The Maid of Cotton Pageant

The Maid of Cotton pageant began in 1939. The annual pageant was sponsored by the National Cotton Council (NCC), Memphis Cotton Carnival, and the Cotton Exchanges of Memphis, New York, and New Orleans. The pageant was held in Memphis, Tennessee, in conjunction with the Carnival until the 1980s.

In mid-December every year the NCC released a list of contestants. Contestants were required to have been born in one of the cotton-producing states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, North and South Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas or Virginia. They might have also been born in the cotton-producing counties of Alexander, Jefferson, Massac, Pulaski, Williamson or Madison, Illinois or in Clark or Nye counties of Nevada. There were usually twenty contestants each year.

Contestants were judged on personality, good manners, intelligence, and family background as well as beauty and an ability to model. A Top Ten were chosen and then a Top Five, and finally second and first runners up and a winner. Winners served as goodwill and fashion ambassadors of the cotton industry in a five-month, all-expense tour of American cities. In the mid-1950s the tour expanded globally. In the late 1950s a Little Miss Cotton pageant was begun but lasted only until 1963 before being discontinued. In the mid-1980s Dallas,Texas took over the pageant, in conjunction with the NCC and its overseas division, Cotton Council International. In 1986, to bolster interest and participation, the NCC eliminated the rule requiring contestants to be born in a cotton-producing state. The pageant was discontinued in 1993, one of the reasons being that Cotton Inc. stopped contributing scholarship money as well as waning public interest and changing marketing strategies.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Jul 21, 2017 - Comments (3)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Contests, Races and Other Competitions, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s

La Bostella

Posted By: Paul - Tue Jul 18, 2017 - Comments (1)
Category: Fads, 1960s, Dance

Doddy and the Diddymen

Posted By: Paul - Fri Jul 14, 2017 - Comments (4)
Category: Fey, Twee, Whimsical, Naive and Sadsack, Music, 1960s, Europe

Follies of the Madmen #320

Posted By: Paul - Wed Jul 12, 2017 - Comments (1)
Category: Animals, Business, Advertising, Products, Tobacco and Smoking, 1960s

Toys Are Made for Children

Posted By: Paul - Sat Jul 08, 2017 - Comments (0)
Category: Fey, Twee, Whimsical, Naive and Sadsack, Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Music, 1960s

Warhol Schrafft’s Commercial

In November 1968, the Manhattan restaurant chain Schrafft’s hired Andy Warhol to create a television commercial, hoping to make itself look more hip and relevant. Warhol created a one minute long commercial, promoting Schrafft’s new “Underground Sundae,” which Schrafft’s described as, "Yummy Schrafft's vanilla ice cream in two groovy heaps, with three ounces of mind-blowing chocolate sauce undulating within a mountain of pure whipped cream topped with a pulsating maraschino cherry served in a bowl as big as a boat."
Time magazine described the commercial as follows: "Onto the screen flashes a shiny red dot, which turns out to be a maraschino cherry, which turns out to sit atop a chocolate sundae, which turns out to be the focal point for a swirling phantasmagoria of color. All of which, it also turns out, is a 60-second videotape commercial for a venerable Manhattan-based restaurant chain. "The chocolate sundae," proclaims a credit line that rolls diagonally across the TV tube, was "photographed for Schrafft's by Andy Warhol.”
According to Harold H. Brayman: "The screen fills with a magenta blob, which a viewer suddenly realizes is the cherry atop a chocolate sundae. Shimmering first in puce, then fluttering in chartreuse, the colors of the background and the sundae evolve through many colors of the rainbow. Studio noises can be heard. The sundae vibrates to coughs on the soundtrack. 'Andy Warhol for a SCHRAFFT’S?' asks the off-screen voice of a lady. Answers an announcer: 'A little change is good for everybody.'"
And according to Playboy: "His recent widely discussed commercial for Schrafft’s restaurant chain was a long, voluptuous panning shot of a chocolate sundae, with 'all the mistakes TV can make left in,' the artist explained. 'It’s blurry, shady, out of focus.'" Warhol was quite pleased with the results. “‘It's fun,’ he says, ‘and really pretty, really great.’” Apparently, so was Schrafft’s, which claimed, “[W]e haven't got just a commercial. We've acquired a work of art."
Unfortunately, Schrafft’s failed to preserve the commercial, and no known copies exist. Accordingly, on Thanksgiving day 2014, Katrina Dixon & Brian L. Frye recreated Warhol's commercial, to the best of their ability. For the record, the hot fudge is homemade & based on Schrafft's own recipe.