Queen For A Day

[ER]

Man alive is this s**t f**ked up.

Back in the 1950s, some linear descendants of the people who ran the lion/Christian department in the Roman Coliseum concocted this brain-frying head trip of a show that apparently came on every afternoon and it was called Queen For A Day.

The whole underlying effect was bored housewives sitting around at home could smoke their cigarettes and watch while producers found the most pathetic wretches known to humankind, and put them on display as they told their true-life tales of woe (my family lost its home to a tornado.... my husband shot his face off with a .20 gauge while rabbit hunting and I have to spoon-feed him.... I have Siamese twins.... I am dying of cancer of a socially-acceptable body part... my child got run over by his own schoolbus while bringing me a Mother's Day card) and at the end of the show, the audience would clap 'n cheer, and a noise meter would determine whose story was the most morbid, and that woman would then get a fake fur stole put around her shoulders and a paste-jeweled crown set on her head and would win a GE washer and dryer set while dramatic music played.

Just....wow. It was probably the most entertaining thing I'd ever seen in my life.

[Pacman000]

This was spoofed on an episode of Happy Days. Mariam wins because she's the best story teller, but the other women were in worse situations, so she gives the prize to them. (Mariam didn't lie; she Practiced to make sure her story had an emotional impact.)

The basic concept is still around today, with shows like Extreme Makeover.

[alandhopewell]

     I remember this show from my childhood; definitely out there.

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