‘Bathtubs Over Broadway’ Showcases Music We Were Never Supposed To Hear [Video]
The Netflix documentary "Bathtubs Over Broadway" is a touching look into the world of Industrial Musicals, an obscure and phenomenal music genre full of incredible productions that the general public was never supposed to hear.
The documentary follows Steve Young, a comedy writer for the "LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN". As Steve was combing through record stores looking for material for a segment on the show, he found some strange Broadway-style production recordings that were marked "Internal Use Only" and "Not For Broadcast".
What Steve had just discovered was a genre of music and theater called "Industrial Musicals" and it changed his life.
From bathtubsoverbroadway.com -
"Bizarre cast recordings - marked 'internal use only' - revealed full-throated Broadway-style musical shows about some of the most recognizable corporations in America: General Electric, McDonald’s, Ford, DuPont, Xerox. Steve didn’t know much about musical theater, but these recordings delighted him in a way that nothing ever had."
Corporations would have these original Broadway-style productions for big company sales conventions to entertain and tech employees about their new products.
The quality, writing, and performances of these productions were so good they rivaled actual Broadway productions, and in many cases were actually written by famous Broadway producers.
I enjoyed this documentary so much I've it three times so far. If you're looking for something different and want to discover a musical universe you never knew existed, you should definitely check out "Bathtubs Over Broadway".
Below is a song considered to be one of the best Industrial Musical songs ever written. It's called "My Bathroom Is A Private Kind Of Place", written by Sid Siegel for an American-Standard production about...your bathroom.