Monty Python: The Great Birdseye Peas Relaunch of 1971
A fairly lightweight thing to post about this time, given that the entire British isles have an absolutely BANGING hangover after celebrating this week. It's also strangely suitable because someone commented that every time he saw Starmer the theme to Monty Python went through his head and I'm afraid that's now stuck, so this is the week to do Monty Python.
If you've worked through the Flying Circus, the records, the live performances, Fliegender Zirkus, the films, and are still hungry for more there are a few not-so-rarities knocking around the internet in the shape of the commercial work they did. Strangely, considering I'm not a capitalist, I actually think the commercial plays they did are amongst their best work. I have known about Henry Cleans Up (1974), which Michael Palin and Terry Jones did for Guinness, but have only recently discovered the very existence of The Great Birds Eye Peas Relaunch of 1971 and Is This a Record? (1973). Henry Cleans Up is essentially a training film on how to run a pub, with the details on what you actually have to physically do and all the mysterious stuff that goes on in the cellar. Is This a Record was made (confusingly) for The Guinness Book of Records and is essentially a guide to how to get a record for doing something.
How do you even begin to describe The Great Birdseye Peas Relaunch of 1971? Well it's an advertisement for Birds Eye Peas. Made by Monty Python, with, as far as I can see complete independence to do their thing. It lasts nearly half an hour. It was intended for internal use at Birds Eye. I can't begin to think why a frozen food company would need to advertise their own products in Monty Python style to their own staff but I'm very glad they did!
It starts as if it is a great epic film before giving up that idea and we are straight into the Birdseye board room with the Pythons being the board, and let me tell you they are all blind drunk (but again, that's life in the UK for you. If an American ever comments on the amount we drink, well you would drink if you lived here). All I can say is that I don't think many businesses are happy to have their board depicted as making business decisions blind drunk, so this is an interesting insight into the attitude of Birdseye in the early 1970s. Into the midst of all the empty bottles appears the Comparatively Good Fairy, who helps the board decide the sales targets for the salesman. Along with turning a few of the board into frogs of course.
Did I mention that this piece is absolutely wild?
We see the effect of the new target on a salesman, who had been dancing with abandon until then, and is terrified after hearing of the new target.
Next we have a very sxy bit of buxon ladies in bikinis. If I say that the camera only focuses on the bits contained by the bikini, you get the idea. This is Monty Python cast free from the constraints of television and allowed to go wild at a frozen food company's expense. I am absolutely certain that nobody who watched this actually got hold of the methods outlined for increasing their sales in 1971!
We return to the board room for a talk in characteristic style by Graham Chapman about how to grow peas. They ask a marketing man about how to do this. The marketing man comes into the board room with an interpreter because he speaks absolute gibberish, which I'm sure went down well with anyone who hated the marketing men.
We then move onto the familiar theme of Monty Python vox pops on the subject of peas, calling in all the familiar characters from theFlying Circus. Of course none of these is serious in the slightest and I can only repeat that this was a remarkably brave thing for Birdseye to do, albeit making them bang up to date.
You get the idea. This is genuinely Monty Python let loose and it's great.
Normally I like to be somewhat critical about eh programmes I blog about here, but honestly I don't have a criticism, I could watch this until the next Prime Minister resigns in about six months. I see online that there are a couple of reviews from people who feel that this isn't nearly as good as The Flying Circus, although those reviews don't tend to give a clear reason. Probably frozen peas as a theme for Monty Python doesn't appeal to them.
This is an excellent programme for anyone wishing for just a bit more Monty Python.
Since we're in Prime Minister Resignation Week perhaps it's a suitable occasion to have Mrs Thatcher quoting the Dead Parrot Sketch at Tory Party Conference.
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