An example of using ANSI escape codes to colorize output for Python shell scripts.

colorize.py

def purple(string):                                  
    return '\033[95m' + string + '\033[0m'
def blue(string):                                                               
    return '\033[94m' + string + '\033[0m'                                      
def green(string):                                                              
    return '\033[92m' + string + '\033[0m'                                      
def yellow(string):                                                             
    return '\033[93m' + string + '\033[0m'                                      
def red(string):                                                                
    return '\033[91m' + string + '\033[0m'

print purple("Barney said...")
print blue("I've got the blue text blues.")
print green("Good job, young grasshopper.")
print yellow("WARNING: You are about to do something stupid.")
print red("SNOWCRASH SNOWCRASH SNOWCRASH")