Gag Gift Classic: Rubber Chicken

Alright, as far as gag gifts and pranks are concerned this is one of the oldest boys in the book. Now I want you all to know, a little background on me. When I was a young lad say around the age of four or five my uncle would ask "what do you want to be when you grow up?" I would reply to this "a chicken farmer" I would also walk around the house "laying eggs" Ok, now that we have all my oddness out there and out of the way lets get a little further in our investigation of this amazing prop.

I find it quite amuzing all the mystery surrounding this classic. Nobody is sure exactly where the thing first came from. You have some different people who latch out and try to claim the rights, but we are left without a definitive answer. Now then, lets check the who's who of the props beginnings.

Joseph Grimaldi is high on the list of those competing for the "King of Cluck" title. He was a legendary white face clown in the 1800's. Beyond that I don't know much about the guy. A post for another day.

Then there is some company by the name of Loftus Novelty who many attribute the orgination of the rubber chicken to. There company was founded in 1939 and have been creating gag gifts and novelty items ever since.

There are still multiple other versions of the creation of this bad bird. It just adds to the power of the prop that it has no originator. We may not know where this thing came from, but it would appear it isn't going anywhere.

Funny story in my own experience with rubber chickens. We have a store called Spencers in our local mall. They had rubber chickens that you would squeeze and they let out this high pitch squeel. Funny part is they had these things hanging on a rack and they hung about 15-20 of 'em together. I would bear hug the whole rack of 'em. The noise they let out was ridiculous and people would get all freaked out. It was funny. Everyone should have this gag gift classic in their bag of tricks.