King and Queen of Plop Competition to be Held in Ocean City Friday

Long ago and far away, the royals in the ancient city of Plop Plopomis amused themselves by ordering their servants to fall and get up, fall and get up again and again until they were exhausted. The servants complied to avoid becoming a happy meal for lions. The city, 75 kilometers from Rome, carried out this ritual on the first Friday before Laborius Day. In time, the servant thing disappeared and in its place, folks engaged in plopping competitions.

To honor this long-standing tradition, Ocean City holds the King and Queen of Plop competition the first Friday before Labor Day. That would be this Friday at 11 a.m. at the 9th Street beach.

If this story sounds like something fabricated by the always thinking mind of Ocean City public relations director, Mark Soifer, well, that’s exactly the case. Soifer is the guy responsible for bringing the Doo Dah parade to Ocean City, with the Miss Crustacean contest and the French fry sculpting competition, among other oddities.

“We needed an event to greet the fall season,” Soifer said in an email. “I thought of having a Mr. Fall Guy and Miss Fall Girl Pageant, aka King and Queen of Plop Contest in early September.”

The competition is open to all age groups. Contestants are challenged to perform original – and dramatic - plops in slow motion. Winners are declared the King and Queen of Plop or Miss Fall Gal, Mr. Fall Guy.

The festivities include music from the World’s Only Wind Chimes Band of Ocean City, N.J. The band plays “Jingle Bells” and “Brother Can You Spare a Chime.”

“The latter has been number one on the Wind Chimes Hits list for 105 weeks,” Soifer noted.

Celebrity Ploppers include Nancy Fox and the Fox Vocal Arts Ploppers; Suzanne Muldowney, AKA Shelly the Mermaid, plopping to exotic music; Doug Jewell of Air Circus and his Yo Yo Ploppers; the Ocean City Fish doing a soggy plop; and the Baseball Plopper, sinking to the sand in despair after he strikes out.

Registration is at 10:30 a.m. Entry is free. Contest winners will receive trophies, runners up will be awarded ribbons. Small replicas of Martin Z. Mollusk, Ocean City’s relatively famous Hermit Crab, will be given to all who will take them while supplies last. Preferred seating is provided free in the loggia area of the Music Pier over looking the event.

For more information, call (609) 525-9300

Photos courtesy of Donald B. Kravitz