American Standard - My Bathroom is a Private Kind of Place.

Today's ad comes to us from the bygone yestertime of 1949, when everything was all Art Deco and dramatically lit. Even the toilet ads got the Bogart treatment, what with the harsh side lighting. See?

Either this was part of the Deco fashion of the time or the photographer opened the door on a darkened room and caught a secretive toilet craftsman potterying up his latest masterpiece. Such drama. It's a toilet, guys. DOn't take it to seriously.

Of course, when you're a toilet company, there's a really strong impetus to be dead serious about toilets. And, when you're surrounded by coworkers whose livelihoods all depend on making toilets (and other plumbing stuff), the corporate culture gets quite profound.

Case in point: Any big company tends to have a big annual conference or sales meeting of some kind. It's the one opportunity for the executives to pretend they're rock stars. You know... they rent a hall in a hotel, build a stage with colored lights and projection screens and loud music and they get to pump their fists before a "mandatory attendance" crowd. At one of my many old jobs, I worked at a video post house / sweatshop where we shot and edited footage of these events. Or, sometimes we prepared segments to be projected on the huge screens during these meetings. It's kind of a tradition to take yourself very seriously, even if you make concrete or spray nozzles or toilets.

Well, back in The Fifties and such, before there was cheap and easy video footage, they used to do corporate live theater at sales meetings. This meant someone had to write musicals for corporate sales meetings. I guess this was where you start if you want to write for broadway. They had orchestras, costumes, sets, and everything. Somehow, they did all of this with a straight face.

Please behold this musical from a Chevy sales convention. Wowzers.

It gets better. Here's a song from an American Standard sales convention from 1960-something: "My Bathroom is a Private Kind of Place". In it, the woman waxes rhapsodic about her bathroom, and how it's the only place she feels truly free, I promise you I am not making this up. This was real. Listen for the key change at 1:24 when the song  really gets fervent.

Go, dear readers. Go and be free in your bathroom. Just don't make me listen while you free up.

Click for big.

P.S. Here's a great film about refrigerators that must have had them tearing up in the audience. "A spine-tingling new concept".