Tired of Upsot Horses? Get a 1956 Ford for Christmas!

Rosemary Clooney has become almost as much of a holiday icon as her co-star in White Christmas, Bing Crosby, due to the repeated TV programming of that film this time of year. And Rosie did make a good number of seasonal records, too, a few of which have appeared on the other blog.

In 1955, Ford (presumably via its agency J. Walter Thompson) engaged Clooney to record a promotional song for the Christmas selling season. I'm not sure if this was used for radio spots, but it definitely was pressed onto a promotional flexi disc postcard that dealers sent out to their best prospects. I recently ran across a copy on the University of North Carolina library website, and cleaned it up for this post.

(Flexi discs, for those too young to remember, were 78 or 45 rpm analog recordings pressed onto a clear, flexible vinyl that then was bonded to cardboard. They could be sent out, as this example was, as a postcard, or more frequently were bound into a magazine. Musicians occasionally use them even today for their novelty appeal.)

This particular example of a flexi disc was sent by Ken Woodin of San Francisco's S&E Motors to Pete Tamony of that town. Ken let the record do the selling; his comments were limited to a "Hi Pete" message on the mailer (see second image below). The Clooney magic was in the form of a take on the usual holiday suspect, "Jingle Bells," a song that conveniently was in the public domain.

No horses got upsot in this version, instead you rode off in a new Ford: "You'll feel swell, they'll feel swell, Christmas will be gay / If you thrill 'em with a big new Ford for Christmas Day!" or so Rosie promises.

Santa loves his new Ford, but is concerned about the hole in the windshield

The flexi disc is shown in the image above; you can barely make out the grooves. The whole thing is over in 60 seconds; you couldn't fit more than that on a 78-rpm flexi disc printed on a postcard.

As a promotional spokesperson, Clooney got rather short shrift in comparison with Chevrolet's singing spokesperson, Dinah Shore. (I challenge you to use "shrift" and "upsot" in the same sentence.) Dinah was favored with two EPs that Chevy dealers gave away in 1957 and 1961. (You can hear them via the same post I mentioned above.) And she had the benefit of special material that wasn't a jingle based on a jingle.

Still and all Rosie's brief spot, made with the assistance of Mitch Miller, is fun to hear.

Ken says hi to Pete