The Wonderful World of Chemistry - DuPont - 1964 New York World's Fair

I never saw this exhibit, but I found the record years later in a resale shop and fell in love with the lyrics:

"That's why we can tell you we are all enthusiastics about the very significant, truly magnificent Happy Plastics Family!"

"You know we all have a smile on that started with nylon and stretches across each happy face!"

"Every day that we are living is such a thrill that we can't stay nonchalant! Better Things For Better Living are coming still - that's the promise of DuPont!"

What could be better?

Written and produced by Michael Brown
Music and lyrics by Michael Brown
The Norman Paris Orchestra
The David Carter Singers
With Mark McCrary, Joyce Maret, Pat Stevens, Brent Hickman, and Ted Sprague

Download the entire show:

http://www.archive.org/details/TheWonderfulWorldOfChemistry-Dupont-1964NewYor...

If you're curious about whatever happened to Corfam:

The Wonderful World of Chemistry was actually about all sorts of DuPont products. As smiley actors and actresses sang "The Happy Plastic Family," audience members sat in Antron-Fabrilite chairs on Nylon carpets, watching the performers in front of a Mylar curtain. But Corfam, a new synthetic leather, was the star of the show. Promoted as having the feel and durability of leather, Corfam shoes also were water-repellent and were supposed to never need shining - attributes that inspired DuPont to proclaim that soon 25 percent of America's footwear would be made of Corfam. But then the other shoe dropped: The plastic was so unyielding that you could never, ever, break in a pair of Corfam shoes. People hated 'em. After seven years, DuPont told its wonder shoe to take a walk, at a cost of $100 million.
.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• The
• Wonderful
• World
• of
• Chemistry
• DuPont
• 1964
• New
• York
• World's
• Fair
• industrial
• musical

[jerryg1964]

Immortalized by They Might Be Giants:

All alone at the 64 World's Fair

Eighty dolls yelling "Small girl after all"

Who was at the DuPont pavilion?

Why was the bench still warm? Who had been there?

Curious about why they would want to mention "de Nemours & Company" in the song? It's not like they ever mentioned it anywhere ... just DuPont

[boinx1234]

@jerryg1964

Cool - never knew that.

[boinx1234]

geofffox

Oh my God! I was there and this was my FAVORITE exhibit.

I was obsessed with it. Growing up a mile from Flushing Meadows I was there dozens of times. This was the first multimedia presentation I'd ever seen! Maybe the first ever? Live actors interacted with filmed actors on stage. As someone mentioned earlier this is a perfect example of an "Industrial."

Thanks so much for posting it!

[boinx1234]

monitortop

Wow. The "Industrial," as they were once known, is scarcely a memory to most people, but were once a tremendous source of easy income for composers such as Michael Brown ("Lizzie Borden") and Marshall Barer ("Once Upon A Mattress") and countless young performers. This is great!

[boinx1234]

UrsoChappell

Thanks so much for posting this. I was born too late to see 1964-'65, so it's great to see such wonderful cheesiness archived. I can only hope some of the pavilions at next year's world's fair are this deranged.

[boinx1234]

CMcCall100

Such wonderful memories!! Michael Brown, David Carter, the best. If I could stop sobbing for a moment I might think of something else to say.................guess not !!

.

VRUSP

Such wonderful, over the top music. Michael Brown and Norman Paris are amazing!

.

trousertube1

There are plastics in your toaster!

[rascal211]

1965 liked to use big lively horns in much of the music you would hear even on the radio. You don't hear that anymore.

[gli7utubeo]

I was there too! Dupont and the Johnson's Wax Pavilion linger in my memory...

[brainsareus]

genetic engineered nightmare=dupont. and the world of big pharma inventing disseases that don't exist. this is our great world of "1984" and "brave new world" how dumb can we be!

[boinx1234]

yforum

I am not kidding. At 0:11, I had a smile from ear to ear. At 1:22, I was flat out laughing out loud. At 3:16 I was enraptured. At 4:17, tears of laughter were running down my face. Absolute nirvana for me. This was AWESOME! Thanks a ton for doing this. I don't know why but that music brought a wonderful, strange mix of cynicism and joy to me as a kid.