The Beatles Reunion That Almost Happened $ WOW !

It was 40 years ago today that Sargent Bill had asked the band to play...Although they are no longer in style, a reunion surely would have raised a smile!

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, The Beatles shocked the world way back in 1970 when they broke-up. Ever since then, they have always been in demand, and even more so with every passing year. From the time they famously split, until the time of Lennon's death, there was always some hopeful talk about them reuniting.

As early on as 1973-1974 the concert promoter Bill Sargent made offers of $10 million for a reunion, that later went up to $30 million in 1974. It wasn't until the spring of 1976 that Sargent raised his offer again, this time to a whopping $50 million. The offer received national attention with the April 5, 1976 issue of People magazine that put the story on the national stage. For a long time, this was the big talk among everyone, as we'd phrase it today...the water-cooler talk, and everyone wondered if they'd do it.

Paul McCartney even recalled getting a telegram from Sargent that put the offer on paper. For sure, all of the Beatles actually did talk about this.

As it turned out, this was just a fantastic publicity stunt that actually helped make a name for Bill Sargent, and of course it kept all four of the individual Beatles in the limelight having to answer the questions about the if and when or will they ever reunite every time they were interviewed.

The fact is, they all did talk about the offer, but they never really seriously considered doing it. Realizing the publicity potential, Sargent’s offer was upped to an astounding offer of $230 million from promoter Sid Bernstein. Previously Sid worked with the band on their first visits to America. After it seemed like nothing could possibly persuade the band to get back together another offer came forward, and they very very nearly accepted!

That offer came from Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels. This offer was comedic genius, it was just the opposite of the hundreds of millions that they never accepted to the simple offer of $3,000. Lorne puts forth the offer and said “You can divide it anyway you want. If you want to give Ringo less, that’s up to you.” He even made a second offer and upped the amount to $3,200 and FREE accommodations and transportation. It was hilarious, and it even caught the attention of John and Paul, who seriously thought about showing up unannounced to the show to collect, as a good joke on a joke.

For a long while this was some really fun stuff to talk about, but even funnier was when George Harrison, who was on a promotional tour appeared on the Saturday Night Live show actually asked for his share of the reunion money of $1,000, only to be told he was just one and not the whole group, and they would not pay...he complained that they were being chincy, the whole thing went over quite hilariously.

As we all know they never reunited for their fans, at any time for any reason. One could surmise that the main reason why they never reunited was the simple fact that all four Liverpool lads had successful solo careers. They simply outgrew being the Beatles, and apart from each other, they came into their own. There was no need to reunite, for their part the fact that they never did, this always kept them in the spotlight. Truth be told, financially they benefited from not reuniting, far more than if they had.

Lorne Michaels Of SNL Bribes The Beatles With $3,000