Monty Python

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Recession and the Mother of Invention

We probably don't need to tell you this -- in fact, you probably wish we wouldn't remind you -- but there seems to be pretty broad agreement from pretty much every corner that we're either about to enter a recession or worse. In either case, it may be bad but it isn't a catastrophe as long as its short-lived. Most of us have already lived through several recessions already, and a lot of us our parents or grandparents experienced something a whole lot worse in the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Still, a period of financial contraction means that designers like the ones who work at my product design firm are going to have start thinking a bit differently. Less expensive materials, more efficient use of those materials, and finding ways to build products using less labor. If we're really clever, maybe we can also find ways to marry reduced cost with more ecologically sustainable processes. And, as Bruce Nussbaum writes, it's an outstanding opportunity to innovate in economical ways and develop some career-building "cred." Perhaps not too surprisingly, such innovation occasionally becomes massively popular, but the history of such innovations isn't always pretty. Sometimes, the results aren't anything to write home about, either.

Most of you have probably heard something of the story of how, back in 1933, the new Chancellor of Germany,  Adolf Hitler, submitted drawings to Ferdinand Porsche for an inexpensive car that could be a "people's car" or volkswagen. Designer Erwin Komenda developed a strange new body design to go with the small car's efficient engine -- but the plan had to be scrapped to deal with the catastrophic world war that Hitler was setting into motion.

After the war, German industry couldn't afford to stand on ceremony or an excess of good taste, nor did their Allied occupiers want them to. The design for the car that would later become the iconic Volkswagen Beetle was utilized to help revive the devastated economy of post-war Germany, which had become a crucial bulwark in the West's Cold War battle with the Soviet Union. The fact that the little car had been set in motion by the most hated man of the 20th century was neither here nor there, and the VW Bug became a vehicle that was happily driven by millions of people, including ironically enough, many of the kind of freethinking creative folks who Hitler had dreamed of permanently removing from the earth.

Another product with an interesting connection with the war is Hormel's best known meat product, Spam. The creation of the product was a simple efficiency. Hormel had been selling canned ham, but that was just one part of the hog. Why not grind the inexpensive and otherwise useless pork shoulder meat into a ham-like product that could also be sold? Though Spam was first marketed in the 1920s, it didn't really take off worldwide until the war made canned meats an essential means of providing protein during war time shortages and other privations.

Spam became especially popular in the Pacific theater as a way of feeding American soldiers and their civilian allies. To this day, it remains a staple in Hawaii, Guam, and other Pacific islands, and despite a less than glamorous reputation in the U.S., is becoming an increasingly common ethnic staple. (Right now, you can get Spam musubi, a sushi-like combination of spam, sticky rice, and seaweed,  at any of the Hawaiian fast food restaurants proliferating all around Southern California.)

And, judging by Hormel's strange, campy, and entertaining Spam website, the company seems interested in claiming a hipper corner of the sandwich meat market. No longer does the company hide from the mockery its product took during a famous Monty Python sketch. Instead, it's offering a tie-ins on-line video game inspired by the Python-derived Broadway musical, Spamalot. This is another example of another kind of efficiency that's smart in any economic climate -- turning a liability into an asset by embracing it.

And then there's the tactic of using the material that you've already got on hand. We've always loved the legend of how marketing  super-guru Herschel Gordon Lewis launched his other claim to fame (well...notoriety) by basically inventing movie gore. The story goes that Lewis, who had already been dabbling in extremely downmarket films with "exploitable elements," found himself in 1963 with some left over stage blood from another film. Not wanting to waste a thing, he dreamed up the idea of using all of the leftover material in his next film, and therefore found himself a trailblazer in movie horror so nauseating that even the film geek writing this blog refuses to see them.

(The true story of the first splatter film is a bit more complicated but was another example of economy being the mother of invention. Since no one had ever made a gore film before, film censors had no real rules against it and so it was a relatively easy way to attract thrill-seeking young audiences -- however, none of the stage blood that Lewis found was realistic enough to be disturbing. Lewis and his colleagues developed a relative of the stage blood currently used in films -- a solution that was largely comprised of the sticky antidiarrheal medicine, Kaopectate. Innovation is not always pretty.)

Of course, occasionally a limitation can help creative folks create something that is slightly more artistic.  In the early 1980s, the now world-famous independent filmmaker Jim Jarmusch was just getting started. In that pre-digital video era, probably the single biggest obstacle to new filmmakers trying to make films was the high cost of the most basic raw material needed -- 16mm or 35mm film stock. Still, Jarmusch had obvious talent and Swiss filmmaker Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire) gifted him with some "short ends" -- portions of left over reels from Wenders' prior film. Jarmusch simply didn't have enough film to make anything very lengthy -- so he simply dropped the usual filmmaking strategy.

Each scene in his ultra-low-key comedy, Stranger than Paradise, is a single take, separated by black leader. There is no cutting in the usual sense. This bold movie required a great deal of cleverness in how the scenes were staged, which actually became a key part of the film's style and humor. The movie that resulted was, strangely enough, not a gigantic bore but an international hit which turned Jarmusch into the first truly well-known independent director for "arthouse" productions. Though he now works with big name actors like Johnny Depp and Bill Murray, Jarmusch still makes beautiful and somewhat strange films outside the usual Hollywood system...and he still doesn't use a lot of cuts. Waste not, want not.

About the Author

Bob Westal represents Nectar, an award winning product development consultancy and industrial design firm helping clients create products that connect to their users and expand their markets. For more information, please visit us at http://www.nectardesign.com

Who is your favorite Monty Python actor?

I think mine is Graham Chapman. And for those who will answer with only a"Monty Python SUCKS" I will tell you to stop that. You are being much too silly. Unacceptably silly.Stop it.

Mine is Graham Chapman..

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