Industrial musicals

[paulg]

Just found out about this new book on NPR, "Everything's Coming Up Profits The Golden Age Of Industrial Musicals".
Got the book, it is way fun. I had no idea that these sales musicals existed to this degree.
Also check out their website "industrialmusicals.com" for some fun pix and songs.
I'm not affiliated with these authors are items at all but I know this audience would want to check this out.
Enjoy!

 

[nurdlinger]

I think this is an example of an "Industrial Musical&#34

I stumbled into it on YouTube. In addition to the cars, there are some Frigidaire appliances. Not laundry machines, but a Flair range and a dishwasher.

 

[paulg]

Great find!

That is a great catch. It indeed is an industrial musical! Thanks!

 

[rp2813]

Terry Gross did a whole hour of "Fresh Air" on these productions a month or two ago.  The oddest number of them all was titled "My Bathroom" for an American Standard sales convention.

 

When I worked for The Phone Company we had annual "Kickoff" conventions that lasted a couple of days every January, usually in Los Angeles.  The productions weren't as elaborate as what you'll find on the NPR site, but always included a pair of below-D-list comic MC's, faux stars "Dirk Manly" and "Blaine Bustier" who had a whole routine with sight gags worked up to take things through the day-long presentations.  They had to familiarize themselves with telco jargon, products and focus points to cleverly  include them in their act.

 

Those all stopped when the stodgy bottom line-focused cowboys from SBC took over.  From then on it was all about belt tightening to pay for their slew of mergers.

[this post was last edited: 2/1/2014-20:10]