nancynall.com » You are Miss Citizen Fair.
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You are Miss Citizen Fair.

This one goes out to the 614, yo.

Via Rome­nesko, news that what I’d pre­vi­ously believed was one of the more elab­o­rate and amus­ing circulation-boosting gim­micks in news­pa­per his­tory, the Colum­bus Citizen-Journal’s “Miss Cit­i­zen Fair,” was noth­ing but a retread. It’s iden­ti­cal in nearly every detail to the Min­neapo­lis Tribune’s mys­te­ri­ous Mr. Sly, which dates to 1906.

The game: The mys­te­ri­ous Mr. Sly walks the streets of Min­neapo­lis, with a cash reward on his head. Clues to his iden­tity and where­abouts are pub­lished in every edi­tion. Every day, the reward gets big­ger and the clues bet­ter. There’s a strict pro­ce­dure to claim your prize: You must be car­ry­ing a copy of that day’s paper (in Mr. Sly’s day, you had to have the right edi­tion). You must lay your hand on him. And you must say, “You are The Tribune’s Mys­te­ri­ous Mr. Sly. Do you deny it?” If he didn’t, he took you to the news­pa­per office and paid out your reward.

Miss Cit­i­zen Fair didn’t require a touch, but you did have to carry a paper and say , “You are Miss Cit­i­zen Fair.” She usu­ally got through a week to 10 days of the two-week Ohio State Fair before she was iden­ti­fied. The clues started with a vague, whole-body sil­hou­ette and con­cluded with close-up pho­tos of her shoes, ear­rings or ponytail.

I don’t need to tell you that as a child, I was enthralled by the hunt for Miss Cit­i­zen Fair, who usu­ally turned out to be some cir­cu­la­tion dis­trict manager’s college-age daugh­ter. She was pho­tographed with the lucky win­ner on the last day, pass­ing a check for a cou­ple hun­dred bucks. If I were writ­ing one of those “you know you’re from Colum­bus” lists, I’d include Flippo the Clown, Dick Clifton’s Ram­bler­land, and Miss Cit­i­zen Fair.

You’d think I would have fig­ured this scheme wasn’t orig­i­nal by now, but what can I say? My His­tory of Jour­nal­ism class didn’t cover it.

Posted on Wednesday, November 7th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
in Media.

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23 responses to
“You are Miss Citizen Fair.”

  1. Kirk said on November 7th, 2007 at 2:00 pm

    I, too, fol­lowed the daily search for Miss Cit­i­zen Fair, dat­ing back to the days when it was just the Colum­bus Cit­i­zen (I think it merged with the Ohio State Jour­nal in 1961). I fig­ured that some­one with “Miss” in her title had to be pretty, so I wanted to see what she looked like.

  2. Dave said on November 7th, 2007 at 2:59 pm

    Bill Swad? Lex Mayer? Casper the Camel? Spook Beckman?

    Never saw Miss Cit­i­zen Fair but remem­ber the con­test, which brings another Colum­bus news­pa­per mem­ory to mind, Johnny Jones, who once did a col­umn on my late father-in-law. My wife said they went to his place and it was an absolute mess.

  3. Laura said on November 7th, 2007 at 3:10 pm

    How about the BBF? Mr. Edwards?

    I lurved the Miss Cit­i­zen Fair con­test. That, and see­ing Lucy’s Toy Shop live. And, of course, the giant (now talk­ing) Smokey.

  4. Kirk said on November 7th, 2007 at 3:59 pm

    Not sure whether it was Lex Mayer or Lex May­ers, but I used to watch him on TV, sell­ing cars that sweaty wrestlers had recently landed upon.

    And my crayon draw­ing of a base­ball dia­mond made it on Casper’s TV show.

  5. Crabby said on November 7th, 2007 at 6:49 pm

    Lex’s Live Wrestling!1!

  6. Danny said on November 8th, 2007 at 12:21 am

    Nancy, are you plan­ning to weigh in on the WGA strike? Seems fer­tile ground for some seri­ous blog­gage. I was check­ing some of the com­ments on defamer. Though most are in sup­port, one struck me as interesting:

    My heart is with these poor, oppressed writ­ers whose aver­age earn­ings are a mere $200,000 per year with health ben­e­fits. Viva la Revolucion!

    And when I read that, I found myself think­ing about the dis­cus­sion a few months ago regard­ing Lileks’ $75k salary for a few fea­tures per week. I know it is not apples-to-apples (fail­ing news­pa­per indus­try v. Hol­ly­wood), but it is an inter­est­ing point.

    Right now, I am com­ing down on the side of the WGA. $200k sounds very small in com­par­i­son to what the execs must be mak­ing. Espe­cially when one con­sid­ers the con­tri­bu­tions of each party.

  7. Danny said on November 8th, 2007 at 12:35 am

    And Nancy, loved this from the Mondegreens:

    This space has been for some years the chief pub­lic­ity agent for Mon­de­greens. The Oxford Eng­lish Dic­tio­nary has not yet seen the light, but it will, it will.

  8. James said on November 8th, 2007 at 7:48 am

    “… Dick Clifton’s Ramblerland…”

    I’m guess­ing this is a car deal­er­ship, but rings no bells with me. When I googled it, all I got were ref­er­ences in your blog.

    Are you sure you didn’t make it up?

    Count me in as some­one who tried to find MSF, unsuccessfully.

  9. nancy said on November 8th, 2007 at 7:54 am

    It changed pretty early to Dick Clifton’s Motor­land, but it is not a fig­ment of my imag­i­na­tion. In fact, it had a jingle:

    Dick Clifton’s Ram­bler­land
    Colum­bus’ dealingest dealer
    He hates to say no, we must con­fess
    So instead of no, he says yes yes yes!

    Ask John. I bet he’d remember.

  10. MichaelG said on November 8th, 2007 at 8:45 am

    For a great take on the WGA strike read Ken Levine. One of the best blogs around. Right up there with . . . well . . .you know. http://​ken​levine​.blogspot​.com/

  11. brian stouder said on November 8th, 2007 at 9:05 am

    Michael — agreed. That Ken Levine site you often men­tion is quite good.

    I’m begin­ning to won­der about msnbc/newsweek, though. Check out this article — 

    http://​blog​.newsweek​.com/​b​l​o​g​s​/​l​a​b​n​o​t​e​s​/​a​r​c​h​i​v​e​/​2​0​0​7​/​1​1​/​0​7​/​a​-​m​y​-​n​a​m​e​-​i​s​-​a​l​i​c​e​-​m​o​n​i​k​e​r​-​m​a​d​n​e​s​s.aspx

    an excerpt -

    You know the old children’s game (excel­lent for long car trips) where you think of a name, place, and item for sale begin­ning with the same let­ter: “P my name is Paul, and I come from Pough­keep­sie and I sell pota­toes.” Turns out there may be more to it than we thought: Peo­ple like their names so much that they uncon­sciously opt for things that begin with their ini­tials. Tom is more likely to buy a Toy­ota, move to Totowa and marry Tessa than is Joe, who is more likely to buy a Jeep, move to Jon­estown and marry Jill — and Susie sells seashells by the seashore.

    I say, Baloney (but then, being a Brian, I guess I would)! On the other hand, the writer’s name is Sharon Beg­ley, so accord­ing to the the­ory she prob­a­bly is more likely to traf­fic bags of sh%#t like this

  12. Laura said on November 8th, 2007 at 9:59 am

    I sing the Dick Clifton Motor­land jin­gle fairly often. Really. It’s part of my secret shame – an uber fas­ci­na­tion with all things banal.

    And James, I remem­ber singing “Hi There Mr. Tree” with you a few (many) years back. My hus­band thought we were nuts.

  13. nancy said on November 8th, 2007 at 10:04 am

    In other news at this hour, I seem to recall that in the grand tra­di­tion of children’s-show hosts every­where, Luci was a tippler.

  14. Kirk said on November 8th, 2007 at 10:14 am

    The old edi­tor I worked for in Van Wert was a drunk who had been a TV clown (the live kids-show type, not the news-reading type) in Lima. He told me he once had a baby ele­phant on the show. He climbed up on it fac­ing the wrong way, the ele­phant reared and he found him­self look­ing up its butt.

    I didn’t watch Luci, but I was a faith­ful fan of her Chan­nel 10 pre­de­ces­sor, Aunt Fran.

  15. Danny said on November 8th, 2007 at 11:05 am

    Aunt Fran? Kirk, is she the same as Fran Alli­son from Kukla, Fran and Ollie?

    Speak­ing of children’s shows: In Bal­ti­more we had Pro­fes­sor Kool and his Fun Skool. He was a local TV weath­er­man who dressed up as a schol­arly clown and had Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops as part of the live class­room each Sat­ur­day morn­ing. Funny stuff. Here is an excerpt from snopes that I found funny, even if unconfirmed:

    Com­ment: After read­ing your Tele­vi­sion Leg­ends Sec­tion, I was reminded of a story that cir­cu­lated in Bal­ti­more, MD around the early 1970’s. At that time, there was a local TV kid’s show host, Stu Kerr, who used to play the char­ac­ter “Pro­fes­sor Kool” (Pro­fes­sor Kool and His Fun School — WMAR-TV Bal­ti­more) who would have weekly ban­ter with kids dur­ing a live Sat­ur­day morn­ing broad­cast. Each week, he’d have dif­fer­ent chil­dren in the stu­dio so that there wasn’t a script for the kids, just for Stu. The kids were sup­posed to be spon­ta­neous (within rea­son). Pro­fes­sor Kool would ask for the kids to tell their best jokes and he would give a prize for the one which got the biggest laugh. After a cou­ple of kids had their turn telling the stan­dard knock-knock’s, etc., one brutish-looking lad grabbed the micro­phone from Stu and pro­ceeded to relate the fol­low­ing joke quickly before cam­eras and sound could cut away: “Why is a vir­gin like a fry­ing pan? Because she’s got to be hot before you can apply the meat.” I don’t know if he won the prize, but I under­stand there was at least 2 – 3 min­utes of back­stage pan­de­mo­nium as the cam­era panned the room to recover and the boy’s mother ran to the set and whacked his bottom.

  16. Kirk said on November 8th, 2007 at 11:39 am

    Nope, not Fran Alli­son, just a local TV per­son. She did do some pup­pet stuff, though.

  17. Dave said on November 8th, 2007 at 10:28 pm

    I do not remem­ber Aunt Fran at all but as soon as I saw the lyrics for Dick Clifton’s Ram­bler­land, though I didn’t break out into song, I instantly knew the tune. I do know the Mr. Tree song, too, younger sib­lings watched Lucy’s Toy Shop.

    Chiller The­ater? Fritz the Night Owl? Jerry Rasor’s Dance Party on Sat­ur­day morning?

  18. Dean said on November 17th, 2007 at 9:34 am

    It was Lex May­ers, with an “s”. He was the wrestling host and owner of Lex May­ers’ Chevro­let in Colum­bus. I’m certain-I’m his X-brother in law. How’bout that!

  19. Donna said on November 25th, 2007 at 7:19 pm

    Read­ing these blogs is a hoot. I remem­ber Aunt Fran – I was on her show while in first grade. Also, remem­ber Casper the Camel? While I was an under­grad­u­ate at OSU, I went into a cam­pus shop on High Street. The owner/store clerk asked, “May I help you?” Before respond­ing, it occurred to me that that per­son was Sky Lucy a.k.a. Casper the Camel. Too funny!

  20. Bill said on November 30th, 2007 at 11:05 am

    My wife was oince on “Bowl­ing for Dol­lars” hosted by Spook Beck­man. And read­ing through all this reminded me of Casper the Camel’s side­kick and straight man, Chuck Nuzum. Great stuff.

  21. John E. said on December 17th, 2007 at 7:51 pm

    I remem­ber in his later years (late 70’s) Spook Beck­man sold cars at Lou McGuire Ford in Westerville,Ohio along with my dad. He also served in WWII. Great guy.

  22. tim said on January 7th, 2008 at 8:50 pm

    hi there mr tree
    we’re very glad to see you
    wake up mr tree
    its day­time cant you see

  23. tim said on January 7th, 2008 at 8:51 pm

    MR TREE

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