Neil Innes Filmography

GRIMMS was an English pop rock, skit and poetry group, originally formed as a merger of The Scaffold, the Bonzo Dog Band, and the Liverpool Scene for... two concerts in 1971 at the suggestion of John Gorman. The band name was an acronym formed by the initial letters of each member's surname: Neil Innes said about the formation of the group, "I don't know what attracted the Scaffold to the Bonzos; we were incredibly anarchic, which was probably something shared by the Scaffold as well. Hence Grimms, this leap in the dark." At the second performance, Keith Moon played drums. However, when the band was properly organized in 1972, it quickly added other personnel, including: These eleven members formed the "real" initial version of Grimms, despite the acronym which only included six of them. Others appearing on the band's albums included: All members were paid the same wage and those not performing any given segment would sit with the audience. Roberts never quit the band but was touring with Plainsong in 1972 and missed the performances during which the first album was recorded, although he soon returned and remained in the band until its 1976 break-up.
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The Rutles are a band that are known for their visual and aural pastiches and parodies of The Beatles. Originally created by Eric Idle and Neil... Innes as a fictional band to be featured as part of various 1970s television programming, the group recorded, toured, and released two UK chart hits in reality. Initially created for a short sketch in Idle's UK television comedy series Rutland Weekend Television, the Rutles gained international fame after being the focus of the 1978 mockumentary television film, All You Need Is Cash . Having been encouraged by the reaction to the sketch, featuring Beatles' music pastiches by Neil Innes, the film was written by Idle, who co-directed it with Gary Weis. It featured 20 songs written by Innes, which he performed with three musicians as "The Rutles". A successful soundtrack album in 1978 was, much later, followed in 1996 by Archaeology, which spoofed the Beatles' Anthology series which had recently been released. The Rutles pre-date the American parody Spinal Tap by about a year.
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