Orson Welles - Frozen Peas 

I like how he's blowing a gasket over the script and directional quality of a goddamn frozen pea commercial.

I can't fathom how anyone lucky enough to hire Orson for a commercial wouldn't just say something like "We're selling frozen peas" and have him say whatever he wanted for as long as he wanted in any way he wanted.

"Tell me how you can say, 'In July,' and I'll go down on you." "In the depths of your ignorance, what is it you want?"

FULL OF COUNTRY GOODNESS AND GREEN PEANESS

"IN THE DEPTHS of your ignorance, what is it you want?" I don't think he ever recovered from that burn.

Rosebud... Yes, Rosebud Frozen Peas. Full of country goodness and green pea-ness. Wait that's terrible, I quit!

Artistic integrity to the last, whether or not the public misunderstands and mocks it for eterrnity. Here's to you, Orson Welles.

I don't understand people who are down on Welles over this. I'm right there with him, lol. It's hilarious.

"Crumb crisp coating" is a perfectly cromulent phrase.

"What is it you want...in the DEPTHS of your ignorance..what is it you want?" I love that. And then at the end he says "no money is worth this" and just walks out! EPIC

The late, great John Candy did a bit as Welles on SCTV once. He was the special guest on a Liberace Christmas Special. He tries to do a dramatic read of "Good King Wencesles" and starts getting agitated with the crew. He says the line "I wouldn't direct an actor in Shakespeare like this!" I never realized until now that the line comes from this recording! So hilarious that Candy had heard that and decided to reference it.

"This is alot of shit, you know that" Lost it

It's amazing that this recording even exists! How on earth did the producers of the ads manage to preserve it?

Full of country goodness and green peaness

A great man, probably one of the best directors of the 20th century reduced to doing adverts for frozen peas... How many movies was he able to get released during his career because of the effects of the Hollywood studio system? Just 13 ? Understand the frustration, understand the booze, understand the lack of cash - no wonder he wants to "over-direct" his own performance. Orson Welles was one of the saddest wastes of talent that the film industry has ever seen.

He's absolutely right, there is no way that sentence should be read as "IN July"

Twenty something years ago, I watched an episode of Animaniacs that parodied this recording. I was left confused and perplexed as to why this episode was funny. Only now, after learning about this recording just a little while ago do I understand that episode. God, what an obscure reference to base a cartoon show episode on... (Obscure for a kid, that is.)

"And remember, there's no fish stick like Mrs. Pell's."

Anyone else reminded of Frasier Crane?

Who's watching this IN JULY?

I love the bit where he says "I wouldn't direct any living actor like this in Shakespeare" and "You're such pests!".

I love Maurice LaMarche he's such an awesome voice actor

The voice actor for 'The Brain' always said this audio word for word to warm up in prep for his role... awesome.

you got to love a man like Orson Welles he was speaking his mind he realized he was surrounded by incompetence......

I admire Orson Welles for this. If more actors were like this (that is, willing to say "I'm not putting up with this bullshit" and walk out), maybe there wouldn't be as many terrible movies.

Oh my gosh! I finally understand that Animaniacts cartoon.

"Ohhhh crumb crisp coating"

"Impossible! Meaningless!" "He said it. YOUR FRIEND."

Imagine the movie industry today if people still had level of passion for their work, of course he's not going to read something that makes him sound illiterate.

really makes you feel sorry for him. An amazing filmmaker, versatile in almost every aspect of the medium, and he's reduced to this. quoting Welles "I started at the top and worked down..."

There will NEVER be another! If anyone has not read his biography, you should. A Genius! Love him! I wept the day he passed away!

It's the editing of this bit which makes it so great. Well timed and executed.

After watching some of his other commercials (and he did quite a few in the 70s and 80s), I find myself sympathizing entirely with Welles here: he didn't phone in a single one of those performances, he was just as professional about them than any personal passion project he'd have been doing at the time (especially since these gigs were meant to fund them). This is a professional actor, a good one, trying to do his best job and and getting pissed that the people who hired him are being less professional about it than he is. Imagine if YOUR boss was so bad at their job it made it so you couldn't do yours.

Orson Welles is one of the greatest actors of all time, and he can't say "crumb-crisp coating"!

We lost a treasure. This is hilarious.

i can now truly appreciate how pinky and the brain pay tribute to this great man. it all there!

This was quite honestly the saddest thing I have ever heard.

i love this. just hearing welles voice is worth it.thanks for posting

The best part is on every point of pushback he gives in this reading he is 100% correct.

Orson does have a point, snowy fields "in July" is ridiculous

Poor Orson, he really wanted to make the best out of everything he was ever involved in. There's not many like he was.

I can't but imagine Unicron listening to this

This is the genesis of many Orson Welles Jokes and impersonations!

Orson Welles was (and still is) awesome!

This inspired the Episode of "Pinky & the Brain" titled "Yes,Always"!

We know of a remote fjord in Norway...

Been in Radio 30 years. I feel this man’s pain. If you’re in Radio…you do too.

There was a Pinky & The Brain episode that was an almost word-for-word parody of this. A must see. Defend Welles if you want, but most professional actors I've met who have to read a script, read it before recording actually takes place so that they know how to pronounce everything and can resolve any disputes without wasting tape.

Welles was a craftsman and a great one. If you hire a carpenter to build a wardrobe you don't tell him how to bang nails in! Especially if you have absolutely no idea what you're doing - and if you do, you can expect him to pack up his tools and leave. the reason he was there in the first place was because of who he was - its called talent.

I love this man with all my heart.

@whendovescry2000 You speak so true. Mr. Welles (towards the end of his life) once said that he regretted going from the "best ever" to just "hustling" for a living. Such a great artist and great intellect.

I love this sound clip. Welles may sound bitter or like a diva but every point he makes is valid

He’s is also correct in regard to, “crumb crisp coating”, it should read, “crisp, crumb coating”. In order to say, “in July”, one would have to say something to qualify it, such as; “only in July” or “in July and no other time” or “in July, in fact, every July”

This is hilarious! Orson Welles was very hard to direct. You gentlemen are over your heads!

Great artists often go commercial to fund their own pet projects. Welles' genius remains uncompromised.

how can you not love this guy?

What makes this even more fun is to turn on CC, click the Transcribe Audio Beta and then press play, sit back and enjoy.

No matter how many times I hear this, it cracks me up.

You are the writer, director and star of what is considered to be the greatest movie ever made; Along with among other masterpieces of fine theatre. Your oration is considered the most distinguished in the entire entertainment industry. You give a company some of your coveted time to lend your sacred voice for a voice over. When you arrive, they damn well better provide you a coherent script and listen to your input on improvements.

Thanks Nerdonomy for making realize this was a real thing. I new the wine ads were real, I thought the Peas commercial was fake.

All that talk of food must have made old Orson hungry! Those pea commercials were more exciting than his other stuff. A little Orson goes a long way. His long movies just put me to sleep.

I love that he’s tearing apart the clumsy copy the whole time. “Crumb crisp coat-teeng”

"You didn't say it. HE said it. YOUR FRIEND." @ 1:36 This is a treasure.

every time i listen to this, i'm like "HE WAS WASTED AND HE WAS RIGHT"

In the words of GLaDOS, this would be funny if it weren't so sad. He was a great man, with a once-promising career reduced to... this.

Leave Orson alone people. :( he's human! who knows how long he was in the recording room you know? I appreciate that the people were respectful to him. In the recording studio.

Oh, Boy! Orson tears a new one to this producer. What did he expect? Writers offering such tripe for a spot. Tape operators & audio leaks, bloody classic material here!

Awesome voice. He was meant to be Vaders voice, but lucas was afraid, Orsons voice would be too recognisable. Still he would be awesome, even if JEJ did flawless job.

hahahaha!! what a diva! He's right though...I mean if I was a food executive and honored enough to have Orson Wells in my ad...I would bend over backwards and let him take over and do whatever he wanted. Orson Wells should be the new Chuck Norris

This is a compilation for several ads he was doing in one session . So as listened to here he is not jumping around, its been edited to create to include the best parts.

What's funny is that Pinky and the Brain did a parody episode of this using the exact same dialogue

This is just incredible. It's hilarious and incredible.

Told from an infinite number of perspectives, the ground-breaking commercial centers on the quest for the meaning of Jan Stengelen's last words: "IN July". Jan Stengelen is played by Akim Tamiroff and Mrs. Buckley by Jeanne Moreau, with Joseph Cotten in a non-speaking role - a first for radio. For you trivia buffs, Gore Vidal tells us that "prairie-fed BEEF" was Hearst's nickname for the Jolly Green Giant's private parts.

It is ever so sad. One of the most brilliant actor, writer, director of the 20th century whose value diminished to copy reading. This is what the Hollywood machine does to talent and genius. And today we create stars from home porno movies, reality shows and one hit films.

The sad thing is that Welles's career was so much in the toilet he even had to do this commercial. And he still took it seriously.

While Welles was an infamous prima donna, you kinda have to feel for his position here. Due to the lack of appeal for refined acting, the former major actor was reduced to voice roles for cheap badly written commercials like these, and to add insult to injury, the director was actually criticizing HIS English. You can hear his voice cracking on the verge of breaking down by the end it's that frustrating a position.

GOOD WORK GREEN! I never new Negativland did one. I'm so tracking that down right now.

It's both funny and sad, because he's right, and they just can't see it even though he's telling them. Also, it really does remind me, like everyone else, of when they parody it in the Critic. "Rosebud frozen peas. Full of country goodness and green peaness. Wait, this is terrible. I quit!"

OMG this cracks me up everytime i watch it.

I like that he critiques the advertisement.

He's fantastic

I think Orson performed a bit of magic before sitting down to read this.

The closed captioning makes this even better.

God bless you Orson.

He didn't have to do this, he had a fishstick commercial in an hour but then he realised he needed the money and said "What the hell."

"Stick it, IN, your posterior". Orson Welles 🎥🎬💸🍷

Orson Welles was a genius, I don't blame him for trying to direct a frozen peas commercial. It's what he did, and he did it better than anyone.

"This is a lot of SHIT, you know that." I can actually smell the hate in his voice when he says that. L O freakin' L.

I recommend the beach boy recording sessions with their father. Hilarious.

It's so brilliant because he's absolutely right. God I love Orson.

this guy made the single most well known radio broadcast ever and the single greatest American film and he's doing commercials for peas and hamburgers?

When Orson Welles speaks, do whatever he tells you.

A. If he'd played along we wouldn't have this fantastic clip B. He's right, they're talking rubbish!

Wells should have voiced the ad as his Hank Quinlan character from 'Touch of Evil'.

Wait, he ACTUALLY DID a frozen peas commercial?

"We're talking about them growing, and she's picked them." LOL

Get me a jury! And a big dish of peas...

Difficult to say, because although his techniques lived on and are still present in cinema today, his style wasn't really duplicated after he stopped directing since the revisionist directors of the 50s, and 70s, gave more stylistic influences. I do think though that most Welles influence in modern cinema comes in the form of cinematography rather then style. Especially when it comes to close ups and lighting in modern cinema.

Best outtake ever! When Orson walked into the studio to record the Transformers movie, they were afraid of him. >:)

@shnoepie1 Your comparing "lets light up another one" Tarantino to Welles?