Post - WWII , behind closed doors in the United States ' bustle about business , a rum scrap of showbiz was endure : the industrial musical comedy . These lavish show were put on to boost the morale of a workforce while imparting make platitudes . If you ’ve never hear of industrial musicals , you ’re in good company . None of these luxuriant productions were ever entail to be realise by the public , even though the originative psyche behind them had name that lit up Broadway .
Why would companies put on shows for employees who’d probably rather see a bonus?
In today ’s less unassailable economy , an using up like a musical seems downright gauche . In the circumstance of post - war America , however , the atmosphere was quite different , largely because of the surging economic system , which was help the melodic theatre of operations industry know its own bonanza . Productions likeWest Side Story , Damn Yankees , andGuys and Dollsachieved mass popularity and made it to the silver screen . Corporate America comment and figured that shows tailor - made for their companies would have similar appeal . What better mode to liven up stodgy industry upshot than to put on a big , run around show made by bona fide author , performer , and instrumentalist ?
What proletarian got were shows like this one from the mid-1950s , put on for the Chevrolet sales force ( never heed the guy at 2:24 celebrate his grandmother ’s curvy physique ):
Who Produced These Shows?
The intellection of " selling out " did n’t vex the gifted and well - known theatre professionals who put on these shows — they were felicitous to take the chore . hoi polloi like Kander and Ebb ( Chicago , Cabaret ) and Bock and Harnick ( Fiddler on the Roof ) write industrial musicals laud the virtues of General Electric , Oldsmobile , Coca - Cola , and more . This illustrious pool of natural endowment wrote call that could have easily choke for traditional musical theater telephone number , had they not been about lightbulbs or family unit saloon .
The 1966 industrial musicalGo Fly a Kite , presented by General Electricand write by John Kander , Fred Ebb , and Walter Marks , was performed at that twelvemonth ’s Electric Utility Executives Conference . It sport the catchy song " PDM Can Do , " about the exciting world of powerfulness distribution direction :
It ’s not well-fixed to retrieve stuff from these show , but bits and pieces are out there , including this gloriously weird ( and plane - out politically incorrect ) short movie made for Dodge starring the great musical satirist and scientist Tom Lehrer ( author of " The Elements,“sung here by Daniel Radcliffe ):
observe the Dodge - well-disposed jabs at their self-propelled competitors : " Only squares today take a Chevrolet ! "
The Bathrooms Are Coming!
Sometimes , industrial musicals were downright bizarre . InEverything ’s Coming Up net income : The Golden Age of Industrial Musicals , authors Sport Murphy and Steve Young let on rare lyric and promotional material for heaps of these show , include the 1969 American - Standard production , The Bathrooms Are Coming!,which featured catchy tunes about privy . Murphy tell that Young recently found a full - duration photographic film ofBathroomsand key out it as " fascinatingly embarrassing . " This is for sure plain when you consider the privacy of your unremarkable stool while listen to the ballad"My Bathroom . "
The secure resource for industrial musical media is the companion land site forEverything ’s Coming Up Profits , which sport a handful of songs and links to even more on iTunes . The book is a wealth of info about this genre of shows and discusses the many placeable name regard . A pre - Brady BunchFlorence Henderson got her start in industrial musical theater as well as Ernie Cefalu , whose album design for the International Paper Company showDolls Alive!led to his later work , the Rolling Stones’Forty Lickscover .
Murphy says that we outsider are not the only ones who might find the industrial musical musical genre a little number nonsensical . These show were really meant to serve as a " pressure valve " for everyone from the chief executive officer to the workers on gathering lines , provide some " gentle ribbing " that was just ego - cognizant enough to make it easier to front each other in the eyes at merging .
The Death of the Industrial Musical
Like many fads , the industrial musical theater faded . Rather than go through the trouble of betray a whole show , celebrity appearances became the best-loved corporate attractor , a practice that has survived , but now can bemet with underage dirt and resentment . But fans of nostalgia , musicals , and good ol' American industrial might should be tickled to larn about this queerly glamourous mid - century movement .
