The Pajama Game

The Pajama Game. George Abbot and Richard Bissell, book, from the novel 7½ Cents by Bissell. Richard Adler and Jerry Ross, music and lyrics. Original Broadway musical, opening 12 May1954. Film version USA: Warner, 1957.

"Mundane" musical comedy about a labor strike at a pajama factory, most relevant for two songs and associated action: "Racing with the Clock."[1] and "Think of the Time I Save."[2]

"Racing with the Clock" sets up the workers' view of a speedup at the pajama factory, where production is supervised by Vernon Hines, the plant efficiency expert. "Think of the Time I Save" is a humorous combination of brag and lament by Hines on his attempts to bring efficiency to his everyday life, including sleeping in his clothes, shaving in bed, and breakfasting on glop produced by throwing together in a bowl a raw egg, juice, and oatmeal.[3]. In the context of the play, the two songs give a gentle introduction to 1950s controversies of expansion into new industries of "scientific managagement" and what has been called "the Tayorization of work" — after Frederick W. Taylor, developer of the time/motion study and what was with Taylor a frankly totalitarian approach to relating human workers to their machines.[4] Cf. and contrast Y. Zamyatin's We.

Erlich, 25/V/15