Television: Troubles & Bubbles

Even before she began to tick off her troubles, the contestant was obviously teetering on the brink of a good cry. She barely had time to tell how she had raised her three teen-age boys all by herself when Master of Ceremonies Jack Bailey shoved her over the edge with a deft flick of folksiness. "Why," he chirped with chipmunk cheeriness. "you don't look much over 19. maw!"

That did it. From then on, Mrs. Phyllis Adams had all the tearmarks of a winner. Painfully, she told how her two oldest boys were planning to leave school because they were ashamed of their clothes, and how the youngest had to get up at 3:30 a.m. to peddle his papers. Hovering near by with a handy Kleenex, Bailey cackled cheerfully into the TV camera. Her wish was modest enough: clothes for the boys. It was no contest. With a burst of applause, the studio audience of 900 sister sobbers one day last week named Phyllis Adams "Queen for a Day."

The Laments of Contestants. By blending this mixture of trouble and bubbles, NBC's Queen for a Day has become television's hottest daytime property. Every afternoon Monday through Friday, some 10 million TViewers—nearly half the nation's audience at that time—follow the laments of five contestants, and the contrapuntal clownings of M.C. Bailey, 48. An additional 1,000,000 or more listeners tune in the show on the Mutual radio network.

During its twelve years, Queen for a Day has sifted the short and simple annals of some 15,000 women, judged 3,100 unhappy enough to be crowned winners, and given out prizes worth $14 million, almost all donated by manufacturers in exchange for a plug on the air. Average take per queen: $4,000 in gifts, plus four dozen roses, a wardrobe and a one-day tour of Hollywood in a gold Cadillac.*

When the show made its radio debut on April 29, 1945, the nation was preoccupied with the approaching end of World War II. Recalls Producer Harry Mynatt: "They had a hell of a time getting an audience—had to pass out dollar bills to get people into the theater. " Now the ladies fight to get into the Hollywood studio, bolt a buffet lunch, and scribble their wishes on a card. M.C. Bailey and Producer Mynatt select the 21 likeliest wishes, and backstage interviews just before air time pick the day's five contestants to be judged by the studio audience. "The woman who gives her wish from the bottom of her heart," muses Bailey, "just about gets it every time."

Bailey and the show's staff of 30 usually manage to fulfill every queen's wish, no matter how outlandish. (One notable failure: "World peace.") The show hires detective agencies to run down lost children, once sent a winner to barber's college. "One lady wished for an electric eel," says Bailey. "She wanted, to make a broth for her son to help his asthma." Without asking any questions, the show tracked down an eel and delivered.