A busy show with a Country Fair theme begins with Phil Yazdzik and Charles Pfister, the two power eaters from last
week’s show (E133), who will compete against each other in a pancake eating contest over the course of the half hour program. They took a break from their pancakes to dig into the seedless watermelon from the secret below, and were each arbitrarily awarded ten pancake credits for that effort. Yazdzik would win
the competition 47-46. Yazdzik received
$100 in his winning effort, and Pfister received a consolation prize of $99. You read that correctly.
Dr Henry F Dearborn from Lawrence, Massachusetts: "My hen laid the world's largest egg"
Dr Dearborn's hen broke the US record in 1951, and we think the Secret producers just fudged the truth a little in granting him global status. The Dearborn egg weighs a whopping eight and a half ounces. According to period reports, an egg weighing over 11 ounces is on display at the Museum of Curiosities in Paris. Sadly, Dr Dearborn's hen did not survive the experience.
Dr EC Stevenson from Purdue University in Indiana: “I grow watermelons that have no seeds”
Production
of a seedless watermelon had been a goal of horticulturalists for much of the
20th century. Efforts began
to bear fruit in the late 30s with prototypes grown in laboratory settings in
Japan and the American Midwest. A graduate student at what was then called Michigan State College claimed the first successful one in 1938. It wasn’t until the mid-fifties that the tools
for creating seedless watermelons were beginning to make their way into the
commercial market, so this melon seemed magical to a TV viewing audience. Widespread commercial production of seedless
watermelons really didn’t take off until the 1990s.
Special guest Earl Wilson :
“I
am going to judge a cake-baking contest among the panelists.”
The cakes, presumably, were baked before the program. Faye is the winner, as seen in a brief clip from the fourth anniversary show (
E192
). Wilson was a popular and influential syndicated newspaper writer whose column It Happened Last Night ran, at its peak, in 175 papers nationwide. Broadly, Wilson was little different than a gossip columnist, reporting exclusive stories about Broadway and the showbiz world of New York City. However, "Midnight Earl" was generally held in higher regard than many of his contemporaries due to his journalistic background and his avoidance of sensationalism. His column ran from 1942 until 1983.
Joe Loomis from Scottsbluff, Nebraska: "I am the US sheep-shearing champion"
The 42-year-old Loomis won the title at the International Livestock Exposition in Chicago last December. Participants in the competition sheared three sheep each, and were judged on speed, technique and quality of workmanship. Loomis scored 93.9 out of a possible 100 points. This was his fourth attempt at the crown.
JE Wallace, a butter sculptor from DeLand, Florida who was something of a legend in that very specific world, was scheduled to appear on this show with a 600-pound sculpture of a cow that was to have taken him all day to create. His local newspaper indicated the day before that he was already on his way to New York to participate. However, his 1956 obituary says that he was unable to get a flight to New York in time, and instead guided and advised a New York sculptor over the phone, and that work was displayed on the show. The Gil Fates notes for this episode make no mention of a butter sculpture being featured.
This episode has not been reviewed. Information comes from alternate sources, including many contemporary newspaper articles and Gil Fates' handwritten notes. Quoted secrets are based on those notes and are believed to be accurate.
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