On the three nights prior to the televised pageant there are "preliminary shows" that are almost as elaborate as the Grand Finale itself. They even featured their own celebrity host: The One and Only John Davidson, who would kick the shows off by singing and dancing to some Kool and the Gang song like a complete maniac. He then spent the next 15 minutes making a lot of jokes at his own expense, some of them even rather ribald and innuendo-laden. Everyone's "honest to a fault," these days, it seems. Social propriety has become a thing of the past, even at the Miss America Pageant.

These preliminary shows are when the various category winners are selected, thus narrowing down the playing field for the final telecast (which is why the rest of you never got to witness the hair-raising spectacle of the christian bookstore employee Miss Idaho singing a passionate operetta in Italian. She sang it well, too, but MAN did she scare me). The judges at each show pick a winner in the following categories: Talent, Swimsuit (aka: "Physical Fitness"), and "Evening Wear" — and if you're as confused by the importance of the latter as I am, keep in mind that the Miss America's own polls reveal that Evening Wear is considered the MOST IMPORTANT CATEGORY OF ALL to most pageant fans. Something to do with "poise," I'm told. (My own hunch is that pageant hounds simply can't get enough of pretty ladies with fancy-shmancy dresses on, but what do I know?)