The same week, the promo film was shown in several European countries, but not in the U.K. - it was banned by the BBC! The last minute decision by senior executives prevented the film from being screened in BBC-1's Top Of The Pops and BBC-2's Late Night Line-Up. A corporation spokesman had explained that "a minor portion of the film contravened the Musician's Union regulations concerning miming on television." Nems' press officer Tony Barrow then commented: "The brief miming passages were pointed out to us by BBC officials on Monday of last week. Consequently, the Beatles made themselves available on Tuesday for a BBC cameraman to shoot new film, which was to be used to replace the offending segments. But in spite of this the clip was still banned - I don't know why." But the single was still featured on Top Of The Pops, in conjunction with an extract from the group's A Hard Day's Night movie. A news article mentioned that since the Beatles would have no further opportunity to make drastic changes to the film, it was unlikely to be shown on British television.

Both the album and the Hello Goodbye single reached No. 1 on the USA Billboard charts, with the single charting for 11 weeks and the LP for more than a year and a half - 82 weeks. Within twelve days of release, the single had sold one million copies in America. On December 8th, a 6-track double EP set was released in the U.K., peaking at No. 2 on the British Billboard charts. Originally scheduled for release on December 1st, the EP release was delayed one week because EMI was overwhelmed with 400,000 advance orders. The main hold-up was the book, which was more difficult to reprint than the pressing of additional records. With the extra time, EMI was able to press 750,000 copies for initial release.

The world premiere broadcast of the Magical Mystery Tour film was by BBC-1 on December 26th - shown in black and white and seen by more than 13 million viewers. The film was viciously attacked by the press, declaring it a mighty flop. The Daily Express called it blatant "rubbish," The Daily Mail "It's colossal, the conceit of the Beatles" and the Daily Mirror declared it "chaotic." Paul responded and stated that "We could easily have assembled a team of experts and asked them to come up with a first class show for Christmas which would star the Beatles, but that would have been easy. We wanted to try and do it ourselves, and we were expecting criticism. but nothing quite as bad as we got. The mistake was that too many people were looking for a plot when there wasn't one. It was just a series of unconnected events which we thought would be interesting or humorous or just pleasant to watch." In all, the Beatles shot 6 hours worth of film, edited down to less than 60 minutes.

The section below features expanded highlights and photos of MMT related releases. Following that is our chart listing and price guide of items related to Magical Mystery Tour. If you have any suggestions or additions to make, please email us at mmt@rarebeatles.com

Compact disc EP box sets

Japanese CD box set. Click for enlargement

In 1992, the Magical Mystery Tour EP was released on CD as part of a well-designed 15-EP box set that faithfully reproduced all of the 14 original British EP releases, and even added a bonus EP. Each of the CDs were digitally remastered and enclosed in jackets using the original cover art and sleeve format. The double-CD Magical Mystery Tour EP included a disc each of both mono and stereo versions of the 6 songs! Even the entire 28 page booklet was reproduced as well. The sets were released in Japan on June 10, 1992 (EMI/Odeon/Apple TOCP-7101-15), in Great Britain around the same time, and in the USA on June 30th (Apple/Capitol C2-15852). Some USA sets include UK manufactured CDs. All issues of this historical release appear to be out of print. A nice addition for any Beatles collection.

Box set bonus CD. Click for enlargement

The bonus CD included with the EP Collection box sets issued in the US, Japan, and England. The four tracks were stereo versions of The Inner Light, Baby You're A Rich Man, She's A Woman, and This Boy. For more info, see our detailed page on this

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A lot of interesting and unique items have been printed and manufactured in relation to the Beatles' movie and LP release of Magical Mystery Tour. The rarest of all MMT collectibles would have to be an original factory sealed mono copy of the U.S. LP release from 1967. Very few monos were pressed, making it one of the rarest of the original Capitol albums, and only a few original sealed monos are known to exist. Near-mint opened copies are valued at $200.00 and up. From the original Capitol mono and stereo albums, to posters, videos, EPs and compact discs, we never realized how many MMT "collectibles" there were until we put together this list, and we still have more to add. As we have mentioned before, with the value of Beatles records and memorabilia escalating and becoming in some cases almost impossible to find, many collectors have narrowed down their areas of collecting, concentrating on certain categories such as 45s, LPs, concert tickets, or selections from many other areas. We thought that putting together a collection comprising "anything to do with" Magical Mystery Tour would be fun, somewhat affordable, and challenging - yet possible to nearly complete. Here, then, is our guide with over 100 items to perhaps help you do just that. You can print this page and use it as a checklist and reference. Happy hunting...

CDs	EPs	Laserdiscs	LPs - Japan
LPs - UK	LPs - USA	LPs - Other Countries	Miscellaneous
Posters	Tapes - Audio	Tapes - Video

CDs	EPs	Laserdiscs	LPs - Japan
LPs - UK	LPs - USA	LPs - Other Countries	Miscellaneous
Posters	Tapes - Audio	Tapes - Video

MMT logo graphic by Robert York
Price Guide/Reference - Mitch McGeary & Perry Cox ©1997-1999
Additional contributions - David Schwartz, Frank Daniels, Tom Drozewski

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