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Movin’ With Nancy was sponsored by RC (Royal Crown), “the mad, mad cola.” Organic to the special, the commercials can be regarded as mini “music videos.” In the DVD booklet, Nancy offers her thoughts on the commercials:

“As far as I was concerned, the commercials had to be as slick and beautiful as the show, so RC went all out…My favorite, for all of the obvious sad and happy reasons, is the one filmed at the Hollywood Bowl with Dino, Desi and Billy [pictured: right].”

Art Linkletter and Australian vocalist Robie Porter also appeared in their own MWN/RC Cola commercials.

To preserve the integrity of her concept and the original broadcast, Nancy insisted that the commercials be included in the home video release, as well as in the special’s 2000 AMC broadcast.

MWN/RC Cola memorabilia: Here are the 17-inch by 22-inch promotional poster (left) and the pin-back button (right).

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Nancy and producer-director Jack Haley, Jr. have offered numerous revelations regarding the production of Movin’ With Nancy, as illustrated by the following retrospective.

The outdoor, on-location aspect of the special is apparent from the opening shot of Nancy’s ’57 Thunderbird, in the “I Gotta Get Out Of This Town” segment. On the insightful commentary track, which Nancy and Jack provided for the DVD release, Nancy reveals that production assistant Frank Bueno acted as her hand double in the camera shot from behind the wheel of her T-Bird.

In the MWN CD notes, Jack recalls cinematographer Vilis Lapenieks’ daring camera shot for “I Gotta Get Out Of This Town”:

“We took a manhole cover off a manhole on Benedict Canyon Drive, and he got down with a hand-held 16mm camera, and got the shot where the car races over the camera.”

In a Sinatra Family Forum post (dated: September 9, 2005), Nancy recalls the “Up, Up And Away” sequence and Frank Bueno’s work as her double once again:

“My friend, Jay Fiondella is the owner of the balloon. He is the one who was in the gondola with me. I joke that he was looking up my skirt. He was actually operating the balloon. Yes, I was in there with him but the balloon was tethered.

When they really took it up a guy named Frank Bueno pretended to be me and, again, Jay was in the gondola with him.

That footage was shot from a helicopter.”

On her DVD commentary track, Nancy points out Teri Garr (pictured: center) as one of the gravity-defying dancers.

On the DVD commentary, Jack notes that in order to obtain the slow-motion effect of Nancy’s sequences in “Some Velvet Morning,” she had to lip-sync to an accelerated version of the original recording during filming. Jack recalled that “it was like the Chipmunks.”

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With those words, spoken in the “Up, Up And Away” segment of Nancy’s 1967 television special, Movin’ With Nancy, she invites us to join her on a dream-like, musical excursion and witness the invention of the conceptual, long-form music video. Although the Beatles and the Monkees had been featuring their recordings as components of their movies and TV series respectively, Nancy and producer-director Jack Haley, Jr. moved the art form in a new direction. Without the contrivance of plot or transitional dialogue, Movin’ With Nancy fuses documentary form and self-contained musical performances.

In the MWN DVD booklet, Nancy explains the genesis of the project:

“His [Jack's] series, ‘Hollywood And The Stars,’ was the inspiration for doing my special in the documentary genre. My vision: the technique would work with music, and I knew Jack was the only person for the job. He took it all the way to an Emmy.”

Broadcast by NBC during the 1963-64 television season and narrated by Joseph Cotten, Hollywood And The Stars had examined various aspects of the motion picture industry.

In her 1985 book, Frank Sinatra, My Father, Nancy elaborates on her vision:

“…because I wanted a fast-moving, sharply edited, documentary-style show (not unlike today’s commercials and videos), I decided to use film rather than tape. (Tape is flat and ugly.)”

In addition to the application of a new, fast 16mm film, Movin’ With Nancy revolutionized the making of TV specials by shooting on location, and primarily outdoors, in place of a sound stage.

In the MWN CD booklet, Nancy shares how she imagined the musical performances:

“I wanted each song to tell a perfect little story, to be an entity unto itself. I didn’t realize that we were making the very first music videos—MTV didn’t exist then!”

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