MARK SOIFER by blog.nj.com
by Walter Brasch
Tired of the heat wave--and the
drought--and the recent heavy rains?
Whatever you have scheduled
for Wednesday, August 7--cancel it, and head to Ocean City, N.J.
It's the 40th anniversary of
the Miss Crustacean Hermit Crab Beauty Pageant . Among those
who have won the Coveted Cucumber Rind Cup Cup are Crabunzel, Crabahontis, Crabopatra,
Crab McMuffin, Taxi Crab, Copacrabana, and Crab Salad. Last year's winner was Sandy
Claws.
U.S. News and World Report named the pageant as
one of the 10 most unusual events in the U.S. During the past four decades, the
contest has been covered by rural, suburban, and metro newspapers; all the major
radio and television networks, including the BBC; and national magazines. It
was even a Jeopardy question.
When the Miss America pageant was a few miles away in Atlantic City, public
relations genius and satirist Mark Soifer, who has been Ocean City's PR
director for 45 years, decided the city needed its own competition. It would be
a competition, he so decreed, in which none of the contestants spent years
preening and rehearsing their pretend impromptu lines about how much they
wanted world peace and to save the whales. Just how effective is the Miss Crustacean beauty pageant?
The answer is five miles away. The crabs are still at the beach. Miss America
isn't.
Shortly after the Miss
Crustacean pageant, Ocean City will host the annual Hermit Crab Races. About
150--200 crabs will creep their way to victory on an eight-foot plywood oval. To
assure there are no crustaceans on searoids, officials from NASCRAB--that's the
National Association of Crab Activities at the Beach--will check each contestant,
says Soifer.
The week after the spotlight
fades from the hermit crab competition is Weird Contest Week. Among the creative
contests are several that require artistic skills that go well beyond what
would normally be seen in those high-culture nose-in-the-air museums. There is french
fry sculpting; salt water taffy sculpting; paper clip sculpting (past
sculptures included the Eiffel Tower, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Empire State
Building); and "That's the Way the Cookie Crumbles" contest, which requires
contestants to chew a 12-inch cookie into something artistic. "We used to use Twinkies,"
says Soifer, "but the re-designed Twinkie is smaller and doesn't work as well."
There is a talent show where
anyone with any kind of talent--or no talent at all--can enter. "Maybe they
missed the bus or the Olympics, so this contest makes up for that," says
Soifer. There's also a talent show for children.
During the beginning of the
rock and roll era, in the first verse of the now-classic "Shake, Rattle, and Roll,"
Big Joe Turner sang, "Make some noise with the pots and pans." Decades later in
Ocean City, three- to five-year-olds compete in the Little Miss Chaos and
Little Mr. Chaos contests. For 90 seconds, they bang pots and pans to music--the
winner is the one who makes the loudest noise.
"People often base their
vacations around these contests," says Soifer.
Other Summer events include
sand sculpture contests, a Pamper Scamper for babies under 15 months of age, twins
contests, a surfing contest, Mummers on the Boardwalk, concerts at the Music
Pier, art festivals, and a pie eating contest that is undoubtedly healthier
than the hot dog eating championships on July 4th in Coney Island.
Soifer is also chief
organizer of the DooDah Parade and Martin Z. Mollusk Day.
The DooDah parade in April, which
celebrates the end of Tax Season, is the anti-parade. Grand marshals have
included Mickey Rooney, Harlem Globetrotters' Meadowlark Lemon, Carol Channing,
Joan Rivers, Larry Storch, Bill Dana, and Soupy Sales. The legendary television
comedian was a fixture for several years and the role model for the Pieasco contest.
People in the grandstands throw shaving cream pies at each other in honor of the
television comedic icon.
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