Blue Meanies Chief

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The Chief of the Blue Meanies is a fictional character from the 1968 surreal animated film Yellow Submarine, and the nearest thing to the main antagonist to the Beatles. A high-pitched, flambuoyant character alternately merging from feminine composure to masculine aggression, he is set on ruling Pepperland with fear and oppression. His most heinous of crimes from the Beatles point on of view, however, is his- and his army's- complete and utter hatred of music.

The Chief arrives with his army of Meanies to Pepperland and begins his campaign of taking over by firing a massive glass sphere on the Beatles' doubles, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts' Club Band, who play music all day in this colourful world, while all the natives dance and sing and generally behave in a friendly manner towards one another. As the Chief comments, "it can't last". The soundproof glass sphere covers the band, making their music inaudible, and in their panic to run away, the natives are fired at by the Blue Meanies' guns whose missiles both drain their victims' colour on contact and petrify them. The Chief bombards the natives with various weapons and species of Meanie that vary in their ferocity and eccentricy- anything from Meanies that will eat the toys of young children (as demonstrated when the Beatles' arrival to Pepperland and a Meanie with sharp teeth in his stomach consumes a young girl's paper windmill) to diminishing the flourishing hills and plants to a land of bare thorns and colourless grass, with the only green existing in the form of giant apples that the "Bonkers" taller Meanies use to drop on peoples' heads at whim.

Later in the film, the Blue Meanies Chief presumably engineers the kidnapping of the Beatles' friend and comrade, the Nowhere Man Jeremy Hilary Boob (whether as an intellectual plan as a means to bait them into coming to Pepperland so that they may be eliminated, or simply because he feels like it is never revealed). When the Beatles do arrive in Pepperland, after briefly sleeping in a small hut where all the musical instruments in the country have been hidden away, the Chief becomes incensed when he sees the hills and trees returning to their proper colour at the sound of their music, and sends his fiercest weapon, "The Dreadful Flying Glove" after the alien rebels. The Glove is, however, simply thwarted by John Lennon's song All You Need is Love and the Chief's army flees, knocking him over in the process.

In a final petty attempt at retribution, the Chief then threatens to tear the newly-freed Nowhere Man into "blue burgers". However, he is humiliated by his magic and ends up sprouting flowers from his nose and body. He flees with the rest of his army, but later contemplates "mixing" with the Beatles, presumably to develop an appreciation for music- however, at the very end, when the Beatles appear in the flesh to the audience, John points out that "Blue Meanies have been found within the vicinity of this theatre", so he may well be up to his old tricks...

[edit] Personal characteristics

Like the majority of the Meanies in his army, the Chief is masked with yellowed teeth, a navy blue woolly body and massive paw-like hands with six claws on each. He is taller than most of them, however, and whereas most wear a hat reminiscent of Mickey Mouse's ears, his look more like Goofy's. He has an unpredictable, if not split, personality, which sends him from seeming ladylike and friendly to raging and malicious- though no less buffoonish in either. He has a sidekick named "Max" who is often the butt-end of abuse, from being punched to being shot. He has a Meanie carry around a stool so that he can sit down whenever he likes- presumably to fall on the ground at the stool-carrier's peril. He also states (until the very end, when he starts warming to the Beatles) that "we Meanies only take 'no' for an answer", and gets extremely angry at the sound of the word "yes", even when being answered in the affirmative. Sometimes his own aggression gets the better of him and he needs to be revived with "nasty medicine", which makes him even more eccentric than he already is when administered. He encourages his army of Meanies to be as unpleasant as possible, but later admits that his cousin is "the bluebird of happiness".

[edit] Trivia

• The Blue Meanies Chief's voice was supplied by Dick Emery, who also, paradoxically, gave the voice to his enemy, the Nowhere Man.
• The character's looks and personality was a major influence on the producers of The Powerpuff Girls, in which one of the villains, an androdgenous devil known as "Him", appears as a constant source of pain and annoyance to the girls, and shares several of the Meanie-Chief's mannerisms.