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Queen For A Day
Queen For A Day was a game show that was the true mother
of the sleazy day-time talk show. It ran first on NBC from 1956 to 1960. When
NBC dropped the show, ABC picked it up for four more seasons. ABC cancelled
it in 1964 yet the beast still would not die. It was the Rasputin of day time
TV. A syndicated version was attempted in 1970. Luckily, that failed. Mothers
and wives proved more interested in watching TV to determine if their sons
and husbands were about to be killed in
Queen For A Day was emcee'd by Jack Baily. Baily is probably more familiar to TV viewers as the voice of Goofy in Disney Cartoons. On Queen For A Day, Baily would select five women from the audience. Set against a backdrop of unmatched post-war economic expansion, peace, and security, each woman would tell a harrowing story about the tragic state of their lives and what they needed to set things right. Usually it was a new appliance.
After the women told their sob stories, the studio audience voted via an applause meter as to which woman had the most tragically entertaining story. The four losing losers would be summarily dismissed. The winning loser would be sat on a thrown, swaddled in royal gowns, have a tiara placed on her head, and have her feet bathed in fragrant oils by Nubian slave girls.
She would then be given the items she asked for plus additional promotional gifts.
The show closed with the piece "Pomp And Circumstance, Military March in D (Opus 39, No. 1)" -- Karl Mamer
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