Miss Paramount Week

This beauty prize is plenty weird on its own. Most beauty queen titles are not delimited by a timeframe. Of course, the winners of the most famous contests generally reign for a year. A week seems a short splurge. But this winner, actress/singer/model Sandy Warner, also notches up another claim to WU fame. She was the cover girl for many of Martin Denny's exotica albums. Read about her at the link.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Mar 10, 2023 - Comments ()
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Movies, Music, Space-age Bachelor Pad & Exotic, Television, 1950s, 1960s

Miss Unsafe Brakes

According to Railey Jane Savage, in her book We have a winner!, Miss Unsafe Brakes appeared at the 1939 Chicago Auto Show.

Miss Unsafe Brakes represents one of the few examples of a "miss" title named for something that's being criticized, rather than promoted. Another example would be Miss Smog America.

Posted By: Alex - Thu Mar 09, 2023 - Comments ()
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, 1930s, Cars

Miss Grill of 1949

If no one is selling that hot-dog hat, someone should be.

Life - Nov 14, 1949

Posted By: Alex - Mon Feb 20, 2023 - Comments (2)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Headgear, 1940s

Win a Pony!

Maybe this 1950s contest was the inspiration for the famous episode of THE SIMPSONS where Bart won an elephant.

A survey of newspaper records indicate the contest ran multiple times from 1952 to 1955. I wonder how many ponies were actually accepted and delivered?

But Roy and Dale could never cause any trouble, could they?

Posted By: Paul - Sat Feb 18, 2023 - Comments (5)
Category: Animals, Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Television, Children, Cereal, Wild West and US Frontier

Miss Yashica Gold Venus

20 year old Lova Moor, Cabaret performer at the Paris ''Crazy Horse Saloon'' was elected ''Miss Yashica Gold Venus'' under the sponsorship of the well launching on the French market of the new Electro 35 Mecanicor Camera produced by Yashica.

Source.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Feb 12, 2023 - Comments (3)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Photography and Photographers, 1960s

Miss American Fork

Regional beauty titles don't typically strike me as being odd, unless the location is American Fork, Utah, which regularly elects a Miss American Fork. Sounds like she should be paired with Miss Canadian Knife and Miss Mexican Spoon.

Below is Miss American Fork of 1967, but the contest continues to this day. Miss American Fork of 2023 will be chosen in June.

American Fork Citizen - Jun 13, 1968

Posted By: Alex - Thu Feb 09, 2023 - Comments (3)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests

Miss Color TV

Apparently the contest continued beyond 1956 (first and second images), because the advertisement that follows is from 1959.

Ann Daly (No. 25) screams as she is declared "Miss Color-TV" in beauty contest at Palisades Amusement Park, N.J.; other contestants stand alongside her.

Posted By: Paul - Wed Feb 08, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Television, 1950s

Win A Diamond Doorknob

Dr. Pepper celebrated its 75th anniversary in 1960, and in honor of this ran a contest with the unusual prize of a diamond doorknob. Specifically: "a doorknob of special design encrusted with 50 small diamonds and a huge two-carat, blue-white diamond mounted in its center. As the grand award the diamond doorknob will be attached to a $25,000 Swift Home having a family-size Refinite-Shedon swimming pool in its backyard and a new Rambler station wagon in its driveway."



Edith Dillion of Roanoke, VA eventually won the prize. Reportedly she sold the house but kept the doorknob. And perhaps the doorknob is still owned by the Dillion family.

Posted By: Alex - Sat Feb 04, 2023 - Comments (2)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Soda, Pop, Soft Drinks and other Non-Alcoholic Beverages, 1960s

‘The Girl With Whom I Would Most Like To Go Skiing For Two Weeks in the Cairngorm Mountains’

Dec 1966: Instead of simply being called 'Miss Cairngorm Mountains,' or something similar, June Fletcher was awarded the oddly specific title of 'The Girl With Whom I Would Most Like To Go Skiing For Two Weeks in the Cairngorm Mountains'.

Lincolnshire Echo - Dec 2, 1966

Posted By: Alex - Sat Jan 21, 2023 - Comments ()
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Sports, 1960s

Miss Electrical Wonderland

Miss Electrical Wonderland used a radioactive key to open 1950's Electrical Wonderland expo in San Francisco. The radioactivity of the key was sensed by a Geiger counter that then triggered a man-made bolt of lightning to flash between two towers in the auditorium.

San Francisco Examiner - Sep 18, 1950

San Francisco Examiner - Sep 18, 1950

However, the identity of Miss Electrical Wonderland was, for some reason, switched at the last minute. The pre-show publicity stated that Janet Jackson was Miss Electrical Wonderland, and a photo (above) showed her handling the radioactive key bare-handed.

However, the news on the day of the opening stated that Elaine Doyle was now Miss Electrical Wonderland, and that she "gingerly lifted a radioactive copper key from its lead lined box with a pair of long handled tongs."

Why the switch? Gotta wonder if Janet Jackson was recovering from radiation burns.

San Francisco Examiner - Sep 24, 1950

Posted By: Alex - Sun Jan 08, 2023 - Comments (2)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Atomic Power and Other Nuclear Matters, 1950s