At the Sadie Hawkins Day Dance, the character of Marryin' Sam is played by Leo Barrett (R.I.P.). Cartoonist Al Capp had a hillbilly comic strip called Lil Abner that ran from 1934 to 1977. In that strip, an ugly old spinster was Sadie Hawkins. Her father wanted to marry her off, so he declared Sadie Hawkins Day.
All of the eligible bachelors of the town of Dogpatch were rounded up and run in a race and Sadie would chase them all. The one that Sadie caught would be her husband. At high school, the Sadie Hawkins Day dance was popular because the girls asked the boys to the dance. For shy teenage boys, it was the ideal way to find out who liked you.
Update: I managed to find a Li'L Abner cartoon with Marryin' Sam in it. This cartoon I scanned from a 1964 comics supplement to the Toronto Star. Click on the image to get a bigger picture.
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