American culture’s penchant for Having Fun With Elvis In The Afterlife continues with the re-release of “Blue Christmas,” which has had Martina McBride added to The King’s ‘68 Comeback Special performance of the song for the purposes of flogging it all over again in 2008. (The video is embedded over at USA Today’s Web site.) Yes, it’s sort of like when Celine Dion joined Elvis onstage for American Idol’s 2007 charity show, except a little creepier this time, thanks to the lack of Sanjaya and the power of “meaningful” digital editing!

In the original footage — the only existing video of Elvis performing a Christmas song — a leather-clad Presley appears with his band on a small stage at the center of a studio audience. In the video, McBride walks out of the audience and sits next to him.

“There’s a spot between (guitarist) Scotty Moore and Elvis that’s open, like somebody should have been sitting there,” says Flanigen. “We’re like, ‘We could probably figure a way to put her with Elvis.’

“We scoured the footage and picked shots of Elvis throughout the whole special to be able to put them together. There are shots where he and Martina share the frame, where he looks over at her, where she looks back at him and sings and smiles.”

Eww. Ew. I mean, I know she filmed her scenes of the video on a green screen, but what sort of mentality do you have to get in to react to the possibility of a guy smiling at you from someone who’s 31 years beyond the grave?

First look: A ‘Blue Christmas’ with Elvis and Martina McBride [USA Today]