This looks like a corporate film from Tupperware. It's well made. It's a slice of the world, a world of old style manufacturing and corporate sales cult. It starts from the dinosaur to the petrochemical plant to the manufacturing plant to the salespeople. It's fun to see this nice little time capsule.
10 Reviews
I hope I'm invited
JohnSeal28 January 2011
Warning: Spoilers
Wow. You may think this is going to be another boring industrial film--and indeed it is for the first twenty minutes--but then orange juice pitch person and anti-gay activist Anita Bryant shows up. And she belts out an absolutely AMAZING song all about Tupperware: "we're having a party...a Tupperware party..." Next, some guy who looks a bit like Jerry Lewis comes on and sings a version of Hello Dolly with new Tupperware-themed lyrics. There's also brief footage of Tupperware facilities around the globe, most of which, of course, have long since closed, including one in Wigan, Lancashire, which shut down in the late '80s. Oh sure, there's lots of blather about how, thanks to the miracle of plastics, Tupperware is keeping food fresher for longer, but who cares. We want Anita! We want Anita!
"Tupperware quality is not an accident!"
classicsoncall18 May 2014
Warning: Spoilers
I'm a sucker for these film shorts that appear with some regularity on Turner Classics, so when I saw the title "The Wonderful World of Tupperware", I made it a point to set the alarm for 4:30 A.M so I could catch an early morning screening. I can't say this was very much entertaining per se, but it was definitely informative, down to the excruciating detail of how various bowls and other containers are painstakingly developed and reworked to produce a widely used household convenience. The narrative really brought this home when it got into elements like melt, weight and specific gravity, while I'm sitting there thinking - Come on - it's a plastic bowl for heaven's sake.
But you know what, the producers of this film didn't examine this thing with a critical eye when it was completed. Back in 1959 when this was made, and the tupperware industry was basically still in it's infancy, the assembly lines and machinery depicted already looked old and rusty. Can you imagine something like this coming out today? I think it would have killed the product to see it made with those kind of conditions present.
And lest the reader think that this experience was somewhat boring, the production wraps up with a hilarious depiction of a national Jubilee Sales Convention with entertainers Anita Bryant and Johnny Desmond singing the praises of Tupperware! I'm not making this up folks. If the songs weren't parodies of already existing songs ('My Momma Done Told Me' in Bryant's case), they might have gone Top 40. It finally all made sense to me when I stopped to consider that Dustin Hoffman was given some real valuable advice a few years later in "The Graduate", when the career guidance he was given was 'plastics'.
But you know what, the producers of this film didn't examine this thing with a critical eye when it was completed. Back in 1959 when this was made, and the tupperware industry was basically still in it's infancy, the assembly lines and machinery depicted already looked old and rusty. Can you imagine something like this coming out today? I think it would have killed the product to see it made with those kind of conditions present.
And lest the reader think that this experience was somewhat boring, the production wraps up with a hilarious depiction of a national Jubilee Sales Convention with entertainers Anita Bryant and Johnny Desmond singing the praises of Tupperware! I'm not making this up folks. If the songs weren't parodies of already existing songs ('My Momma Done Told Me' in Bryant's case), they might have gone Top 40. It finally all made sense to me when I stopped to consider that Dustin Hoffman was given some real valuable advice a few years later in "The Graduate", when the career guidance he was given was 'plastics'.
This live-action horror short no doubt served as the inspiration for . . .
oscaralbert8 December 2018
Warning: Spoilers
. . . many if not all of the flicks in Hollywood's plastic STEPFORD WIVES genre. Though "A Biography of Plastic Pellets" may appear to start out a little "slow" for some viewers, we can all agree that it reaches a high-intensity fever pitch when a character straight out of ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW struts to a stage in front of a thousand geriatric plastic pushers enjoying their annual "Jubilee," and proceeds to spoof a mercenary "Miss America" type by warbling corporate jingles with her farcical cracked "dramatic" stylings, as if Beauty Pageants existed for the sole purpose of churning out mealy-mouthed Big Business shills. During the build -up to this horrifying "Graduation Ceremony" (complete with an ill-performed Black Sabbath-like parody of "Pomp and Circumstance"), a pompous narrator--faithfully mimicking the feigned awe-struck solemnity of in-house propaganda productions from the 1900s--extols the virtues of robots pervading the work place. If anyone ever "sang the body electric" in a more reverent tone, I have yet to hear it. Of course, during this send-up of lame-brain corrupt corporate strategy, it never occurs to the writers of this stilted narration that when all the workers are replaced by robots, robots are unlikely to buy the plastic junk which they are producing. They're too smart!
Has anyone else ever noticed that the lids never snap on as securely . . .
pixrox117 November 2020
Warning: Spoilers
. . . after a container's 100th (or especially 1,000th) use as when you tried it out at the party? How does the customer profit from their glib sales hostess "graduating" from a week-long Group-Think indoctrination session climaxed by C-List Celebrities cranking out corporate versions of a distant decade's popular show tunes? Will some bogus "Pomp and Circumstance" hocus pocus reduce the amount of food particles clinging as a permanent stain inside each of these high-priced bits of plastic? People get what they pay for, and if you are shelling out extra Big Bucks for a song and dance devoted to "Quality Control" when you're actually underwriting a hush-hush slush fund for extravagant corporate shenanigans, then welcome to THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF TUPPERWARE.
Would YOU rather be invited to a party for . . .
tadpole-596-91825619 July 2021
Warning: Spoilers
. . . Avon, Amway, Tupperware or Rosemary's Baby? Before you decide, let me point out a few salient facts. (Just because one of my aunts was born an authentic "Tupper," this connection has NOT provided me with any "inside information," as her Christian name was NOT "Rosemary.") About halfway through this epic industrial film, the narrator points out that the TUPPERWARE folks have 18 times more computing power at their disposal than NASA was and would be devoting to their upcoming lunar missions. Perhaps if the Tuppers had been more patriotic in sharing their cyber riches, America would not have lost the three-man crew of Apollo One, nor the moon for Apollo 13!
Interesting & kitschy
apknit1411 June 2022
Having had Tupperware in my kitchen all my life I found this short film interesting to watch for the production footage. The last part got kitschy with homophobe Anita Bryant singing about Tupperware. I found it entertaining overall.
1965? It seems older
tles730 June 2019
It is listed as from 1965 but when they show the cars in the parking lot, the cars are from the 1950s. Maybe in those days, their employees could only afford 10 year old cars. Another poster, obviously very young, was complaining of the sexism. Of course, there is sexism, it is a product of its time. That's the world of 60 years ago. It is an historical curio. It even has Anita Bryant in it...a singer and Florida orange juice spokesperson who was nationally famous because of her outspoken hatred of homosexuality. Also, why would anyone buy Tupperware when they could buy all the cheaper stuff that is like Tupperware and just as good., as a poster writes? Because in those days....there were no other products like it. It was a patented monopoly at that time.
The Journey Of A Thousand Miles Begins With A Single Step
boblipton15 June 2019
Given that Tupperware is culturally significant because it was an entry point for middle-class housewives into the business of selling to other women -- a model that was already in use by Avon cosmetics, it's noteworthy that we don't see see a woman until ten minutes into this industrial short -- assuming that the cartoon dinosaur is a boy. After that, the number of women on display -- ordinary-looking, often middle-aged women, not glamor models -- increases steadily: running industrial machines, inspection for quality control, packing and shipping. Heavy lifting i and driving trucks is still left to men. It all ends with a party for the leading saleswomen, where they sexually assault a male entertainer.
The change in cultural attitudes, from the 1950s, when the idea of a lady in her home, raising children, supported by her husband's job was not all of it. My mother was a full-time housewife, which was a lot of work, with a daughter and two sons. She also worked a second, unpaid job as a volunteer at a VA hospital.
However, if that was some sort of ideal, it never fit every situation and set of desires, and selling Tupperware -- or Avon cosmetics -- was a way for suburban women to earn their own money. It wasn't third-wave feminism, but it was a start.
The change in cultural attitudes, from the 1950s, when the idea of a lady in her home, raising children, supported by her husband's job was not all of it. My mother was a full-time housewife, which was a lot of work, with a daughter and two sons. She also worked a second, unpaid job as a volunteer at a VA hospital.
However, if that was some sort of ideal, it never fit every situation and set of desires, and selling Tupperware -- or Avon cosmetics -- was a way for suburban women to earn their own money. It wasn't third-wave feminism, but it was a start.
Sexist
gkeith_125 September 2016
Warning: Spoilers
Sexist. Men running most machines. Women inspecting finished product. Women party plan. Machine men must have made lots more $$$$$$ than lowly female inspectors.
Party plan: Housewives indeed. Married to their homes. Homemaker not used much yet. Women cooked and preserved food. Men just ate, belched, passed gas and complained. Did Dad babysit while Mama was at the party? No. He didn't know how. He was out bowling with the boys, er, really out cavorting with hookers from the bowling alley.
Was the head of Tupperware jealous of sharing his company leadership with a female executive of the era (an anomaly, I know)? (Not in this film, but still ... ). Probably so. Maybe he figured she should stay at home and be another unhappy little wifey.
Pressure was put upon women to not just attend Tupperware parties, but to spend tons of money there. Plus, the more products a "housewife" (read 'slave') purchased, the more free gifts she could get. I have a giant green genu-wine Tupperware bowl I got several decades ago (new; not thrift shop). It's still around. I used it for a dog watering bowl.
Tupperware's white bowls get old-looking, yellow/gray and dirty-looking; not at all attractive.
Some cheaper store-bought storage containers work almost as well. Dollar store knockoffs aren't so bad, either.
1950s: Mother attended Stanley Home Parties. You could get a free metal ashtray by attending, or maybe it was a cheap prize for winning one of those dumb party word games.
This film: Mustang car not around in 1959. Neither was Hello Dolly, as someone said. Jerry Lewis guy, indeed. Did he and Anita Bryant each get a new Mustang, or even a lifetime supply of Tupperware?
Party plan: Housewives indeed. Married to their homes. Homemaker not used much yet. Women cooked and preserved food. Men just ate, belched, passed gas and complained. Did Dad babysit while Mama was at the party? No. He didn't know how. He was out bowling with the boys, er, really out cavorting with hookers from the bowling alley.
Was the head of Tupperware jealous of sharing his company leadership with a female executive of the era (an anomaly, I know)? (Not in this film, but still ... ). Probably so. Maybe he figured she should stay at home and be another unhappy little wifey.
Pressure was put upon women to not just attend Tupperware parties, but to spend tons of money there. Plus, the more products a "housewife" (read 'slave') purchased, the more free gifts she could get. I have a giant green genu-wine Tupperware bowl I got several decades ago (new; not thrift shop). It's still around. I used it for a dog watering bowl.
Tupperware's white bowls get old-looking, yellow/gray and dirty-looking; not at all attractive.
Some cheaper store-bought storage containers work almost as well. Dollar store knockoffs aren't so bad, either.
1950s: Mother attended Stanley Home Parties. You could get a free metal ashtray by attending, or maybe it was a cheap prize for winning one of those dumb party word games.
This film: Mustang car not around in 1959. Neither was Hello Dolly, as someone said. Jerry Lewis guy, indeed. Did he and Anita Bryant each get a new Mustang, or even a lifetime supply of Tupperware?
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