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Within a beautiful luxurious railcar, moving through the vast landscapes of Europe, the famous 1960s rock and roll band called the Beatles continued touring at the high point of their careers.
Time was a luxury these men of fame and fortune rarely possessed in between their tight schedule of performances.
Their manager often arranged for the group to spend their scheduled sleep time moving towards the next destination instead of stopping at a hotel so the creative talent, who were all in their twenties, could perform more gigs.
They were young, after all! Capable of withstanding a relentless schedule of shows, interviews, parties, and all matters of formalities to further their success.
This was common for the lads, who were already accustomed to the less-than-desirable accommodations when necessary.
Neither of the four men complained as they all prepared for a long night of sleeping on a singular bench together before another performance in the morning.
Now, the musicians from Liverpool rested from a grueling day of hustle and bustle, and prepared themselves to deal with the lack of comforts of a regular bed.
Yes, they had the nicest car in the snake like vehicle as it glided across the tracks through the neighboring countries. It had adjustable lighting, fancier carpet, but the private railcar although possessed luxury seating, it didn’t provide a bed.
So the musicians leaned in against one another on a single seating bench, which had beautiful carved molding, and plump cushioning.
Still, it was just a bench, so the close friends curled in tightly for comfort, while the youthful companions used their mate’s shoulders as pillows.
Together, the four slumbering bodies began to slouch as the locomotive rhythm hummed beneath their feet. It didn’t take too long for the four British lads to be dozing off to what appeared to be a typical night of travel.
Then suddenly, a flash of light distorted their view, even with their eyes closed.
At first, each Beatle thought they were experiencing their own personal dream, until the close friends realized, they all could see the same disarray of blending colors while their bodies spun wildly out of control!
Utterly dumbfounded, the men of prestige twirled aimlessly around in this strange phenomenon. They didn’t have words to describe it. Nothing made sense, as the, four travelers were in some kind of tunnel that whirled them into another world.
In just seconds, the musicians found themselves transported into a strange paradox of an entirely foreign surrounding’s.
The very atmosphere and dimensional arrangements of this strange place were thoroughly out of order for the men who were once three-dimensional figures.
Everything seemed smooth, and without any contrasting texture in a two-dimensional format.
Staring in bewilderment, each man found themselves gawking at one another.
“John,” Paul gasped. “your eyes are just your glasses.” McCartney openly observed his best friend’s face.
“And your head ends with your mouth!” John Lennon responded back, gawking at his best mate in horror over the lack of their chins, as the leader of the group reviewed the rest of the lads.
“We’re bloody cartoons!” Ringo Starr cried out, staring at his own two hands with only four fingers. The rings he wore on his middle and ring finger shared the one-digit now
George Harrison had some commentary of his own, but the quiet Beatle was silenced by an unexpected interruption.
“Good news, everyone!” the fab four could hear an older voice say above from where the group was standing.
Glancing upwards to a platform about a story high, the bewildered travelers found a comically drawn older man, created in the same style they suddenly appeared as.
The odd character was wearing a lab coat, with pens sticking out of his chest pocket, as if he worked in a laboratory.
Yet he also wore sleeping trousers and bedroom slippers.
The spectacle was too crazy to be believed, and this bedroom-work combination clothing style, confused the lads from the 1960’s as they gawked in horror!
Upon further study, the travelers also observed that the peculiar bloke possessed a hairless shriveled head, and his eyes appeared to be a pair of thick round eyeglasses.
“My alternative universe-transporting time machine works!” the old man announced with the same tone in his voice as before.
Even with his success, the character still slouched while standing before some giant orange machine that looked like it came from a James Bond flick.
Silently frightened and in a state of shock, the Beatles took a moment to scan the room they were in.
First, they noticed some kind of spacecraft or plane they had never seen before. It was green, with the name “Planet Express” printed along its side, and the extensive machine seemed to take up an enormous amount of space.
Then, the Fab Four studied the group of people just a few feet away from what appeared to be a meeting table.
To their surprise, they could see a girl who appeared to be Asian, who casually wore a pink sweatsuit that revealed her flat stomach, along with matching pink sweatpants. She was seated at a round metal table, along with another woman with purple hair and one eye in the center of her forehead.
Freaky, were the Beatle’s first thoughts, until they saw the lobster man dressed as a doctor, sitting across from the female cyclops.
The peculiar creature with tentacles dangling from the upper part of its mouth, was like a combination of a crab and octopus. Then the strange humanoid fish, waved at the new comers, with a lobster like claw.
Instantly, the renowned men of their time found this thing to be too grotesque to gaze upon and, even worse, it painfully reeked of fish.
Next the musicians saw a young guy in a red jacket standing in the distance, behind the strange people sitting at the table.
He looked almost normal, except for the fact he was animated. The Beatles noticed this man first appeared to be quiet and reserved as he tinkered with some unknown gadget.
It seemed this regular-looking fella was working with something important as he pressed a few buttons upon the unknown device.
That is, until he zapped himself in the stomach and crouched to the floor in pain.
“Oh, why did I do that?’ the single lad uttered, and that’s when the Beatles realized he was just a moron.
Meanwhile, the old man who seemed to be some sort of a mad scientist, stood silent at the very device that brought the four here and did not move a muscle.
The rest of the strange people and creature however, stared back at the fab four with dumbfounded expressions to convey curiosity on the animated faces.
“What the fuck did we take?” George asked in horror while trying to figure out how in the hell this was at all possible.
“I swear, I didn’t add anything to our food this time.” John openly admitted with his hands raised.
“Oh cool, they brought drugs!” the girl in pink replied excitedly. ”Nice work, Professor!” she added further with her squeaky feminine voice.
Before the men from the 1960s could think of a response, they saw what appeared to be a wall until it suddenly split apart, revealing a hidden passageway.
Behind the sliding metal doors, a grey trash container with limbs and a face walked into the large room.
As the new character made its entrance, the walls slid toward one another until they connected as the mechanical creature approached the Beatles.
“Did somebody say drugs?” the trash can wanted to know so brazenly. It must be some kind of robot, the lads assumed, as the strange creature stood before them.
“You zapped us here just to steal our drugs?” Lennon inquired rather surprised. It just seemed like a lot of work to get high.
“Don’t they have drugs in this world?” he then asked the machine standing in front of him and his mates.
“Sure we do!” the robot announced enthusiastically.
“The best drugs in the whole universe!” It declared pacing in front of the time travelers standing in a row.
“But to me drugs stop being fun when they were made legal.” The cartoon machine declared. “If you want a real rush, might I suggest bank robbery?” it wildly suggested, sincerely.
“This world is bloody mad!” Ringo shouted in horror, as he stepped back with the rest of his group.
“You aren’t going to rob us, are you?” George followed with the same concerns.
“Oh just ignore Bender.” the one eyed woman with purple hair said standing up from the table.
“No one is going to rob you.” She was assuring when she turned her head slightly to the right.
“Bender!” the cyclops suddenly snapped. “Give back that wallet!”
Before the four musicians could check their pockets, the robot elongated its arm towards the four, only to return a little brown wallet to Paul McCartney.
“As I was saying,” the strange woman continued. “no one is going to rob you.”
“Except for Bender, but the rest of us are normal.” She was saying, when the guy with the red jacket managed to set his hair on fire for a moment, only for some black cat looking creature in a diaper, to put it out with a fire extinguisher.
The one eyebrow above the purple haired woman’s singular eye, cocked slightly as she scowled.
“Alright, I’m going to stop talking now,” she announced. “so my friends will stop contradicting me.” Then the cyclops did exactly what she said she would do. She sat down and was quiet.
“Where are we?” the soft voice of Paul, the bands bassist finally asked, after checking his wallet.
“Earth.” The less intelligent man answered, as he seemed to have recovered from his burns and sat beside the single eyed woman.
“Okay, we know which planet we’re on,” John responded frustrated. “but could we narrow it down to a country?” he pressed.
“They sound like Americans.” Paul observed, while standing next to John.
“Well you are in New New York.” The girl in pink responded in her cheerful tone. “You are in what used to be the United States, until it became the capital of the United Nations of Planets.” She further explained.
“John, I think the question shouldn’t be, where are we,” George observed, as he glanced about the strange technology he didn’t comprehend. “but when are we.”
“Sometime after the year 3000.” The dumb man answered George’s question.
“I stopped paying attention to what year it is, after I arrived here from the year 2000.” He lazily added while casually leaning back and inconsiderately putting his feet on the table.
“They zapped you here too?” John asked curiously.
“Naw…” the less intelligent one uttered as a response, as if he were intending to take a nap.
“I fell into a giant freezer and thawed out a thousand years later.“ he explained dismissively while folding his arms behind his resting head.
“It might help if we know when you are from.” Suggested that freaky-looking lady who, despite her one eye, seemed the most rational out of the motley crew.
“We’re from the 1960s,” Lennon answered, repressing his disdain for her strange disfigurement.
“On Earth.” McCartney backed up.
“You look familiar.” The dumb dude remarked as he studied the Fab Four over, with his hand where his chin should be.
“Do I know you from somewhere?” he asked, his eyes squinting as he gazed upon the 1960’s men.
This question automatically made the Beatles nervous because it usually led to someone screaming out. “The Beatles are here!” in five seconds.
“Did you guys kill someone in the twentieth century?” The below average man speculated.
“Cool!” the girl in pink lit up at the moron’s suggestion. “Serial killers turn me on.” She further exclaimed excited.
“And you wonder why all the men you end up dating turn out to be creeps!” the cyclops judgmentally told the other woman, while folding her arms in front of her chest.
“Oh please keep on relaying your relationship advice Leela, by telling us about your last successful date.” The two eyed woman sarcastically clapped back.
The four strangers really didn’t know what to say, as they watched these characters interact. This place was wilder than any drug they ever took and that was saying something!
“I’m not finding any serial killers with the names of James McCartney, John Lennon, Richard Starkey or George Harrison, in my data banks.” The robot called Bender stated, as he drew the musicians attention again.
“This must mean you guys got away with it!” The machine with kleptomania concluded, suddenly smoking a cigar.
“I respect that.” He added, gesturing with the thick brown wrap in his mechanical hand, before putting it in its mouth.
“Here are the rest of your wallets back.” Bender bluntly announced, as he opened its compartment from his chest, and carelessly tossed three wallets at the four dumbfounded men of fame and fortune.
“Bender!” the one eyed lady suddenly scolded, as she arose from her chair again.
However the robot just ignored her as it puffed its cigar.
“You guys are alright.” The machine declared, then somehow pulled out five beers from the same compartment the wallets were stored.
Mistakenly the Beatles assumed the robot would pass a bottle to each of them. Instead the sentient mechanical mechanism tilted it’s head back, and poured all the beer down it’s throat at once, then burped fire immediately afterwards.
“We’re not killers!” Ringo then shouted, rather annoyed this had to be said.
In which the woman in pink pulled out a strange folder of some kind upon the large circular table. The strange device opened like a book, but one lid stood up on its side and the other laid flat on the table. She also appeared to be typing, which confused the men unfamiliar with laptops or computer’s in general for that matter.
Yet the four watched in awe, as this Amy girls behavior, made no sense to them.
“According to the Head Museum website,” she began, to the men who didn’t even know what internet was.
“John Lennon, George Harrison, along with Sir James McCartney and Sir Richard Starkey, were in a rock and roll band in the 1960s, in our universe.” Amy accurately stated, although the Knight title confused the British musicians, as none of the lads had yet to be bestowed such an honor.
“They were called the Beatles,” the lass in pink went on, appearing to be reading. “and their heads currently reside at the London Branch of the Head Museum.” She further added.
“Head Museum!” the four said in unison. They had visions of archaic scenes of their heads on a pike, straight out of their own countries history.
“It’s where all great people of the past are preserved after their bodies die.” Amy kindly explained, looking up from the strange book like object.
“Ah yes!” said the old man who was apparently sleeping while standing this whole time, but woke abruptly. “It’s a dignified way to spend eternity.” He added to Amy’s statement.
“They keep your sentient head in a glass jar for the public to gawk at until the end of time!” the robot obnoxiously interjected.
“You know what!” John Lennon harshly responded to the very idea of such barbarism!
“Here’s me wallet, watch, cufflinks, “ he angrily exclaimed, as he tossed those very items towards the robot.
“Take it all!” He stated, staring at the thieving machine.
“Just get me and me mates out of this crazy place and back home!” the leader of the group demanded.
Immediately, the other three men in the group followed Lennon’s lead, throwing their fancy belongings to the floor away from the area where they were standing.
Eagerly, Bender began to gather up the treasures, but stopped when he noticed the one-eyed woman called Leela was standing over him with her arms crossed and tapping her foot upon the floor.
“Give them back their stuff.” She ordered. “We will returned these men home, unrobbed.” The cyclops insisted.
“Awe!” the robot cried.
“Not even a little robbed?” Bender begged while pinching two fingers to indicate a small size.
However the purple haired woman stared him down with her singular eye, forcing the machine to cower.
“Oh alright!” ,he said begrudgingly. “Stupid Leela with her stupid morals!” the gray character uttered bitterly as he gave each of the musicians their items back.
As the three other Beatles were returning their belongings to their rightful place, Paul McCartney decided to approach this Leela woman.
Instantly, the purple-haired lass was obviously smitten by the bassist’s appearance, even in this strange cartoon design.
“Thank you!” the dark hair musician said to the strange looking woman, who despite her appearance, was clearly a noble person.
With the slightest warm gesture from the infamous baby face, red rouge brightened her cheeks, as she blushed from the charming gentleman’s smile.
Leela stared into McCartney’s two eyes, with the large orb in the center of her forehead.
Paul did all he could not to appear as repelled as he was by her strange design.
Meanwhile, Leela’s reaction caused the other Beatles to roll their eyes. Even women with one eye in the center of their forehead, were attracted to Paul McCartney!
“You’re welcome.” Leela replied flirtatiously, but then turned abruptly a way from the attractive gentleman, and towards the old man, who seemed to be sleeping again.
“Okay, Professor!’ the domineering woman called out, cupping her hand to the side of her mouth.
“Zap these guys into particle dust, and transport them back to their correct universe and time!” she yelled, snapping the old man awake again.
“Oh my.” The mad scientist gasped, having just been aroused for the second time.
“I never sent anyone back before.” The Professor explained while adjusting his thick lensed glasses. “They could return as just a puddle of themselves if I can’t manage to put together every invisible micron back.” He cautiously warned.
“Wait what?” George shouted, as he jumped into the conversation.
The youngest Beatle was deeply worried about the old man’s warning.
From what the lead guitarists could manage to understand, which was about half of what was said, that returning home was both risky and terrifying.
“Well you never know until you try.” The dumb guy from the year 2000 simply replied to the professors concerns, as if he were involved with the conversation.
Before the Beatles could object, an orange beam from the gun shaped machine, engulfed the four musicians in its warm light.
Just as this wild phenomenon was about to unfold, the strange cartoon people politely waved goodbye, and the Beatles found themselves doing the same thing on instinct.
Then suddenly they were jolted through a similar tunnel that brought them there. The four had an expanding view of bright colors melding together in the atmosphere they were entangled, as their bodies flipped around the cylinder enclosure, just as before.
“Trippy!” George was able to utter, as they all stared bedazzled by the view.
Just like the previous trip through this wild tunnel, the four men were not there long, because they soon found themselves hitting the floor of the train room they had been staying in.
Each man arose to their feet, although George gave Ringo a hand up, but soon they were all standing, trying to figure out what the hell just happened.
None of them were cartoons anymore, and they blissfully had their chins and missing fingers returned to them.
While collecting themselves, each man silently wondered individually if this was just their own wild dream, as the friends reviewed each other to make sure they were all alright.
Fortunately, they were just a little shocked at being woken up so abruptly. At least that’s what each man assumed.
“Wow!” John remarked, trying to take their reality in.
“I had the strangest dream!” he stated, believing what happened to be his single experience.
“It didn’t have a purple-haired cyclops, did it?” Paul then asked, confirming Lennon and the rest of the band, that they all shared the memories of the peculiar cartoon world of the future.
“Or a kleptomaniac robot?” Ringo then added, causing the entire group to pause for a second.
The four stared at each other during this moment of silence, then they instinctively checked their pockets and hands, for the belongings they had thrown off.
“I have everything of mine,” George stated first, shaking the wrist on which he wore his watch.
“Me too!” John added, looking in his wallet to see if everything was still there.
“I still have my stuff.” Ringo followed after counting his many rings.
“I have my watch, cufflinks…” Paul began sounding unsure while still searching himself.
McCartney used his hands to explore all of his pockets, and patted himself down, obviously still looking for something.
“I can’t find me wallet!” the bassist admitted, giving up his efforts, and even allowing his Liverpool dialect the slip through stronger than usual.
“Do you think the robot stole it again?” Ringo wanted to know.
“Probably.” Paul lamented, knowing there was nothing he could do about it.
He was correct.
(Unseen Bender laugh!)