I can remember watching Queen For A Day as a real little guy. It was enthralling to me for some reason(probably because Annie Oakley, Wild Bill, Mr. Moon or Mickey Mouse wouldn't be on til later)
.
It was big time cheese for sure. You could feel the electricity the second you heard the announcer scream, "Live From The Moulin Rouge In Hollywood.." and the tv screen would show the front of some swanky theater in Hollywood, complete with searchlight beams swinging madly across the sky as a mass of tuxedoed and mink coat wearing bejeweled denizens of Hollywood swarmed around The Moulin Rouge waiting to get in to see who was going to be Queen For A Day.
Oh it was glorious. All the hopefull Queens would be sitting there as Jack, looking exactly like Old Man Tataglia The Pimp in The Godfather with his baggy suit, slicked back hair and his pencil thin moustache glided around microphone in hand, pumping the crowd and the ladies in waiting. Then as the stories were told the waterworks would come on, but Jack, oh man, Jack was there to pat them on the shoulder and encourage them to let it all hang out.
It was thirty minutes jam packed with glamour, tears, hopes, dreams, tragedies, redemption. All the things that were on my five year old boy's mind.
Such suspesne! Who would win?
The lady who's husband got his toe cut off with the lawn mower and needs a new washing machine?
The lady who's mother she hasn't seen for three years in Lincoln Nebraska has gout and needs new glasses?
The lady who's son fell down a well and was struck by lightning at the same time who's sister , who she hasn't seen in three years, outside Davenport Iowa had her appendix taken out and needs help with her husband who had his arm stuck in a hay baler and wants a television?
Oh those women at The Moulin Rouge in Hollywood sure had a tough go of it.
How could anyone decide who was more in need? Who really deserved to be Queen For A Day, get all that cool stuff including the stuff dreams are made of, the neat stuff in The Spiegel Catalogue?
How did they decide? Aww, they used one of the greatest technological advancements of the 20th Century, the Applause Meter, that's what.
Yes, as they sat there at the end, Jack would hover behind each constestant and hold his hand benignly over their weeeping head. The audience would clap and the applause meter with it's swinging indicator and numbers would appear on the screen giving an exact readout just who was winning the thing.
Then Jack would crow the winners name, out came the floor length ermine cape, the dozen long stemmed roses, and the crown, man, Jack Bailey was born to put crowns on crying women's heads.
Then it was over. All over. All America was now satisfied there was a new Queen For A Day. And she deserved it to, bless her heart. And the next day a new Queen would be crowned.
Jack Bailey. He was the man. He was the man who made women's dreams come true.