10 Questions Beatles Fans Will Have About Netflix’s Animated Series ‘Beat Bugs’

Considering its name, I assumed Beat Bugs would be a Monkees-like series chronicling the exploits of four musically inclined beetles. But aside from the soundtrack, the plot steers clear of anything rock ‘n’ roll, sixties, psychedelic, or any other themes you’d usually associate with the band’s legacy. The show follows the adventures of a diverse group of insect friends living in the lawn of a suburban home. There’s the punky Kumi, and Walter, the overweight and overly sensitive theater buff. Little Buzz, the youngest of the group, is supremely precious. We also have Crick, the stock nerd character in the bespectacled vein of Sponge from Salute Your Shorts and Simon from The Chipmunks.

And then there’s Jay. He’s a skater-bro bug, and his stupid skateboard is nothing but trouble. Jay’s foolhardy actions often set the episode plots into motion. He rides around breaking prized lamps and destroying elaborate cakes. He moronically jumps onto a catapult despite repeated warnings against such behavior. At one point he literally says, “There’s no reason to be careful.” Perhaps most unforgivably, he forgets his good friend Crick’s birthday—despite the fact they are born on exactly the same day. Needless to say, Jay’s kind of a dick, and by the end of my multi-hour odyssey I wish him ill. I find the lack of comeuppance for his behavior distressing.

When they’re not dealing with Jay’s idiocy, the quintet work together to learn how to live healthy, responsible, creatively fulfilling lives filled with appreciation for the world and respect for others. I’m cool with that part. But Jay can go to hell.

For me, listening to Beatles’ covers is like buying store brand cola. You could do it, I guess. But unless you’re in a bind, it’s not really advisable. They’re never going to be completely satisfying, so just grab the Real Thing. However, Beat Bugs piqued my curiosity by featuring guest vocals from high caliber artists including P!nk, Eddie Vedder, and Sia. Rather than risk a radical reimagining of the songs, the producers played it safe and stayed fairly faithful to the originals. But the tracks suffer from the glossy production that often accompanies children’s soundtracks. It’s so pristine that it’s almost hyper-real, like listening to a hologram of a song.

Distractingly, lyrics are dropped when they either don’t fit the plot or are unfriendly to children. Case in point: the phrase “Yellow matted custard dripping from a dead dog’s eye” was excised (unfortunately) from “I Am The Walrus.” Changing the offending lyrics would have been equally jarring, and probably a violation of whatever insanely elaborate licensing agreement Josh Wakley and Co. had with the Beatles organization. So producers were left with no choice but to put wordless gaps in the middle of the songs, forcing characters to awkwardly wander around close-mouthed like Ashlee Simpson on SNL.

Overall, the covers are forgettable, but inoffensive. If you put your friends drunkenly warbling “Hey Jude” at karaoke at one end of the spectrum, and the similarly Beatles-themed I Am Sam soundtrack at the other, the music in Beat Bugs would be on the I Am Sam side, just.

Sia’s rendition of “Blackbird” was gorgeous, but she could sing the ingredients on a non-organic package of hotdogs and I’d throw my lighter in the air. It’s the only song on the soundtrack that I would actively seek out.

An unexpected highlight was James Corden’s version of “I’m A Loser.” When I heard the comedian was going to be contributing a song, I was afraid that it was going to be an all-yuks cover, similar to Jim Carrey’s abysmal take on “I Am The Walrus” for a George Martin tribute album. But Corden’s frequent Carpool Karaoke trips have left him with a strong voice, and his authentic English lilt gave it a nice punch.

Aloe Blacc’s read-through of the Beatles’ 1966 B-side “Rain” was so astonishingly bland that I had to rewatch the scene to make sure the show hadn’t been interrupted by a commercial for family cell phone plans. Hard pass.

Most children’s television strives to fall into the “Fun for grown-ups too!” category, but Beat Bugs skews just a little too young to effectively pull it off. The life lessons are ladled on just a tad too thick, and most of the humor is derived from the time-honored formula of falling down, breaking things, mispronouncing words, and the occasional bodily function.

That being said, it’s certainly less lobotomized than standard kid’s fare. There are a few moments of cute visual gags. Lightning bugs fill a campfire pit in place of fire, for instance, and the ingenious Crick constructs a number of elaborate Gilligan’s Island-like contraptions.

The songs serve as the show’s biggest concession to adults. Bland Beatles is still better than the Wiggles, after all. For the over-10 crowd who are still curious, just check out the soundtrack albums.

Surprisingly, yes. The one episode begins with the bugs telling a scary campfire story about a mosquito who gets fried in a bug lamp. Another finds Jay the idiot bro-bug trapped in a glass bottle, which slowly fills with water from a nearby sprinkler. The effect is not unlike the scene from Titanic, where a handcuffed Leonardo DiCaprio struggles to free himself from a flooding room.

The bug friends spend many moments trying to avoid being stepped on or dodging falling trash (spoiler alert: they are successful). Thankfully the show is light on the “Humans are evil” guilt trips that usually crop up in cartoons set in the natural world, but there is an instance when a child abducts the quintet for an elementary school show-and-tell project.

An uncharacteristically grotesque moment occurs when a cat sneezes on little Buzz, drenching her with sickly green feline mucus. It was so graphic that I literally had to look away. But the most unsettling moment for me was the appearance of Dr. Robert, whom all the kids excitedly visit to get their health-packed vitamins. With his unnervingly sinister leer, he’s the perfect embodiment of the song’s namesake: a New York pill-pusher to the rich and famous. Frankly, I would not let him near my child.

Yes, indeed it does. And the scene even includes a “Pull my finger,” joke.

With a few exceptions, the songs are incorporated into the plot with grace and skill. Literal interpretations of the Beatles’ tunes can be awkward and self conscious (see 2008’s Across The Universe), but Beat Bugs was smart to use the songs as centerpieces and not foundations. Some of the more conventional numbers show up in more obvious ways—“Rain” and “Good Day Sunshine” are both gleeful celebrations of the weather—but other tracks are cleverly weaved into the story in unexpected ways. At the show’s best, it underscores the Beatles’ own childlike flights of imagination.

Beat Bugs should also be praised for its steadfast refusal to talk down to kids. The characters speak with an impressive vocabulary, using ambitious words like, well, “ambitious.” In this way, the Beat Bugs are the anti-Teletubbies.

As a piece of entertainment for children, there is nothing to object to. It’s sweet, the production value is undoubtedly high, and the lessons taught are good ones. The songs are passable, but nothing notably awful. Still, I can’t help but feel producers missed an opportunity to create a program that would truly help kids and adults (wait for it) come together. It lacks the self-knowing wit, over-their-heads humor, and way-out whimsy present in mainstays like Sesame Street, Schoolhouse Rock, or even Yo Gabba Gabba.

Beat Bugs is also underserved by the Pixar Lite graphics, which will someday
appear as dated as the psych-pop swirls in the Beatles’ 1968 Yellow Submarine film do today. In short, Beat Bugs feels disposable, which the band’s music never will. But then again, it’s unreasonable to want a children’s television series to feel as timeless as the Beatles’ music.

Ultimately Beat Bugs is not for me but for children. And as a Beatles’ fan, that’s frustrating.

When all is said and done, I admit to being charmed by the show’s choice of theme song. Rather than go with an obvious “Hello, Goodbye,” or one of the literally hundreds of other choices, the first sound you hear each episode is “All You Need Is Love.” If there was one message to be drummed into kid’s heads each episode, I’m glad it’s this one. For that reason alone, I give it my full endorsement. Beat Bugs is excellent viewing for children. For me, though? I’ll stick to my dusty vinyl.

[Watch Beat Bugs on Netflix]

Jordan Runtagh (@JordanRuntagh) is a music editor at PEOPLE Magazine and a contributing writer at Rolling Stone. He has a piece of John Lennon’s carpet framed above his desk.