Radiomen stretched their imaginations to the snapping point in the rubber-salvage campaign. Two types of result:
≫ To publicize its own rubber drive, Philadelphia’s KYW put a bouncing blonde cutie in a rubber bathing suit, sent her touring the town in a horse-drawn cart, made as if to salvage her suit. Result: 19,173 Ib. of rubber in twelve hours, and the war’s most nonsensical publicity photograph.
≫ San Antonio’s WOAI offered several prizes, one for the best collector’s letter. The winning letter came from twelve-year-old William Wheat of Utopia. While fishing for old tires, Utopia’s Willie was bitten by a copperhead snake. He wrote: “We didn’t make much on the rubber [247 lb.] after having to pay the hospital and the doctor but anyway we did help lick the Japs and Germans.”
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