Singing telegram

A singing telegram is a message that is delivered by an artist in a musical form. Singing telegrams are historically linked to normal telegrams, but tend to be humorous. Sometimes the artist is in costume or formal clothing. Singing telegrams are often given as a gift.

Western Union, the American telegraph company began offering singing telegram services in 1933. On July 28, 1933, a fan sent Hollywood singing star Rudy Vallee a birthday greeting by telegram. George P. Oslin (1899-1996), the Western Union public relations director, decided this would be a good opportunity to make telegrams, which had been associated with deaths and other tragic news, into something more popular. He asked a Western Union operator, Lucille Lipps, to sing the message over the telephone, and this became the first singing telegram.^[1] While Oslin created the singing telegram because he thought "that messages should be fun," he recalled that he "was angrily informed I was making a laughingstock of the company."^[2]

As relatively few telegram recipients had telephones, most telegrams, including singing telegrams, were first delivered in person. The popularization of the telephone in the 1960s reduced telegrams in general. By 1972, Western Union was receiving a small number of requests for singing telegrams and was seeking regulatory approval on a state-by-state basis to eliminate the offering.^[3] Western Union suspended its singing telegram service in 1974, but independent singing telegram companies, specializing in often costumed personal delivery of gift messages, have kept up the tradition.

See also

• Kissogram
• Stripogram
• Gorillagram
• Telegram

References

1. ^ Special delivery: The singing telegram endures, Columbia News Service, July 7, 2002
2. ^ "GEORGE OSLIN, 97, CREATOR OF THE SINGING TELEGRAM", Chicago Tribune, October 31, 1996. pg. 11
3. ^ "Western Union Tuning Out Singing Telegram", The New York Times, July 29, 1972. p. 27

External links

• Singing Telegrams Deliver Messages with a Melody Voice of America, 27 July 2005
• George P. Oslin

This article related to telecommunications is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.v · Categories: Entertainment Oral communication Telecommunications stubs Wikimedia Foundation. 2010. Игры ⚽ Нужно решить контрольную? Afghan Museum Brownsea Island Look at other dictionaries: singing telegram — noun A method of delivering a greeting by employing a person specializing in this service to sing the greeting to the recipient • • • Main Entry: ↑sing …   Useful english dictionary singing telegram — telegram that is read out loud and sometimes even sung by the messenger to the person receiving …   English contemporary dictionary singing telegram — noun A message delivered by an artist in a musical form …   Wiktionary Singing Valentines — is the name for a fundraising program that is popular with barbershop choruses in the U.S.The delivery of Singing Valentines is usually done by a barbershop quartet from a chapter affiliated with the three major U.S. barbershop societies: *… …   Wikipedia Telegram (disambiguation) — * For the long distance transmission of written messages without physical transport of letters, see telegraphy. * Telegram style the syle of writing adopted for use in telegrams * Telegram (album) music by Björk. * Singing telegram any message… …   Wikipedia telegram — n telegraph, wire, cable, cablegram, Inf. telex; lettergram, night letter, day letter, singing telegram; radiogram, radiotelegram, Rare. mar conigram; dispatch, message, Trademark. Mailgram; bulletin, flash …   A Note on the Style of the synonym finder Telegram (song) — Infobox ESC entry song = flagicon|Germany Telegram artist = Penny McLean, Ramona Wulf, Rhonda Heath as = Silver Convention with = language = English languages = country = Germany year = 1977 composer = Sylvester Levay lyricist = Michael Kunze… …   Wikipedia George P. Oslin — (1899 mdash; October 24, 1996) was a reporter, executive at Western Union and author on the history of telecommunication.Oslin attended the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. He was a reporter for the Newark Star Ledger and the …   Wikipedia Clue (film) — Clue Theatrical release poster Directed by Jonathan Lynn Produced by Deb …   Wikipedia List of Cluedo characters — The board game Cluedo (Clue in North America) and the associated 1985 film Clue, contains six murder suspects, all of whom survived into the final 2002 edition of the game. They typically represent types, or stock characters, of European and… …   Wikipedia 18+ © Academic, 2000-2024 Contact us: Technical Support, Advertising Dictionaries export, created on PHP, Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, MODx. Mark and share Search through all dictionaries Translate… Search Internet Share the article and excerpts Direct link … Do a right-click on the link above and select “Copy Link”