“Everybody Ought to Have a Maid” by Stephen Sondheim, Sung by Carol Burnett and Bronson Pinchot

Sondheim: The use of songs in it I hope will be different than the so-called “integrated musical” where the songs and the story constantly flow in and out of each other. It’d been going on for so many years now, I think a rather tired formula, that…

Host: Well, it was a good thing when it happened. I remember all those years in operetta, bursting into song for no reason… But that’s not what you’re going to do with this.

Sondheim: Oh, we might. It’s fun as long as it works.

Stephen Sondheim talking about his new show,
A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum

Above Carol and Bronson: Jason Alexander and LA cast sing “Comedy Tonight”.

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Here’s the show’s most lascivious number, cunningly retooled for modern times, from the 1999 Broadway revue highlighting Sondheim’s music, Putting It Together:

Everybody ought to have a maid
Everybody ought to have a working boy
Everybody ought to have a lurking boy
To putter around the house…

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