. . . as today's offerings, with their call-in contestant prize packages, SO YOU WANT TO BE ON THE RADIO documents. A case in point is the popular nightly show highlighted here, called "The Sneezing Man Program." Many of the items presented to the Champion Sneezers were not particularly useful. What can a person do with an "over-aged destroyer" propped up in their back yard? It might prove a popular novelty as a kids' clubhouse for the first week, and the neighbor tykes could help you consume your two box cars' worth of Hawaiian pineapples (another prize component) at your Captain's Table. But after the first few days, your destroyer's doomed to become just an "attractive nuisance," demanding 750 gallons of paint for each semi-annual treatment. The steam locomotive would most likely be in the same boat as your obsolete warship, and you'd have to possess a pretty spacious lawn to accommodate the 40 miles of track awarded with it. The 10,000 gallons of "fresh swimming pool water" might not be enough to float your boat, especially if you do not have a swim pool to begin with. The copper steam boiler would have a much higher scrap value today than in 1948, so I guess you could just keep THAT around for the grandkids. Presumably the Empire State Building and Schenectady, NY, would remain where they are, and you--as their new owner--could just relax and wait for the rent checks to roll in. Having your $2 million in cash accompanied by a bank vault is one of the few helpful aspects of this prize package--who can REALLY trust their neighbors? I think I'd use half that money to add five or ten stories to the height of my front turret, thereby increasing the value of the "gold-plated elevator shaft" thrown in as the final Sneezing Man prize component.
