OT Sadie Hawkins Day was named for a cartoon character developed by Al Capp for his Li'l Abner comic strip. Sadie Hawkins was so ugly that her father, Mayor of Dog Patch, U.S.A., feared he would never marry her off. In desperation, he decreed a Sadie Hawkins Day. All unmarried men in Dogpatch would get a ten minute head start before Sadie and the other unmarried women began running after them. The man each woman caught would end up in front of Marryin' Sam for a shotgun wedding.
At Morris Harvey, the rules allowed all the female "residents" to chase their men, who were given a ten second head start. The men were not allowed to run out of bounds or past the fifty yard line. When the race was over, couples would line up to be married by Marryin' Sam. Participants dressed in the "hillbilly" costumes shown in the comic strip. The costumes for women, off-the-shoulder blouses and mid-thigh or shorter ragged edge skirts, were quite brief in relation to the usual attire of the 1930's-1950's. Parents sometimes objected to the amount of bare leg being shown by their daughters.
The names of persons holding roles other than Li'l Abner and Daisy Mae were not usually recorded, not even the names of the girls portraying Sadie Hawkins herself. Some of the other characters who were portrayed were Marryin' Sam, Earthquake McGoon, The Wolf Girl, Moonbeam McSwine, Hannibal Hoops, Mammy Yokum, and Pappy Yokum. |
