The secret history of the fan Hugos
On the trufen discussion list, Ted White has mentioned that when he co-chaired the Worldcon in 1967 (NyConIII), he proposed that the fan Hugos (Best Fanzine, Best Fan Writer, Best Fan Artist) be called Pongs, in honor of Bob Tucker's alter ego Hoy Ping Pong. I just discovered a piece by Alexei Panshin confirming this, in a story about the Hugo he won for Best Fan Writer in 1967: "Two months later, at the 1967 World Science Fiction Convention, held over Labor Day weekend, I received the first Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer. Originally, the award was to have been called a Pong, which wouldn't have been quite the same thing." Before NyConIII, there had only been one fan Hugo category, for Best Fan Publication, and Ted was able to get people to agree to add the Best Fan Writer and Best Fan Artist categories, but the idea of calling them Pongs instead of Hugos was voted down.
Ted brought up this bit of history in the wake of Tucker's death this weekend, saying that he still thought it was a good idea. Since it seems unlikely that enough of the relevant people would agree with this proposal even now, we are instead discussing the idea of renaming the FAAn Awards Pongs (or as Frank Lunney put it, giving the FAAns the nickname "Pong", as the Hugos used to be the nickname of the Science Fiction Achievement Awards). Don't know if that idea will go anywhere either (I'm all for it), but I find the history behind it of interest anyway. Maybe the FAAns are too small-scale to be a proper tribute to Bob Tucker, but certainly he played a huge part in creating the fandom that led to the FAAns.
Ted brought up this bit of history in the wake of Tucker's death this weekend, saying that he still thought it was a good idea. Since it seems unlikely that enough of the relevant people would agree with this proposal even now, we are instead discussing the idea of renaming the FAAn Awards Pongs (or as Frank Lunney put it, giving the FAAns the nickname "Pong", as the Hugos used to be the nickname of the Science Fiction Achievement Awards). Don't know if that idea will go anywhere either (I'm all for it), but I find the history behind it of interest anyway. Maybe the FAAns are too small-scale to be a proper tribute to Bob Tucker, but certainly he played a huge part in creating the fandom that led to the FAAns.