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Total Television calls Queen For A Day, '...possibly the most maudlin game show ever broadcast'--and for good reason. Considered a forerunner of modern-day reality TV, QFAD was a successful radio program beginning in 1945 before airing on daytime television from 1956 through 1964. At the peak of the show's popularity in the late 1950s, NBC expanded it from 30 to 45 minutes to sell more commercials, at a then-premium rate of $4,000 per minute. QFAD opened with host Jack Bailey asking the largely female studio audience, 'Would YOU like to be queen for a day?' After this, the contestants were introduced and interviewed. Each contestant talked about recent financial and emotional hard times she had been through. The sob stories were rated on an applause meter. Bailey began each interview gently, asking the contestant first about her life and family, and maintaining a positive and upbeat response no matter what she told him. The interview climaxed with Bailey asking the contestant what she needed most and why she wanted to win the title of Queen for a Day. Often the request was for medical care or therapeutic equipment to help a chronically ill child, but sometimes it was as simple as the need for a hearing aid, a new washing machine, or a refrigerator. Many women broke down sobbing as they described their plights, and Bailey was always quick to comfort them and offer a clean white handkerchief to dry their eyes.
The more pitiful the story a contestant had, the likelier the studio audience was to reach the applause meter's highest level. The winner, to the musical accompaniment of Pomp and Circumstance, would be draped in a sable-trimmed red velvet robe, given a glittering jeweled crown to wear, placed on a velvet-upholstered throne, and handed a dozen long-stemmed roses to hold as she wept, often uncontrollably, while her list of prizes was announced. The prizes began with the necessary help the woman had requested, but might include a vacation, a night on the town with her husband or escort, silver-plated flatware, an array of kitchen appliances, and a selection of fashion clothing. The losing contestants were each given smaller prizes; no one went away from the show without a meaningful gift. Bailey's trademark sign-off was 'This is Jack Bailey, wishing we could make every woman a queen--for every single day!' A 1970 short-lived syndicated revival of QFAD quickly fell into disfavor with viewers when it was revealed the 'contestants' were actually actresses.
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Queen
For
A
Day
reality
TV
game
show
Added: 24th February 2011
Views: 2045
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
 
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I live in the Washington, D.C. area, work as a paralegal and love trivia
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Added: 3rd April 2011
Views: 1070
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Posted By: sunmayden518 |
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This photo, taken before the 1937 All-Star Game at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C., shows seven future Hall-of-Fame baseball players on the American League team. Your task is to identify all seven. (The American League defeated their National League counterparts 8-3. President Franklin Roosevelt was in attendance and tossed the ceremonial first pitch.)
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baseball
photo
identification
All-Star
Game
Added: 25th June 2011
Views: 1515
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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One day in 1965, a 15-year-old French youth named Michel Lotito was drinking mint tea in a cafe with friends when his cup unexpectedly shattered. In an act of teenage bravado, Lotito swallowed the glass fragments with no ill effects whatsoever. Thus the odd career of Monsieur Mangetout (Mr. Eats-All) began. Within a short time, much to the amusement of his Grenoble neighbors--and the chagrin of his parents--Lotito began giving bizarre public eating exhibitions in which he would consume a variety of seemingly indigestible objects: coins, beer cans, knitting needles, crockery, and razor blades, to name but a few. He later advanced to devouring more challenging fare such as a television set, a bicycle, and a waterbed. Lotito managed his gastric accomplishments by cutting each object into fingernail-sized portions and washing them down with some sort of liquid--usually mineral water. (A true professional, Lotito always travelled with his cutting instruments nearby.) When nature called, Mr. Mangetout had no trouble "passing" the odd viands. While not performing, Lotito had a fondness for steak dinners. At the height of his career, Lotito was earning $2,000 per public appearance in venues as far away as Hong Kong. The apex of Lotito's gastronomic achievements was eating a Cessna two-seat airplane! After swallowing the last morsel in 1980, Lotito declared the propeller to be "delicious." To honor his achievement as the world's foremost omnivore, the impressed folks at the Guinness Book of World Records presented Lotito with a handsome brass plaque. Lotito ate it, of course. In 2007 Lotito died shortly after his 57th birthday of natural causes.
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Michel
Lotito
omnivore
Mr
Mangetout
Added: 2nd March 2018
Views: 1177
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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Ball Four was a situation comedy that aired on CBS in 1976. The series was inspired by the tremendously successful 1970 book of the same name by Jim Bouton. Bouton co-created the show with humorist and television critic Marvin Kitman and sportswriter Vic Ziegel. Bouton also starred in the series.
Ball Four followed the Washington Americans, a fictitious minor league baseball team, dealing with the fallout from a series of Sports Illustrated articles written by Americans' player Jim Barton (Bouton). Like the book, the series covered controversial subjects including womanizing players, drug use, homosexuality in sports, and religion. The series included a gay rookie ballplayer--one of the earliest regular gay characters on television. The creative trio began developing the series in 1975, looking to groundbreaking series like M*A*S*H and All in the Family as models. CBS expressed interest and the creative team developed a script. CBS shot the pilot episode and ultimately bought the series.
Ball Four aired at 8:30 PM Eastern time, which was during the Family Viewing Hour, an FCC-mandated hour of early evening "family-friendly" broadcasting. Consequently the writers had some trouble with the network's Standards and Practices in their attempt to portray realistic locker room scenes, especially the language used by the players. Pseudo-profanity such as "bullpimp" was disallowed, while "horse-crock" and "bullhorse" were approved.
Ball Four debuted on September 22, 1976. Critics panned the series. One of the more charitable reviews called it "uneven in quality." CBS cancelled Ball Four after just five episodes.
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sitcom
Ball
Four
baseball
CBS
Added: 23rd August 2011
Views: 1652
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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It's difficult to picture Ted Williams in anything but a Boston Red Sox uniform, but he was the manager of the lowly Washington Senators for a time. (In fact, Williams was the last manager the Senators ever had. He held that job from 1969 through 1971. When the team became the Texas Rangers in 1972, Williams managed the club in their first season.) Here he is on the cover of Sports Illustrated at age 50 in 1969.
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baseball
Ted
Williams
manager
Added: 7th December 2011
Views: 1844
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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In a scene immortalized by Hollywood in the 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (played by Paul Newman and Robert Redford), the two outlaws run into a hail of bullets after being cornered by Bolivian troops sometime around 1908. There have always been doubters as to the truth of the twosome's supposed violent end. No solid proof of such a shootout has ever been obtained. Instead, Cassidy is said to have fled to France where he had surgery on his face before sneaking back into the U.S. Furthermore, according to the same account, he lived out his final days quietly and anonymously in Washington State – and wrote an autobiography which he disguised as a biography.
In 2011, American rare book expert Brent Ashworth and author Larry Pointer obtained a 200-page manuscript from 1934 called Bandit Invincible: The Story of Butch Cassidy written by a William T. Phillips which they claim was actually written by Cassidy. They claim the book is Cassidy’s own story of his life as an outlaw.
It describes how after surviving the shootout in Bolivia he went to Paris and had his face altered then went back to the U.S. and reunited with an old girlfriend, Gertrude Livesay.
The authors say they married in Michigan in 1908 and moved to Spokane in Washington state in 1911. He apparently died in 1937, aged 71. One of Cassidy's 12 siblings claimed she saw Butch alive and well in 1924.
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Butch
Cassisdy
death
survival
Added: 3rd January 2014
Views: 1444
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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