Frozen Peas
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- This article concerns an audio clip featuring Orson Welles. For the food, see pea.
Frozen Peas is the colloquial term for a blooper audio clip wherein American filmmaker Orson Welles performs narration for a series of British television advertisements for Findus. Welles reads scripts for commercials concerning frozen peas, fish fingers and beef burgers, all the while balking at their quality. While the commercials' director and producer attempt to convince Welles to complete the recordings, Welles becomes insulted by their suggestions, eventually giving up and leaving the studio.
It is uncertain when the clip was recorded, though many believe it was after the late 1960s, when the director was blacklisted from Hollywood largely due to the commercial failure of most of his films combined with an arguably ill-founded reputation for erratic un-cooperative behaviour, which this clip certainly did nothing to diminish.
Because of Welles' candid, vulgar attitude, the clip is often considered humorous, and indicative of Welles' notorious ego and temper. It circulated around small groups of people during the 1980s before gaining worldwide attention after play on radio shows shortly after the director's death in 1985.
The clip is also informally known as In July, or Yes, Always, based on several of Welles' complaints during the recording. The tape has been parodied many times, often used in conjunction when parodying Welles himself. The most notable among these parodies are from animated series The Critic, Animaniacs, and Pinky and the Brain, which feature caricatures of Welles or a Welles-like character (The Brain) reciting lines similar to that of the clip. The version portrayed in The Critic features Welles' lips whispering "Rosebud" a la Citizen Kane, before the shot pans out to reveal Welles at a table, with a plate of Rosebud Frozen Peas he is advertising. He is tricked into describing their "green pea-ness (penis)," becomes disgusted, and walks offscreen to eat the peas (as well as a french fry he finds in his beard). In another episode, Welles inappropriately hawks "Mrs. Pell's Fish Sticks" during a living will reading, and walks off the set eating them ("Oh, yes, they're better raw!") [Later in the episode, Welles appears again in a ghostly visitation, and comments about them again, moaning with pleasure, "Yes, oh, yes! They're even better when you're dead!"] Both parodies feature voice actor Maurice LaMarche. LaMarche is known to parody the "frozen peas" tape before recording sessions as a warm up (a "kid friendly" version of his parody can be heard in the special features of Comic Book: The Movie).
In the recording session, Welles complains about the poor quality of the script he is required to read and, in particular, requests from the producer that he emphasize certain words in a way Welles feels is awkward and conversationally incorrect, most notably the request that he begin a descriptive sentence with the words "In July", with the stress given to the word in. "Come on, fellas, you're losing your heads! I wouldn't direct any living actor like this in Shakespeare," he says at one point. Although the recording is used as an example of Welles' temperament, many of his criticisms are considered valid.
A similar recording exists of Doctor Who actor Tom Baker complaining during the recording of a radio advertisement for a furniture company, although most of his comments involve poking fun at the material, the pronunciation of certain words, and the producer of the commercial.
With the advent of the Internet, MP3s of the clip have been widely circulated on the Web.
[edit] Transcript
Below is a transcript of the complete "Frozen Peas" tape, as found on several Internet sites.
Part One: Frozen Peas
Orson Welles: “We know a remote farm in Lincolnshire, where Mrs. Buckley lives. Every July, peas grow there.” Do you really mean that?
Director 1: Uh, yes, so in other words, I–I–I’d start half a second later.
Welles: Don’t you think you really want to say “July” over the snow? Isn’t that the fun of it?
D 1: It’s–if–if you can (laughs) if you can make it almost when that shot disappears, it’ll make more–
Welles: I think it’s so nice that–that you see a snow-covered field and say “every July peas grow there”. “We know a remote farm in Lincolnshire, where Mrs. Buckley lives. Every July, peas grow there.” We aren’t even in the fields, you see? (pause) We’re talking about them growing and she’s picked them. (clears throat) What?
D 1: …every July.
Welles: I don’t understand you, then. When must–what must be over for “July”?
D 1: Uh, when we get out of that snowy field–
Welles: Well, I was out! We were onto a can of peas, a big dish of peas when I said “in July”.
D 1: Oh, I’m sorry, Orson.
Welles: Yes, always. I’m always–past that!
D 1: Yes…
Welles: Yes! Wh–that’s about where I say “in July”.
Director 2: Can you emphasize a bit “in”? “In July.”
Welles: Why? That doesn’t make any sense. Sorry. There’s no known way of saying an English sentence in which you begin a sentence with “in” and emphasize it. Get me a jury and show me how you can emphasize “in July” and I’ll… go down on you. That’s just idiotic, if you’ll forgive me by saying so.
D 2: (indistinct chatter)
Welles: That’s just stupid. “In July”? I’d love to know how you emphasize “in” in “in July”… Impossible! Meaningless!
D 1: I think all they were thinking about was that they didn’t want to–
Welles: He isn’t thinking.
D 1: Orson, can we just do one last time–
Welles: Yeah.
D 1: …and it was my fault. I should–I said “in July”. If you could leave “every July”–
Welles: You didn’t say it. He said it.
D 1: …I said “every July”.
Welles: Your friend. “Every July”?
D 1: …so after this shot…
Welles: No, you don’t really mean “every July”?
D 1: …it is, but it’s…
Welles: But that’s–that’s bad copy. It’s in July. Of course it’s every July! There’s too much directing around here.
Part Two: Fish Fingers
Welles: Norway. Fish finger, nor, Findus, Norway. “We know a certain fjord in Norway, near where the cod gather in great shoals. There, Jan Stan–, Stangdilan,” shit!
D 1: A fraction more on the–on that shoals thing, ‘cause you rolled it round very nicely.
Welles: Yeah, roll it round and I have no more time. You don’t know what I’m up against. Because it’s full of–of–of things that are only correct because they’re grammatical, but they’re tough on the ear. You see, this is a very wearying one, it’s unpleasant to read. Unrewarding. “Because Findus freeze the cod at sea and then add a crumb, crisp…” ooh, “crumb, crisp coating.”
D 1: (indistinct chatter)
Welles: Ah, that’s tough. “Crumb, crisp coating.”
D 2: (indistinct chatter)
Welles: I think, no, because of the way it’s written, you need to break it up because it’s not–it’s not as conversationally written. What?
D 1: Take “crumb” out.
D 2: (sounds like) That’s the word.
Welles: Take “crumb” out. Good.
Part Three: Beef Burgers
Welles: Here under protest is “beef burgers.” “We know a little place in the American Far West, where Charlie Briggs chops up the finest prairie-fed beef and tastes…” This is a lot of shit, you know that? You want one more?
D 2: (sounds like) Have you got–
Welles: More on “buck beef”?
D 1: You–you missed the first “beef”, actually completely.
Welles: What do you mean, missed it?
D 1: You–you’re emphasizing “prairie-fed”–
Welles: But you can’t emphasize “beef”, that’s like he’s wanting me to emphasize “in” before “July”. Come on, fellas, you’re losing your heads! I wouldn’t direct any living actor like this in Shakespeare! Will you do this, it’s impossible!
D 1: Orson, you did six last year, and by far and away the best, and I know the–the reason–
Welles: The right reading for this is the one I’m giving it!
D 1: At the moment.
Welles: I spent… twenty times more for you people than any other commercial I’ve ever made. You are such pests! Now, what is it you want?
D 1: Now, I think–
Welles: In your depths of your ignorance, what is it you want? Whatever it is you want, I can’t deliver it because I just don’t see it.
D 1: That was absolutely fine, it really was.
Welles: Here, you– (crumples script, stands up) This isn’t worth it. No money is worth listening to… (leaves studio)
