10 Weirdest Beatles Covers Of All Time

Ever since the three-part documentary "The Beatles: Get Back" premiered on The Walt Disney Co.'s DIS Disney+ streaming service, there has been an intense new focus on the Fab Four, with fans absorbing never-before-seen footage of the band in recording sessions and in their legendary final live performance in a London rooftop concert.

Arguably, the Beatles had the most significant impact on popular music. Unfortunately, many of their songs were hijacked by performing and creative artists who took their brilliant compositions and made a thorough mess of those creations. In tribute to the individuals who should have known better, we present the 10 weirdest Beatles covers ever inflicted on an unsuspecting public.

"All This And World War II" (1976). This insane movie features the single worst concept in cinema history: retelling the history of World War II by using covers of Beatles tunes played against a montage of newsreel footage and old Hollywood war films. While most of the covers aren't bad - The Bee Gees, Tina Turner, Rod Stewart, Helen Reddy and Peter Gabriel were among the singers - it was utterly baffling to hear "Magical Mystery Tour" teamed with footage of the Nazi invasion of Poland and "I am the Walrus" playing while Pearl Harbor was being bombed. The film was a major critical and commercial failure and has never been officially released in any home entertainment format, although it did include Elton John's cover of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" (inexplicably paired with footage of the U.S. aerial fighters over the Pacific). For your viewing pleasure (or displeasure, depending on your tolerance level), here is a bootleg of the complete film with Spanish subtitles:

"The Beatles Forever" (1977). Fans of 1970s-style kitsch will have a field day with this astonishing (for the wrong reasons) TV special hosted by Tony Randall (of all people). An unlikely line-up including Bernadette Peters, Paul Williams, Mel Tillis and Diahann Carroll try (and fail) to recapture the buoyancy of the Beatles' music through tacky Las Vegas-style arrangements and bizarre concept pieces. Special guest star Ray Charles emerges unscathed with his bluesy spins on "Yesterday" and "Let It Be," but you haven't lived until you've heard "Within You Without You" performed by a caterwauling Anthony Newley, who bellows over the sitar melodies like a mad elephant bathing in the Ganges. 

Carol Burnett's Tribute To "Sgt. Pepper" (1967): The Oct. 16, 1967, episode of "The Carol Burnett Show" gave a hat-tip to the "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album with a drag king segment featuring Burnett, Phyllis Diller, Bobbie Gentry and Gwen Verdon wearing the Beatles' hairstyles, mustaches and uniforms from the groundbreaking album. CBS' censors forced a lyric rewrite in "A Little Help from My Friends" (guess which line), yet the gender-bending presentation was clearly a half-century ahead of its time.

Cher's Beatles Medley (1975): Cher's popular TV variety show brought Tina Turner, Kate Smith and Tim Conway together for an extended sequence of Beatles tunes backed by an orchestra and dancers in Sgt. Pepper-inspired costumes. Yes, it is worse than you can possibly imagine.

"The Chipmunks Sing the Beatles Hits" (1964). The squeaky-voiced cartoon characters Alvin and the Chipmunks, joined by the adult guardian Dave Seville, steamroll their way through 12 Beatles tunes. While this album won a Grammy Award and peaked at No. 14 on the Billboard 200, this creation comes down through the years as something of an endurance test - it is amusing for maybe 15 or 20 seconds, but by the final screechy rendition the album seems to exist solely as affirmation of Buddhism's teaching on how the first Truth of life is that suffering is a part of the human existence.

"Day in the Decade" (1977): This 15-minute sequence from a television special celebrating the 10th anniversary of the launch of Rolling Stone is anchored on Ted Neeley, who is best known for playing the title role in the film "Jesus Christ Superstar" (and nothing else). Neeley's film co-star Yvonne Elliman briefly shows up with Richie Havens and Patti LaBelle, but as for the sequence...oh, there's no reason for spoilers, just watch it and you can hate us later:

Dom DeLuise Singing "Honey Pie" (1978): One of the greatest train wrecks in movie history was "Sextette," starring 87-year-old Mae West as the unlikely object of rabid male carnal attention. Although Ringo Starr co-starred in the film as a Hungarian (?) film director, the film's Beatles tune was given the decidedly unBeatlesque Dom DeLuise.

Steve Martin's "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" (1978): This number comes from the film "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," which followed in the footsteps of "All This and World War II" by having a feature-length production consisting of wall-to-wall Beatles covers. While the film has some decent covers from the likes of lead performers Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees plus guests Billy Preston (who collaborated with the Beatles on the "Let It Be" recording), Alice Cooper, Aerosmith and Earth, Wind and Fire, the film hit a low point with Steve Martin (in his feature film debut) as Dr. Maxwell Edison of silver hammer fame. The one good thing about this performance was that Martin's film work improved dramatically after this muck left the theaters.

Sgt. Sauerkraut's Polka Band Fest For Beatles Fans (2016): Oddly, the Beatles never detoured into polka music. Mercifully for the fans of that distinctive niche, Sgt. Sauerkraut's Polka Band came to the rescue with its unique rendition of the "Sgt. Pepper" album. There is a certain educational value to this offering: this is what occurs when enthusiasm runs too far ahead of talent.

The Supremes Sing "Eight Days A Week" (1965): Motown's most celebrated act recorded five Beatles covers on their 1964 British Invasion-inspired album "A Bit of Liverpool," but "Eight Days a Week" was not among the tunes. However, the trio performed the song on the popular variety show "Shindig," and while this is not the Supremes at their finest (they seem strangely enervated by the unflattering costuming and limited staging), it is weird to have Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard alternate in the lead vocals with Diana Ross - this might be the only televised appearance when Detroit's greatest divas shared lead singing duties.

Photo: Cher, Tina Turner and Kate Smith in an unlikely Beatles tribute from 1975, courtesy of CBS/Cher Fan Club.