For those of you who didn’t grow up in Phoenix in the 60s and 70s this may not mean anything, but for those of us who did, when Ben pointed out that the Phoenix Public Library was issuing these Wallace and Ladmo library cards, I knew I had to grab one.
50 years ago you’d mail in a postcard with your name and address on it to the show, and if it was one of the ones randomly drawn, you’d be invited down to the studio to appear live on television. You’d also be able to pick a toy (courtesy The Toy Cottage on 7th Avenue) off the shelf to take home with you. (This was before they started giving out “Ladmo Bags” as prizes).
Unbeknownst to us, sometime around my 9th or 10th birthday, my mom sent our names in and one afternoon—in the midst of a screaming match I was having with my five-year-old sister—our card was drawn. Mom heard our names called out over the cacophony and yelled at us to STFU—we were winners!. There is no photographic record of this momentous day since Mom didn’t think to take her Instamatic with her when we went down to the studio several days later—and probably wouldn’t have been allowed to use it even if she had—and of course this was LONG before the days of household VCRs, so all I have is memories.
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