Queen for a Day, an American radio and television show, helped usher in American broadcast listeners' and viewers' fascination with big prize giveaway shows when it was born on radio (1945 – 1957), before moving to television (1956 – 1964; 1969 – 1970) and, between the two versions, making itself the arguable grandmother of at least one subset of today's "reality television". The show became popular enough that NBC increased its running time from 30 to 45 minutes.

Jack Bailey hosted both the original radio show and the original daytime television version, first for NBC and then ABC. Using the classic "applause meter" as did many game or hit-parade style shows of the time, Queen for a Day contestants told why they would like the honour—and the twist of it was that the contestant had to talk publicly about the recent hard times she had been through.

It was something of an inverted Horatio Alger syndrome: instead of boy or girl making good, strictly speaking, the lure of Queen for a Day was woman making rock bottom (or close enough to it; the tearjerking factor was always part of the show's appeal) in order to have a one in four chance at best of making good, or at least a little less burdened, for at least one day in her life. The more harsh the circumstances that led a contestant to want to appear, the likelier the studio audience was to ring the applause meter's highest level. And, to the full accompaniment of the studio orchestra ringing out "Pomp and Circumstance", the winner would be draped in a red velvet robe and a shimmering crown, and she would be festooned with gifts, trips, a fully-paid night on the town with her husband or her escort, and other prizes. "Make every woman a queen, for every single day!" would be Bailey's trademark signoff.

Queen for a Day struck a chord with Americans who hoped to see the hardest of luck catch a break once in awhile if not more, and in all fairness Bailey himself—for all his ballyhoo style—treated his contestants with dignity enough, as if it was second nature to him. But there were those critics who accused the show of exploiting rather than enhancing the women who competed and the audience (in studio and at home) who watched. Still, Queen for a Day's basic ambiance echoes almost four decades after the classic version of the show finished its two-decade broadcast life. (Dick Curtis hosted a short-lived attempt to revive the show in 1969.) Both the positive and the negative sides of the show can be seen (and are discussed) in such "reality" shows of today, which aim to relieve the put-upon or the circumstantially battered (admittedly, for more than a single day), as Home Edition and Three Wishes.

Within one year of its original arrival, however, Queen for a Day was the target of a devastatingly funny parody on The Fred Allen Show. Tying it to the humourist's longtime running-gag "feud" with fellow comic titan Jack Benny, calling the segment "King for a Day", Allen set it up for Benny (in skinflint character) to sneak his way onto the "show" as a contestant, answer a single trivia question, and win a passel of goof prizes . . . including a professional pressers' iron that gave Allen the excuse to catch Benny, literally, with his pants down: Allen ordered assistants to start undressing Benny so his suit could be pressed right there, with Benny bellowing, "Allen, you haven't seen the end of me!" and Allen rejoining, without missing a beat, "It won't be long now!"

The 1951 movie Queen for a Day was based on the show and featured Jack Bailey playing himself.

Game shows | 1950s TV shows in the United States | 1960s TV shows in the United States | NBC network shows | ABC network shows | American radio programs