The Python Industrial Films
The Great Bird's Eye Frozen Pea Relaunch of 1971
The Adventures of the Close-Up Toothpaste Super Salesman
Biggles presents The Great Harmony Hairspray Relaunch
The Pythons, at their peak, recorded several industrial training films intended only to be shown to the executives and employees of Bird's Eye Frozen Peas, Close-Up Toothpaste, and Harmony Hairspray. I repeat, Industrial Training Films. The films would be educational for salesmen and marketers, but also showcase the Python sense of humor. Among the rarest of Python works, they were never intended to be seen by the public. Over 30 years later, here they are, and you can watch them all online.
The Bird's Eye film is by far the best of the films. It's also the longest - running about twenty minutes, and including a Terry Gilliam title drawing and scenes with Carol Cleveland. In lingerie. These productions were done entirely on film with a very tiny budget in or around the year of 1971. All the Pythons except for Terry Gilliam appear, doing riffs on James Bond, Biggles and more, all in the name of teaching a few unhappy industrial salesmen how to be better marketers. There are also a bunch of extras that aren't Pythons and whom I can't identify.
These films were never, of course, intended for the public, and have not been seen since. This early work probably inspired John Cleese's insanely lucrative Video Arts business training films. Enough said, on with the videos!
