The Fickle Finger That Touched Mary Hilt

This is the story of a woman who went on a TV show she didn’t watch and didn’t even like, a woman who won a prize then said it wasn’t enough to meet her needs but asked for something less, a woman whose husband chose a dolphin over the vice-president of the United States, a woman who kicks televisions and chickens.

This was published in the Albany Times-Union of March 8, 1970.

Area Mother's Gag Is a Laugh-In Matter
By BILL KENNEDY
How did Mary Hilt of Averill Park wind up as an anonymous gagster on the Rowan and Martin "Laugh-In" that's due for local showing Monday night?
Here's how Mary tells it:
"I was out delivering eggs one night and Butch said, a detective is coming out to see you. You won a contest. Then this man from the Burns Detective Agency showed up with a four-page affidavit and the first thing I said to the kids was get out or you'll queer it, whatever it is, and I put them out in the chicken coop."
Butch, who brought the good news, is one of the seven Hilt children ranging from 15 to six (Pam, Wendy, Butch, Marjorie, Nicky, Nancy and Alison) who wound up in the coop where the Hilts keep their chickens. The chicken business started three years ago when Mary ran the Park Perkies, an Averill Park 441 Club which had 25 chickens. By the end of this year the Hilts will have 9,000 chickens.
"If I knew in the beginning what I know now, Mary said, "I'd have gassed them all."
So the detective sat in the Hilt kitchen and told Mary she'd won a contest sponsored by Breck, the shampoo firm, but he didn't know the details. He just wanted to know if she had any connection with Breck or the Laugh-In or the advertising agency which represented Breck. She didn't. She was a legitimate winner of The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate Contest.
"It was a moron contest," Mary said. "I didn't write anything. It was just a sweepstakes and you sent in your name and address. There were 212,000 entries and out of 30 drums they picked 300 names and took the names to Miami for Miss Breck to pick the winner.
WHEN MARY HEARD that she'd won she checked back to see what the prize was and found it was $20,000. So the Hilt family sat down together and figured out the things they all needed and made a discovery. "The $20,000 wasn't enough," Mary said.
The next day they made an other discovery. Mary had won second prize, not first. That was $1,000 plus a week in California, all expenses paid, and an appearance on Laugh-In. A man from Breck called and told her the prize. She said she couldn't take it.
"I've got seven kids and a lot of chickens," she told the caller. "I could cut off the chickens' heads and put them in the freezer but I couldn't do that with the kids."
So come out for four days for $1,500, the man suggested. We'll pay baby sitters. Fly out, fly back. But I don't fly, said Mary. You don't fly? No said Mary. And I don't even watch Laugh-In and I don't let the kids watch it because of the dirty jokes. Then why, asked the man, did you enter the contest?
"I WANTED A FLYING Fickle Finger of Fate," Mary said, referring to the replica of the Laugh-In gag award — winged finger on a bronze hand.
The Breck man cajoled but Mary resisted. Send us a color TV set and we'll call it square, she suggested. She explained: "My husband won't buy a color set till our black and white one gives out. I been kicking it, we all kick it when we go by it, but it won't give out."
The powers of persuasion prevailed, at last, and the Hilts decided to accept the prize and spend the four days in beautiful Burbank. The decision, said Mary, was chiefly her husband's. Leonard Hilt, a foreman with St. Regis Paper Co. in Scotia, had been a paratrooper in World War II. "He was up 18 or 20 times," Mary said, "but he always got pushed out the door and he said it'd be nice just once to come down with the plane."
It was also Leonard Hilt's decision to immerse the family in chickens, business "Best of the Nest" that grew to such proportions that the Hilts have built (themselves) a $15,000 poultry house, 40 by 100 feet.
"MY HUSBAND thinks this is the way to raise kids," Mary said, "shoveling manure and plucking chickens. Anything to keep them out of jail. The kids've made up a song they call The Poultry Plucker's Plea. One chicken attacked me the other day and I kicked it in the head and killed it, poor thing. I made believe it had got leukosis, but my husband came in and saw it and said to me, 'You been kicking chickens again?' I'm laughing, but I'm not happy. You ever been that close to chickens?"
The Hilts went west on separate planes and Mary went into the rehearsal hall and started looking around for celebrities. The place was full of them, all the Laugh-In regulars and Milton Berle and Carol Channing, but Mary didn't recognize anybody.
"I thought Buddy Hackett was a plumber," she said.
Finally she saw one, obviously a movie star. It turned out to be Ed Friendly, one of the originators of the Laugh-In. "He wasn't a movie star," Mary said, "but he was stunning."
Mary drew applause from the Laugh-In cast when she entered the set. The public relations people asked Mary if they could do anything for her. "Yes," she said "would you mind clearing the set while I say my lines? I heard Bette Davis did that once."
MARY'S LINES — two — come first during the party sequence of the show when all participants are dancing and gyrating. She sits quietly on a stool, looking, she says, like a visitor from the Legion of Decency. She at last says: "That's a no-no." But she doesn't know what it's in reference to. That was to be put in later. The second line comes when Dick Martin takes her by the hand and leads her off-camera. She comments as they go: 'Why me? Why always me?" She's not quite sure what that means either.
Her appearance is never explained on the show, nor is she introduced. "It's all a put-on," explained Mary.
When it was all over and they were leaving they found out that Spiro Agnew was next door at a studio being taped for the Bob Hope show and was scheduled to speak downtown the following day.
"I WANTED TO see him," Mary said, "but my husband wanted to go to Marineland and see Flipper so we missed Sprio." [sic]
The whole event has been an odd experience for Mary Hilt and her family, but then odd experiences are not totally new to her. Some years ago Topps department store in Menands burned down and Mary wrote the owners and expressed regret and explained how much she'd liked the store and wondered whether they'd build another one. Topps liked her letter so much that they paid her $500 to come to the opening of the new store with her family to cut the ribbon. Her husband resisted and Mary retorted: How can I go down there with seven kids and no husband? Finally, Leonard Hilt agreed to go.
His attitude, Mary recalled, I was like that of a man touched by the flying fickle finger of fate: "Who else but my wife would write to a burned-down store?"

You may be thinking we’re dealing with an oblivious, humourless couple of people in this story. Remarkably, that’s not the case. Mary Hilt later became a newspaper columnist, kind of a local Erma Bombeck looking at the odd, ordinary things in life. She was a very community-minded individual, and it’s sad to learn her last years were plagued by Alzheimer’s. She died in 2012. You can read about her interesting life here.