The Pajama Game



"The Pajama Game is the game I'm in, And I'm proud to be in The Pajama Game. I love it! I can hardly wait To wake and get to work at eight. Nothing's quite the same as The Pajama Game!"

The Pajama Game is a Broadway Musical scored by Jerry Ross and Richard Adler and based on the novel 7½ Cents, by Richard Bissell. Workers at the Sleep-Tite pajama factory are demanding a seven-and-a-half cent salary increase. Caught in the middle of this labor/management dispute are Sid Sorokin and Katherine "Babe" Williams, Star-Crossed Lovers stuck on opposite sides of the conflict. Can their relationship survive the negotiations?

The original production ran from 1954-1956, winning three Tony Awards and there have been two revivals since: one in 1973, and another in 2006 (which won another two Tony Awards and was nominated for an additional seven). A film adaptation was released in 1957, starring all of the original Broadway cast except for Janis Paige (Babe), who was replaced by Doris Day.

The Pajama Game contains examples of:
"Why don't you stop all this small talk? I've got something better for your lips to do"
 * Clock King: Hines takes pride in his obsession with the clock, even singing a musical number called "Think of the Time I Save" about the corners he cuts for the sake of efficiency.
 * Dream Ballet: Hines's "Jealousy Ballet", in which he imagines what life would be like married to Gladys.
 * Fashion Show: At the end.
 * Fat Girl: Mabel. It says so in the script.
 * Hates Small Talk: "Small talk"
 * He Is Not My Boyfriend: Babe does a whole musical number, "I'm Not At All In Love."
 * Implausible Deniability: Discussed in "I'll Never Be Jealous Again." Mabel invents increasingly explicit hypothetical scenarios implying that Gladys is cheating (but denying it each time) in order to test Hines's resolution to trust her.
 * Irrelevant Act Opener: "Steam Heat"
 * Joe Sent Me: The password to get into Hernando's Hideaway is "Joe sent me."
 * Knife-Throwing Act: Hines does one at the company picnic, but he has to stop in the middle because he's too drunk to aim safely. Luckily, nobody is hurt.
 * Panty Shot: The film version has one during "Once-A-Year-Day".
 * Sexy Secretary: Gladys, much to her jealous boyfriend's chagrin.
 * Sexy Shirt Switch: In the Fashion Show finale, Babe and Sid walk out onstage wearing a single set of pajamas. Babe wears the top half.
 * Shipper on Deck: The other girls in the factory are shipping Babe and Sid. Babe sings "I'm Not At All In Love" to rebut them, but they end up together anyway.
 * Shirtless Scene: Sid gets one for the Fashion Show.
 * "Shut Up" Kiss: Invoked in "Small Talk".


 * Solo Duet: "Hey There". Sid sings a duet with a recording of himself on a dictaphone.
 * Star-Crossed Lovers: Sid is the factory's superintendent and Babe is the head of the union's Grievance Committee, placing the two sweethearts at opposite ends of the quickly-escalating conflict between labor and management.
 * Title Drop: Right in the opening. "The Pajama Game is the game I'm in, and I'm proud to be in The Pajama Game."
 * William Telling: Heinsy tries to do this in his knife-throwing act. While visibly drunk.
 * Writers Cannot Do Math: In "Seven And A Half Cents," the characters tally up how much money they'd earn off of their 7.5-cent raise in the long run. They get it wrong.