I think most of us have had moments where we are thankful that the world doesn’t operate by the rules of musicals. Think of what an ass-pain it would be if every major decision you came to, every emotional moment, every triumph or failure had to be punctuated with a full-throated, heartfelt song that lasted for eight minutes and meant that you and everyone around you had to drop whatever they were doing and join in, singing and dancing in elaborate, choreographed ways!
I assume everyone would have to have already memorized the words and music to the various songs, and evenings are spent in long, sweaty dance practice sessions, leaving you spent and exhausted every night, praying that the next day won’t bring someone realizing that they have a dream or a long lamenting of the unfair circumstances of their life, or something like that.
Plus, once the big numbers are done, there never seems to be any time to just, you know, sit your ass down and breathe heavily and drink some water and rub your sore limbs.
I was thinking about this because this 1959 DeSoto brochure really feels like it’s a bunch of scenes from some musical. I mean, look at this:
This is a hell of a number right here. This is from the song “I Am Your Crossing Guardian,” and featured some elaborate wire work to get the illusion of the hovering schoolgirls, who swung and danced and pirouetted around, seemingly defying gravity as the Crossing Guard belted out his powerful song about duty, honor, and crossing streets.
A quieter number is “Finding Fireflies in the Fireflite,” a duet that takes place in this DeSoto convertible, with a lot of wonderful set design and scenework involving countless projected lights representing the fireflies.
There’s also a huge opening number that sets a lot of the scene for this hypothetical DeSoto-based musical, and it starts with six people and a dog. It sets up the protagonist, Mary Sudsworth, seen there doing her famous “soaphat” bit at the front of the car, while the kids in the back perform this amazing counterpoint song about being crazy kids and fights in the way-back that sets up Mary for her solos.
The soaphat bit kills, by the way with lines like
“It’s a soaphat, not pronounced “so fat” and you better remember that,
because a P and and H don’t always get you an F
so take a breath
and remember that you can’t keep down the soaphat”
Gold, I tell you, it’s gold.
Speaking of gold, check out this golden engine illustration from the brochure:
I’d like to imagine that this is a picture of a “Ginny,” the nickname for the Golden Engine award that’s given to the best automotive-based musical production.
This is another big number, where Mary Sudsworth and Hellman Mayonnaistern sing about how they want to escape their suburban lives and venture off into the unknown in their DeSoto Adventurer. It’s powerful.
Eventually, Mary realizes she doesn’t need anyone’s help, it was only her own fears holding her back, and she conquers them and leaves in the Adventurer. Hellman, while initially despondent, confides to the sentient DeSoto that he’s been talking to throughout the show, that he believes Mary will be happier this way, and he sings a heartfelt song to the car, as they pledge to become partners and fight injustice, wherever it may lurk.
I’m telling you, this is a hell of a show! No wonder it won that Ginny!
Oh, the brochure also has some other little interesting bits. Like this example of how the word “sports” gets used in ways that seem to have nothing to do with sports:
How is a swivel seat a “sports swivel seat?” What’s sporty about swiveling? Outside of a, say, figure skating or gymnastic context? I mean, it’s still a good idea, generally, but I’m not sure about the sports part.
Also, look how shockingly roomy these DeSoto wagons were! Jump seats and a crapton of room! It’s like a truck bed back there!
Look at that: a lawnmower, one of those fertilizer/seed spreader push things, hoses, a wheelbarrow, watering can, boxes, and all that fits in there with the rear seat up? Holy crap.
Someone should sing about that.
How did Torch get through this piece without dedicating a song to those triple-fantastic rocket booster taillights?
No Waymo that there is or was
Is ever gonna bring me down!
That’s all I got. I’m not good at this whole repurposing lyrics thing. 😉
Wow, Torch! Between this and Death of a Salesman yesterday, I’m feeling extra cultured this week!
I guess the 50s audience for this weren’t thinking that Crossing Guard Kid was saying “Mein Führer!” while giving that, um, wave of his?
Probably just me, now.
The incident quickly sparked online comparisons to the Nazi salute. While watching the rally, CNN anchor Erin Burnett said that the action was “striking”. Some commentators have attributed the gesture to Crossing Guard Kid’s self-diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome. Crossing Guard Kid, however, has never been medically diagnosed with autism or Asperger’s syndrome. Several autistic people and therapists interviewed by journalist James McNaney of the Belfast Telegraph have objected to the notion that being on the autism spectrum would cause Crossing Guard Kid to make this gesture. In an article for The New York Times, Berlin bureau chief Katrin Bennhold wrote that “it looked a lot like the salute used in Germany and fascist Italy” but that “a striking number of different interpretations began to circulate”, also drawing comparisons to the Bellamy salute. Pulitzer Center fellow Alec Luhn said: “Slavic neo-Nazis do a similar salute, to the point that the phrase ‘from the heart to the sun’ often serves as a stand-in for actually doing the salute.”
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) came to Crossing Guard Kid’s defense, stating in an X post: “It seems that Crossing Guard Kid made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute”, adding: “In this moment, all sides should give one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt, and take a breath. This is a new beginning.”. However, former ADL national director Abraham Foxman described the gesture as a “Heil Hitler Nazi salute”. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) said that the ADL appeared to be contradicting its own definition of a Nazi salute, which the ADL defines as “raising an outstretched right arm with the palm down”. IfNotNow, a progressive Jewish group, said it was “appalled” that the ADL had “glossed over Crossing Guard Kid’s Nazi gesture, admonishing those of us who were aghast at the Hitler salute to give Crossing Guard Kid ‘the benefit of the doubt’ — even as the ADL assumes the worst intentions of those in the movement for Palestinian human rights”. Aaron Astor, a history professor at Tennessee’s Maryville College, defended the ADL’s stance on X, stating that it was “not a Nazi salute”. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, professor of history and fascism at New York University, said that it was “a Nazi salute – and a very belligerent one too”. The ADL declined to say how it had reached this conclusion when asked by the JTA. ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt later expressed regret that he had not “framed” the tweet differently given “the impact that it had”.
I promised myself I wouldn’t cry.
I love the illustrations from this time period; I think these are gorgeous. They do such a great job of showing the metallic green paint in the “crossing guard” scene. I also like how they exaggerate the lines of the cars, making them look so much wider and lower. It’s a bit of deceptive advertising, but it makes for a fantastic illustration.
My favorite is the wagon, I’ve seen one and they really are very striking looking cars. IMO Virgil Exner was on fire in the 50’s.
By the early 60s he was on something else.
If Daryl Morey could cook up and stage a nutso musical, there’s nothing– nothing!— to stop Jason and co. from doing the same. The pitch is ever so promising and surely others on the staff would be happy to weigh in with original score, soundtrack cuts from the past, song lyrics, book, set & costume design, etc. It’d be a ground-breaker, and that’s surely a plus on this site.
One more piece of period evidence of why families didn’t mind two-door cars at the time.
My grandfather never bought another 4-door car after my uncle nearly fell out of the car at highway speeds.
Well now we need the whole musical…
I like to think that posts like this one, which aren’t dependent on timeliness, are items Torch can bank for future deadlines by just banging out a few whenever the peyote lasts a little longer than usual.
I love the 1959 DeSoto and the illustrations used in car ads in this era, especially Pontiac.
Top image- She’s kicking him out. Why else would she have that smile on her face while yeeting his briefcase out on the lawn?
These may just be shots from “The Music Man”. Pretty sure that’s Marian the Librarian right there in the sports swivel seat, I can’t think of many things that sound better than a golden V8, and I’m positive one could fit 76 Trombones in the back of a ’59 Desoto.
See the fins on Professor Fishhawk’s ’59 and Ernie’s ’57 DeSotos.
My mind went immediately to fighting chairs for sport fishing. Perfect for a little angling out the door of your land yacht.
“I Am Your Crossing Guardian,” better watch that tailfin pulling a Waymo.
I do love how the unbelted rear-facing third row seat is billed as a “safety feature” because it keeps kids away from doors.
I always wondered, was there once an epidemic of kids jumping out of moving cars? I never understood the necessity of child safety locks for rear doors either.
I can image young kids grabbing at door handles and inadvertently opening them, and back in these days there were no belts to keep them from falling right out. I don’t recall messing with the doors, but my brother and I would get in trouble for messing with the power windows back in the early 80’s, when my parents first got a car with them we thought they were like magic, haha.
Had a cousin do that exact thing…messing with door handle and ended up falling out of moving car…go skinned up a bit from fall and from the whopping from his Mom. He never did that again. Same guy went on to total almost every car he owned. Bit of a risk taker. RIP.
So when Mom made me ride in the trunk it really was for my own good. Guess I owe her an apology.
Did she get ticked when manufacturers had start to including the inside trunk releases?
It wasn’t so much that kids would open the doors and jump out, but that the door latches couldn’t be fully trusted to hold against body flex. Throw in the weight of a kid being pressed against it by G forces on an outside curve…
It all stems from laws requiring children to be accommodated in the passenger cabin instead of being relegated to the trunk where they belong.
Not jumping out but door latches failing or kids accidentally opening the doors was more common than you think, especially in an era of no seat belts. As I noted in a comment above my grandfather never bought another 4-door car after my uncle nearly fell out at highway speeds.
Wait until Jason hears that Schmigadoon! Existed.
You see, it’s full of references from other musicals including ones not yet written. Mary starts belting out the opening of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend but doesn’t get far…
Mary: West Covina! California!
Hellman: I am NOT moving out there! I don’t want to change my name to Best Foodstern!
Hey! You remembered Mary Sudsworth and Hellman Mayonnaistern, but you forgot the scene-stealing cameo from Herbsann Spices Sanders. “Too Chicken to Drive This Thing” absolutely kills!
Drive DeSoto like the wind that rushes down the plain!
My personal hell would being IN a musical. I freaking hate musicals. Even if it was about cars I would be in hell.
The perfect combination would be a Stellantis musical with Carlos Tavares (pictured above) in hell.
I know the perfect actor to play him!
Yes but who would you cast as Carlos Ghosn?
It would have to be Nathan Lane, right?
This is the 21st century, wanna get called out for white-washing?!?
Nah, like Ghosn, Tony Shalhoub has Lebonese ancestory.
I love that it’s art.
Not a photo.
So they can take such artistic licenses so as to streeeeetch the length of the car in the perspectives. I know the cars are already land yachts, but it looks like they had some fun to make those fins longer, taller, and the whole back end of the car extend out so much more that reality would have.
They really weren’t using that much artistic licence. The last DeSotos were wild.
Wild styling was my thought as I read the article. Maybe a story idea for Adrian might be the wildest production vehicle designs, and why they qualify as outliers.
A couple of candidates:
I’ve seen one of these wagons in person, SO cool looking. It was a driver with great patina.
My local auto museum has a late 50’s Desoto convertible that looks like it just rolled out of the showroom. I don’t recall the model, but it was top of the line, fuel injection and everything. Absolutely gorgeous, WILD looking car. I spent about 20 minutes looking at thing from every angle, I think it was my favorite car in the museum.
(I highly recommend an afternoon at the Newport Car Museum in Portsmouth, RI)
I first became aware of Desoto through the 90s Lucasarts game Sam And Max Hit The Road (Based on the Sam and Max comics). I originally (and I think reasonably) assumed that their patrol car was a comedy pastiche of the most extreme styling trends of late 50s US cars. Then I saw one…
Ah, yes, I remember the Sam and Max comics! Came across my Sam and Max Freelance Police compilation recently, amazing how a few tidbits still stick in one’s brain, such as “Run for safety foolish pedestrians!” and “Apparently drawn without reference material”. Good, slightly twisted humor.
That’s my favorite part of these. I think they also make the people a bit smaller as well.
I’m DRAAAAA-ggin’ a waaaaa-gon!
There’s JUUUUUUnk in my trunk!!
Check OUUUUT my DeSoto!
WEEEEEE are bringin’ the fuuuuuunk!
Why are their arms all so long and out of proportion? That girl’s wrist is clearly boneless. These are Lovecraftian horrors disguised as pastoral Americana musicals.