Disney Channel Censored Segment on Drug Use by Beatles

MEDIA February 1993

Programmers for the family-oriented Disney Channel decided their viewers could not deal with the reality of how drugs influenced the Beatles, according to a recent book review by Richard Harrington (Richard Harrington, "Paperback (and Other) Writers," Washington Post, 1/27/93, D7).

Harrington reviewed recent Beatles books, including The Color of Your Dreams: The Beatles' Psychedelic Music, by Stuart Madow and Jeff Sobul (Dorrance, $11.95). That book provides detailed analysis of the group's drug-rooted songs from 1966 through 1968, with special attention to the Sgt. Pepper album, according to Harrington. He notes that: "Interestingly, when the Disney Channel aired 'The Making of Sgt. Pepper' last fall, it excised a segment dealing with the influence of drugs on that album, with George Harrison reminiscing (not unfondly) about pot and LSD, and Paul McCartney cautiously distinguishing the recreational drugs of that era from today's 'crack ... glue-sniffing ... life-threatening things. If you could get everyone back to the period and everyone could understand how the period was and kind of how innocent it was,' McCartney says, 'then it is easier to talk about.'"