On a Sugar High with Rosie, Roy and Three Bears

Promotional labels; picture sleeve for commercial release

This post presents a 1951 promotional record for Sugar Crisp cereal featuring Roy Rogers, Rosemary Clooney, and three cute bears. But before we get to the record, some background might be helpful.

When Post's Sugar Crisp cereal came out in 1948, it quickly became popular with children, if not dentists because it was literally more sugar than cereal. Post's ad agency, Benton & Bowles, came up with a memorable (and lengthy) tag line, "For breakfast, it's dandy. For snacks, it's so handy. Or eat it like candy." Like candy? It was (and still is) candy.

B&B conceived the idea of having three bears as a mascot for the cereal - Dandy, Handy and Candy - who appeared in Sugar Crisp ads. (There's one below.) In 1951, the agency decided the bears needed a song, and tunesmiths Alan and Marilyn Scott set to work. Then B&B arranged for Rosemary Clooney to record the result, "Dandy, Handy and Candy," for Columbia records.

Rosemary Clooney

Now, the record does not push the cereal, per se. Instead the Scotts invented a tale of the bears living in a hollow tree, wanting something bigger, building a house, becoming disenchanted with the upkeep, and moving back to the hollow tree. Rosie Clooney managed to make all this charming.

Post then set up a deal where cereal buyers could get both the record and sheet music. Cash Box magazine reported they expected to move some 50,000 discs that way.

Dandy, Handy and Candy sell the product

But for this post we're presenting a different promotion for the same record, apparently designed to be sent to merchants. On one side we have Rosie with the "Dandy, Handy and Candy" song. On the other we hear from singing cowboy and TV/radio star Roy Rogers, whose programs were sponsored by Post cereals. In addition to some folderol involving wife/sidekick Dale Evans and dog/sidekick Bullet, Roy breezily mentions a brochure providing the details of the promotion, while explaining that comical sidekick Pat Brady was off working on his Jeep, Nelliebelle. He concludes by singing a splendid Western swing number, "San Antone," which, if truth be told, beats the heck out of "Dandy, Handy and Candy."

I don't know if all this sold any cereal or not. It couldn't have hurt because Sugar Crisp was very popular, and I ate it myself occasionally. I even remember the tag line and the bears.

A few decades later the Federal Communications Commission banned such product tie-ins aimed at children.

If you want to know more about Sugar Crisp cereal (now known as Golden Crisp in the US) and an exhaustive delineation of its evolving bear mascots, please see this discussion by blogger Dan Brady.

LINK

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