Photo courtesy Steve Young
American-Standard plumbing fixture musical, "The Bathrooms Are Coming!", 1969
American-Standard plumbing fixture musical, "The Bathrooms Are Coming!", 1969
Steve Young has gained some insight into subjects he may not have anticipated throughout his career as a comedy writer. One of the avenues by which he has gained that insight has birthed a documentary, a book, and, most recently, a tour.
“Keep in mind that I’m a comedy writer, not an economist or a professional historian,” Young offers regarding the show he has put together, “The Weird Wonderful World of Industrial Musicals.” “I may not really know what I’m talking about. But I do believe that along the way I’ve picked up some wisdom, as well as detailed specs about Royal’s new Model 545 typewriter.”
Industrial musicals? No, the niche about which Young has amassed expertise enough to bring a deep dive into the topic to The Cooperage at 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 31 isn’t some sort of Stephen Sondheim/Einsturzende Neubauten grotesquery. Rooted in mid-20th century American prosperity and the idea that education and motivation can be effectively delivered via entertainment, the industrial musical can nonetheless be a thing of intriguing weirdness.
Young explains, “After World War II, the economy was booming, and Broadway musicals were mainstream entertainment. Somewhere around the early ‘50s a few smart corporate leaders realized, ‘Hey, we could have a whole Broadway-style show just for our own people, about the new product line and what a great year it’s gonna be. Oldsmobile seems to have been the first company to do a full-fledged sales meeting musical, in late 1953. Soon other companies were following suit.
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“Soon other companies were following suit. Industrial musicals were the hot new thing during the ‘50s. By the ‘60s, it was almost mandatory, to prove that your company was hip to the trend. But by the ‘70s, with the economy turning sour, and industrial shows no longer the novelty they’d been, the golden age was nearing its end. Also, to younger people entering the workforce, Broadway shows weren’t very cool.” This kind of musical, memorialized for convention attendees on LP records during their 1950s-‘70s heyday, persisted into the ‘90s. Filmed adaptations of some of those albums were also made and figure into Young’s “World.”
Photo courtesy Steve Young
Kellogg's sales meeting musical, 1973
Kellogg's sales meeting musical, 1973
Into the Act
He has even involved himself in at least one such upcoming feature. “Earlier this year I worked on a real industrial musical,” says Young, who has also in recent years written non-musical comedy pieces for brands including Ugly Stik fishing poles. “A production company got in touch and said they were going to try to convince a pharma company to do a musical opening for their big sales meeting, and would I like to help? Hell, yes, I would. I wrote lyrics and ended up being flown to San Diego to see the show. I’ve come full circle.”
The first of the 360 degrees Young has traversed came with an assignment for David Letterman’s late-night show. “When I joined the Letterman show’s writing staff in 1990, the head writer put me in charge of a comedy bit called Dave’s Record Collection. Dave Letterman would hold up real, unintentionally funny records, we’d hear an audio clip, and he’d have a quip. It was my job to go out and hunt down the strange records. We had success with badly singing celebrities and instructional records like Learn How to Touch Type.”
Photo courtesy Steve Young
GE Silicones album, 1973
GE Silicones album, 1973
His industrial musical epiphany came soon thereafter. Young recalls, “I started coming back from my buying trips with private pressing souvenir albums from company conventions and sales meetings. But rather than speeches, the records contained actual musicals. As in Broadway-style shows commissioned to be performed just for Chevy dealers or Keds sneaker salesmen. Some of them were as dismal as you’d expect, but I was shocked at how many were stunningly good. There were startling lyrics about the new products, the marketing plans, and how great it was to work at B.F. Goodrich or wherever, combined with catchy melodies, terrific production value, and amazing singers. I’d discovered an alternate universe of show business that the public wasn’t supposed to know about. It was a meta-level of comedy that surprised and entertained me ... and it was real.”
Young’s affection for the corporate parallel dimension of show tunes he discovered and the personal connections he made through it became the basis for his book, Everything's Coming Up Profits: The Golden Age Of Industrial Musicals and the documentary Bathtubs Over Broadway. The “Weird Wonderful World” tour allows Young to, among other things, recreate some of the music he has obtained.
“I quickly recount how I found the genre,” Young says of how his cooperage presentation will commence, “what it is, and hold up some of the rare albums. Then we dive into the even rarer world of the films. I have clips from ten filmed industrials, which I present with my affectionately snarky commentary. We go down the rabbit hole into insider-only musical infotainment from GE, American-Standard, Citgo, Purina Dog Chow, Kellogg’s, and more—even the ‘50s flop car, the Edsel. All exclusive to me, almost all not on the internet. I have amazing behind-the-scenes stories and funny anecdotes, and I also do one song live on guitar. It’ll be an hour and 45 minutes of brain-melting corporate strangeness.”
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Here's a brief preview of some of what Young will be sharing at The Cooperage...
