"I’m not gonna lie to you, we’re gonna see some deeply messed up stuff," was how Steve Young prepped us for another clip from his private and extremely hard to find collection of industrial musicals. As was explained to us by Steve, these bizarre musicals came from major businesses wanting to show off their own products internally to employees. The amount of money, time and effort is other worldly as shows about subjects a banal as bathroom fixtures, linoleum and paper cups have full fledged musicals productions. Some are for one time productions for conferences, some recorded on small printings on records and others captured on film as some sort of evidence of something so mundane that it should never have been. For the next hour thirty we were trapped in this world. G-d I wanted the song about Purina Dog Food to end!
That's another great part of the musicals and why it's a part of Modernism Week, it's a time capsule of the 50's into the 70's. You can see the sense of style, attitudes towards women and men, and un-muted colors. It seems so upbeat and dated. So childish in the perception of what was allowed. And, a bit sexy sometimes or just plain freaky for trying to make Ford Tractors exciting.
Steve takes you through random clips, there isn't really a time based tour from the 50's into now, sort of an ever moving collection of what he thought we might laugh at.
He takes it all seriously though as he got to know the people behind all these musicals. It was the only way to find out more. You can see what started out as perhaps a bit for Letterman became a lifelong hobby for Young. I thank him for sharing it with us as much as I'll have strange nightmares he said I'd have after seeing such weird sights.
If you want to see some of the clips, but sadly you can't participate in the sing-a-longs like us, you can see the movie about the subject matter called Bathtubs Over Broadway.
