An intermittent segment on David Letterman's late night TV talk * comedy show was Dave's Record Collection; in it, Letterman would hold up the cover of and crack wise about unusual, lame and/or retrospectively ridiculous used albums purchased by one of his staffers from New York City record shops. Its results were, to my sense of humor, often hilarious. Do you recall any of these segments on Letterman's show?

If you watched and took note of the last album Letterman lambasted in the clip with the previous question, you'll recall it's a romantic- sounding tune about the specialness of a woman's bathroom and her time therein. "My Bathroom" derives from the soundtrack of The Bathrooms Are Coming!, a musical originally produced only for attendees of a 1969 corporate event for the American Standard plumbing fixtures company. That production is an example of what's called industrial musicals, musical productions intended to motivate and inspire companies' sales forces and other employees. They were produced for big companies of many types from at least the mid-1960's to the early 1980's. Before starting this survey, were you aware of industrial musicals?

It was Steve Yong,. the Letterman show writer responsible for finding the LP's used in the clip with the first question, who pioneered greater awareness of industrial musicals via his work with Letterman and the book he co-wrote about the the phenomenon once he caught the bug for collecting their soundtracks and, probably rarer than the records, films of those musicals: Everything's Coming up Profits-The Golden Age of Industrial Musicals. Have you ever collected anything about which you became so passionate that you wanted to share your enthusiasm,. even if you didn't write a book about it?

As Young's interest in industrial musicals grew, he got to know many of the people involved in making them, including actors and songwriters and composers who would work in the field between assignments for work in Hollywood and on Broadway. his interest in the musical and relationships he from it became the basis for the documentary Bathtubs Over Broadway. I've yet to view it, but thinks a great subject for a doc'. You as well?

The weirdness industrial musicals lies,, if it need be addressed by now, is the contrast of what could in other circumstances be a production from Rogers & Hammerstein or Stephen Sondheim (or whomever may be responsible for stage and screen musicals nowadays), but with lyrics extolling bathroom fixtures, cars,, calculators, pet food, paper products, etc.. Based on the talk I saw Steve Young give about them and the 69 tracks contained on the triple-CD set of ditties from industrial musicals I purchased from Young after his event., many of their best songs, when intentionally funny. have the same kinds of wit and melodic hooks of older school comedic musicians and musical comedians like Stan Freberg and Allan Sherman. I'm glad that the underground of industrial musicals has been excavated and exposed to a broader public. How about you?