & Yoko Ono shortly thereafter in ’69 released an LP entitled “Unfinished Music No. 2: Life With The Lions”…
    Stays crrunchy, even after you pour on the milk!

  8. Das Post author

    Mr. On, thank you for this invaluable comment. I used to be of the opinion that the Stones were launched by beatlemart as the ‘bad boy’ alternative to the squeaky clean FF. I see now that I had it all wrong and completely underestimated them. That was the best cereal commercial ever!

  9. E Fish

    Public Relations, advertising, random associations…. this is “mind control”? I guess you escaped its evil clutches with your powers of critical thinking, but I think a better word for all these supposedly dubious connections is simply “capitalism.”

    The Beatles were commercial? Wow, who woulda thunk?? You’re a genius, Das!

  10. Zoyelque

    Ah yea they were stars because they played a lot in England live,29 song shows sometimes even more,thats how the frenzy started,whats next your gonna say that they were invented in laboratorys to do that,please,they were the point of the lance in the british invetion,even Keith Reichard agreed in his interview with Humpter s,thumpsun ,they Broke the door.

  11. Pingback: The beatles all Come Together

  12. BILLY SHEARS

    I’m just wondering, why so much hate for the Beatles, man? what did they ever do to you XD the thing everywhere is the latest mainstream electronic crap on the radio with so called “pretty faces” attached XD

  13. Mr. On

    Let’s not forget the “Chrysolina CEREALis” of Snowdon, Wales (and Eurasia) is also known as the “rainbow leaf BEETLE”:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysolina_cerealis
    Psyche-delicious.
    “Don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry,
    don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry——Mummy’s only looking for her hand in the Snow(den)…”

  14. Hann Rowe

    Youre having a go at a band for marketing themselves and yet you mentioned on another post if they were that good why didnt they have super hot girls on their album covers, thats you succumbing to marketing techniques you imbosele

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