I have a memory from high school. It was a weekend night, my parents were out and a friend and I were mindlessly flipping through channels when we landed on “The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash.” 

We had no idea what it was — what is this weird thing?? — but very quickly it became apparent: A mockumentary about a Beatles-esque band called The Rutles. We laughed our asses off. Not only because it was funny, but also, I suspect, because we had no preconceptions. Surprise! Here’s a movie skewering a very famous pop cultural phenomenon! Enjoy!

But really, “The Rutles” walked so that “This Is Spinal Tap” (and every other mockumentary thereafter) could run.

I was thinking about “The Rutles” recently, thanks to the release of a handful of images from director Sam Mendes’ forthcoming quartet of Beatles biopics. Each one will be told from the point of view of the band’s four members. Yes. Four separate movies. Whether you think that’s overkill probably depends on your interest in the band. (I like The Beatles and even I think it’s overkill.)

The release date is still two years out, which means we have two years to grumble about the casting, because the actors playing John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr resemble their real-world counterparts only in the broadest terms. The hair, mostly. So already the endeavor has the sheen of parody.

But that was inevitable. After so many films and documentaries about this one band, can yet another cinematic rehash play as anything but a parody at this point?

With that in mind, why not seek out an actual parody instead?

“The Rutles” isn’t streaming anywhere, but I did find a version uploaded on YouTube (who knows how long that will last).

Created by Monty Python’s Eric Idle and Neil Innes for the BBC comedy series “Rutland Weekend Television” (despite Idle’s involvement, this was not a Monty Python project) the bit was originally envisioned as a mashup skewering two things: The tropes of dry TV documentaries and 1964’s “A Hard Day’s Night.”

A couple years later, U.S. audiences got a taste of The Rutles when “Saturday Night Live” played a clip. “SNL” executive producer then suggested Idle expand the idea into a movie-length project and the rest is history. Idle would end up co-directing with “SNL” director Gary Weis.

Hailing from (fictional) Rutland, the smallest county in England, the “Prefab Four” — Dirk, Nasty, Stig and Barry — “created a musical legend that will last a lunchtime.”

I miss silly wordplay! There are also visual gags all over this thing. 

But the movie is also weirdly enjoyable for its music alone, because Innes (as composer) was able to write knockoffs that leave you thinking: Well, that could have been a Beatles song. 

He mirrors the evolution of the band’s sound (and preoccupations) melodically, vocally and lyrically. The score (19 songs!) is a remarkable blend of savage ridicule, mimicry and pastiche — and therefore sincere appreciation. Lennon apparently loved the movie. So did Harrison, who has a cameo in the film. Here’s how he put it in a radio interview years later:

The Rutles sort of liberated me from The Beatles in a way. And it was the only thing I ever saw, of those sort of Beatle television things they made, that was actually the best, funniest and most scathing, but at the same time done with the most love.

Idle plays both the TV presenter narrating the documentary (a poindexter in trenchcoat and glasses, forever battling with his cameraperson to stay in frame) and Rutles bass player Dirk McQuickly, aka McCartney.

Innes plays the Lennon-esque Ron Nasty, the Harrinson stand-in is Stig O’Hara, “a school-leaver of no fixed hairstyle” (played by Ricky Fataar) and the Starr equivalent is drummer Barrington Womble, who they found hiding in their van one day (played by John Halsey): “They persuaded him to change his name to save time; his hair to save Brylcreem. He became simply Barry Wom.”

Not everything in “All You Need is Cash” works. Stars like Mick Jagger, Paul Simon, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd and fellow Monty Python veteran Michael Palin drop by, but their presence doesn’t really much.

And the film doesn’t have any ideas about who Harrison was and how that could be spoofed, other than to mostly render him invisible (which I suppose could be construed as a commentary of sorts, with Lennon and McCartney sucking up all the oxygen, especially early in the band’s fame).

There’s also a section better left on the cutting room floor that tries, and fails, to find humor in the reality that the British invasion of the 1960s was a whitewashing of Black America rhythm and blues. There’s also a weird segment where the Yoko Ono equivalent is not just a polarizing figure, she’s reimagined as an artist in a Nazi uniform named Chastity, “a simple German girl whose father had invented World War II.” 

But the film is finely-observed, too. Innes really gets Lennon — sorry, Nasty — specifically his playful-prickly puckishness. A reporter stops him on the street and says the band has been accused of staying away from their hometown now that they’re famous. “No, we haven’t been staying away as much as not coming here.” The reporter counters: Some people say it’s been six months since you’ve been back. “Well, that’s just the sort of thing some people would say.” Nevertheless, it’s been six months, the reporter insists. “Now you’re saying it — why don’t you just ask me where I’ve been?” Where have you been? “I’m not telling you!”

And their version of “Get Back,” called “Get Up and Go” — also performed on the roof of a London building, as it was for the real-life documentary about the making of the album — is wildly close the actual thing and a marvel of detail.

But maybe it really just boils down to this: I’m a sucker for the dumb jokes.

At one point, Idle’s TV presenter stands in front of Shea Stadium — the site of the band’s famous 1965 concert, which was the first ever major stadium rock show — and says in all seriousness:

“Che Stadium, named after the Cuban guerilla leader, Che Stadium.”