"Dance marathons were both genuine endurance contests and staged performance events. Professional marathoners (often pretending to be amateurs) mixed with authentic hopeful amateurs under the direction of floor judges, an emcee, and the merciless movement of the clock to shape participatory theater. Both grim spectacle and vaudeville-based amusement, dance marathons offered an inexpensive chance for audiences “to be entertained and while away time”. They also offered audiences the Depression-era novelty of feeling superior (and feeling pity) toward someone else...Special endurance events were heavily advertised and drew large crowds. “Stumbling, Staggering, On They Go! Who will be the next to be carried off the floor?” promoter Rookie Lewis advertised of a 1936 dance marathon in Fife (The Tacoma Times, July 21, 1936). The local press kept a death-watch as contestants dropped out...
Intense fatigue sometimes led contestants to "go squirrelly," especially during the wee hours of the morning. “Fatigue brought them to a state resembling a coma, a state which seemed to offer relief from the soreness of the day’s travail. During these episodes, contestants hallucinated, became hysterical, had delusions of persecution … acted out daily rituals: they talked to an imaginary companion, grinned vacantly, and snatched objects from the air” (Calabria, p.77). For the audience, watching contestants go squirrelly offered a queasy thrill."
