Every day, the Associated Press issues the Michigan Daybook which alerts various media outlets of newsworthy events taking place across the state. When I saw the alert: “Wayne County Parks annual Marshmallow Drop. Over 20,000 marshmallows are dropped from a helicopter for children to collect and trade in for a prize.”, my immediate thought was of the infamous WKRP Turkey Drop.

The “WKRP in Cincinnati” episode “Turkeys Away”, aired on October 30th,1978, and centered on a radio station promotion in which forty live turkeys were dropped from a helicopter onto an unsuspecting Cincinnati shopping mall below. Carnage ensued and was witnessed by Les Nessman, the station's newsman, who gave a play-by-play of the disaster saying, "One just went through the windshield of a parked car. This is terrible, Oh, the humanity!”

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 "One just went through the windshield of a parked car. This is terrible, Oh, the humanity!”

Things should go much better for the Wayne County Parks Department. Marshmallows have less of an impact when striking objects below, and this will mark the 37th year that the event will take place, and with a good track record.

A high-flying helicopter will be dropping 20,000 marshmallows to thousands of eager kids waiting on the ground. A press release states that the blizzard of marshmallows will tumble from the sky to the kids, who are separated into age groups. Only one marshmallow is needed to receive a prize and they advise the kids not to eat the marshmallows. The event takes place, bright and early on Good Friday morning, at Elizabeth Park in Trenton. And if that's not good enough, they'll do it all again, two hours later, at Nankin Mills Park, in Westland. The question is, how do you keep thousands of kids from ingesting marshmallows that have just drifted from the skies?

The Ghost Town of Ridge

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