The Abbey Habit: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery for the Beatles, as 'most famous' album cover inspires dozens of imitations

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 12:09 AM on 30th July 2009

Even Paul McCartney has emulated the famous Abbey Road cover of his former band

The original: How the Beatles' Abbey Road album cover originally looked

It's the most imitated image in pop history. Forty years on, how the Beatles' Abbey Road has inspired an astonishing array of 'cover' versions...

Their record label said it wouldn't sell because it did not feature the names of the band or the LP.

But 40 years on and 12million sales later, the most famous album cover of all time has been copied all over the world.

Dozens of bands - ranging from Booker T & The MGs to the puppet characters from TVs Sesame Street - have recreated their own versions of John, Paul, George and Ringo striding across the zebra crossing outside the Abbey Road studios on August 8, 1969.

Here are 40 copies of the Fab Four.

Hysterical wedding pics (22 photos)

Author: Leo

In: Awesome, Funny

15 More Images You Won't Believe Aren't Photoshopped

By Joe Russo August 5, 2009 757,989 views

Welcome to the fifth installment in our never-ending quest to bring you the craziest, realest images on the web (see Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four).

We know some of you folks out there are going to scream "Fake" no matter what anyway, but we figured we'd stress one more time that these images are, unfortunately, completely real.

#15.

On the Set of 2 Ark, 2 Furious: Noah's Revenge

Everyone's reaction to this one can be summed up as, "What's the big deal? It's just two pics, one of a giant oil tanker and one of a peaceful little town--OH HOLY FUCK THOSE PEOPLE ARE ABOUT TO BE CRUSHED."

That is in fact one photo, of the The Pasha Bulker, a ship that famously ran aground in 2007 within spitting distance of that little Australian community there. The accident was due to bad weather while the captain was "eating breakfast." Apparently it became quite a tourist attraction, with people traveling from all over to see the massive stuck ship and perhaps hoping it was about to spill several million gallons of Fosters.

#14.

It's the Tasmanian Devil, Get in the Car

This spontaneous tornado photo looks like the kind of CGI you see in made-for-TV movies. But if it's fake, then National Geographic is lying to us. They say it's a 4,000-foot tall twister in Kansas. We think it looks like that bank of clouds ate a bit of bad Mexican last night. In which case, we're really glad not to be that Weather Tracker guy. Cracked meteorology tip: When you're within sighting distance of a bout of meteorological diarrhea, it's good not to wear your Sunday Best.

#13.

Mom, Dad, I'd Like You to Meet my New Girlfriend

This is one of those in the "not just fake but a bad fake" category, looking like something from some magazine ad selling ... bear insurance or something. But in fact it's one of several pics of Brutus the Bear and the family who's keeping him as a pet.

Brutus was raised in captivity and serves as a pet/family friend to Casey Anderson, star of Expedition Grizzly. One of Casey's major goals is to use Brutus to show that giant bears aren't the dangerous man-eating monsters that we think they are. That's a brave mission he's on, considering the previous attempt to prove that resulted in the guy getting eaten.

#12.

Prostitution in the Deep-Sea World

While this picture looks like some harebrained lipstick ad, it's actually the aptly-named "rosy-lipped batfish." Though it would probably could have been even more aptly-named "the scowling old lady at the DMV." Its expression is just perfect.

Also, it uses those legs/fins to crawl around on the sea floor, because it's apparently too lazy to swim.

#11.

Winner of the "Turn Your Neighborhood into Mordor" Photoshop Contest

The Internet is lousy with mind bending images of street art that turns a few panels of sidewalk into a swimming hole, or a terrifying pedestrian hazard. But Edgar Mueller's neighborhood swallowing painting makes that shit look like hopscotch.

With most sidewalk art, you can wrap your head around the illusion if you look at it long enough. But this one just gets more insane the longer you think about it. Especially when you take into account his contingency plan for rain is " leave and paint a new picture tomorrow." So while the dog perched precariously out on the ledge of the literal floating buttress might look like it's in danger of starring in the Disney version of Drag Me to Hell, it could actually ruin the whole week long project with a territory marking stream of piss.

#10.

Why Buy a New Camera When You Can Strap the Hubble Telescope to the Front of Your Handheld?

What looks like someone pasted the business end of a bazooka onto a handheld camera is an actual lens from manufacturer Sigma. For the low price of $29,000, wedding photographers no longer have to actually be at the wedding, and paparazzo can steal shots of celebrity vaginas from 30 blocks away.

While the guy in the above picture jokingly posed with the camera sans tripod, we have to think that anyone who actually owns this thing will mostly be pointing it down at their lap, finally able to offer photographic evidence of the tiny equipment they're clearly compensating for.

#9.

Gundam It, Japan

Proving that global economic crises mean nothing to the Japanese, they've built a full scale Gundam statue, just for the hell of it.

Oh, and by the way, it's motorized, so the damn thing moves. And we thought North Korea's nuclear weapons were the biggest threat to global safety from that part of the world.

#8.

Dogaroos!

This looks like the kind of shitty crop-and-paste job you'd see on the Photoshop Disasters site. In fact these dogs live in the Philippines, and were born without front legs.

Despite the fact that it looks like the poor guys would topple over the moment they tried to wag their tails, it is apparently possible for dogs to live normal lives this way, using their strong hind legs to perfectly straddle the line between cute and terrifying.

The Top Entrepreneurs of the Last 100 Years

By Focus Editors

8 Idiots Lighting Themselves On Fire

Friday July 31, 2009 10:40 AM

Fire has been a fascination of ours since those funny little cavemen first sparked rocks. Since then we stare at it, we run from it, and sometimes we test the boundaries of it. Occasionally we even test it on ourselves as these morons did. It didn’t take much time to find these as it seems many people love the feel of being on fire. But we picked our favorites. Here are 8 idiots lighting themselves on fire.

8. Fire Stunt Gone Bad – Doesn’t this seem a little redundant? Have you ever seen a video labeled FIRE STUNT GONE GOOD? Not only does this kid quickly catch on fire, the blanket they are trying to put him out with catches on fire too.

7. Flammable Shoe Laces – The worst part about this kid’s fire quickly engulfing him is the fact that his lame friend was more concerned about putting out the flame left behind him then actually putting him out.

6. Light The Rock On Fire Yo! – If the fire isn’t big enough just keep pouring gasoline on it. If that doesn’t work, lite me on fire too! A skater yo gets a burned yo when his friend yo decides to light him too yo on fire yo.

5. I Hate You WD40 Can! You Represent My Father! – Who knew that WD40 Cans fought back? And with so much style and fire.

4. Always Make Sure You Have A Flammable Parent Nearby When Playing With Fire – What’s the worst that can happen? We mean, you have an adult there to supervise.

3. That Crotch Itch Should Be Telling You Something – You need some fast actin Tinactin. Some people have to fly all the way to the Haiti to get fire crotch like this, you just needed some dumb friends.

2. You’re On Fire! No I’m Not – It’s better to take your friend’s word on it. Especially if you’re the one who’s head is on fire.

1. Fat Kid Lights Himself On Fire – We’re sure this was all in the name of fat kid science. Why else would chubby ignite himself. With the amount of square footage used to make those sweatpants you knew something good wasn’t going to happen.