Sgt. Pepper's Shout Out

What a crowd we've got here.

The album cover of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is one of the most recognizable album covers of all time. If not the most famous. Paul McCartney wanted to change the group's image and as a result all members let their hair and moustaches grow and pretended to be a different band. On the album cover, designed by Peter Blake and Jann Haworth, the Beatles pose dressed in military uniforms, surrounded by a celebrity audience chosen by the members themselves. Forty celebrities are either wax works or photo collage cut-outs.

Thanks to its global fame and popularity, many Shout Outs to the album have been made throughout the years, especially to the collage album cover. Even Blake himself recently made a new homage featuring new celebrity cut-outs.

The Ur Example is the cover of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention's Were Only in It For The Money.

Abbey Road Crossing is another trope based on parodies of a specific Beatles album cover.

Examples of Sgt. Pepper's Shout Out include:

Live-Action Television

• A 3-D version was created for the 1987 special It Was 20 Years Ago Today...., celebrating the 20th anniversary of the album.

Music

• As noted, the Ur Example is Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention's We're Only in It for the Money. The cover art is a less than Affectionate Parody, in that it was created in response to Zappa's feelings that the album was just made to cash in on the whole "flower power" movement. Zappa did call up The Beatles to ask their permission, but Executive Meddling forced him to hide the cover inside the album, instead of on the album cover itself as was intended.
  • Funny enough: Paul McCartney claims that Zappa's debut album, "Freak-Out!", was a major inspiration for "Sgt. Pepper's".
• Jan Fukumachi's electronic cover of the album is a backwards version.
• Sgt. Rutter's Only Darts Club Band by The Rutles. (which is the original with only the flower lettering, the bass drum, and the faces of the Beatles changed)
• Sgt. Pepper's by the band Big Daddy, a re-recording of the whole album as if it was made in the 1950s (i.e. "Lucy In the Sky with Diamonds" In the Style Of Jerry Lee Lewis's "Great Balls of Fire").
• The album "K" by Kula Shaker features a collage of celebrities whose names start with the letter "K".
• Brazilian artist Zé Ramalho made one with people from the Brazilian Northeast (Ramalho's Beatles Cover Album went for With the Beatles instead).
• Some examples can be found here: http://beatlesite.blogspot.com/2009/02/sgt-pepper-album-covers-parodies-1.html

Web Originals

• Viewer Garrison made one for The Funday Pawpet Show to honor the show's 100th episode. The crowd was made up of RealPlayer images of past guests and the band members changed to Mutt, Arthur, Poink and Yappy.
• A "20 best hip hop albums of all time" list earned this treatment.

Western Animation

• A Couch Gag of The Simpsons' is a parody of the album cover. It was also used as the cover of their music album, "The Yellow Album" (the name, of course, a takeoff of another Beatles album). And like Sgt Pepper, the early Simpsons are in suits and the current ones in fatigues.

Other

• Mad Magazine spoofed the cover on its special "The 50 Worst Things About Music".
• The Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands, made one too, consisting of famous Jewish celebrities. [1]