The Chicken comes to Nat Bailey

[WestCoastJoe]

http://communities.canada.com/vancouver ... ug-20.aspx

Famous Chicken - August 20

By IAN WALKER

He’s considered one of sports most powerful figures by The Sporting News and has been seen by 65 million people worldwide, but what you might not know about the Famous Chicken, aka Ted Giannoulas, is he’s Canadian. I caught up with the 53-year-old London, Ont., native in advance of his return to Vancouver on Aug. 28 when the Canadians host the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes at Nat Bailey Stadium.

Q. One of my first memories of you doesn’t come from the baseball diamond, but from a hockey rink. I saw you on a sports highlight show skating around with nothing but your head, tail, loin cloth and blades. I didn’t know chickens wore undergarments?

A. What can I say, I’m a chicken for all seasons. But the incident you mention happened several years ago in Wichita, Kansas, and it was the only game I did not perform fully outfited because the airlines had lost most of my outfit. I remember it well; I skated out during the intermission almost as naked as a Jaybird.

Q. Didn’t you also wrestle Pete Rose in a then WWF event?

A. I was at WrestleMania with Pete Rose, but I did not wrestle him. He tied me up and hijacked my outfit and went out to wrestle Kane in disguise. And when The Chicken was acting unchicken-like, Kane suspected something, flipped off the head and pile-drived Pete to the canvas.

Q. What’s this about you interrupting The King? How'd you get out of the show alive?

A. No it wasn't like that at all. It happened in 1976, a year before Elvis died. He was in concert at San Diego Sports Arena and I’m dancing up and down the aisles and it catches him off guard. He starts laughing hysterically and literally dropped to one knee. And this was in the middle of a song. A Whole Lotta Shaking Going On, a Jerry Lee Lewis number. And his doctor, carrying a doctor’s bag, runs on stage to attend to Elvis. But Elvis pushes him away and points to me and you can hear him say 'I'm fine. There's a dancing chicken.' After he gatherd himseld, Elvis apologizes to the audience for messing up the lyrics. Then he tells me, 'I just want to warn the chicken that my manager’s name is The Colonel.'

Q. What is your fondest memory of the past 33 years?

A. The Grand Hatching was a genuine thrill, everything it was cracked up to be. This ceremony was to debut my new Chicken feathers to San Diego fans after being fired from mascot work at KGB Radio. I was literally breaking out on my own. Our divorce was actually front-page news. Anyway, I smashed out of a hand carved, 10 foot styrofoam egg, brought onto the field by armored truck and escorted by California Highway Patrol motorcade with the musical backdrop from 2001: A Space Odyssey playing over the sound system. And then I was carried off the field on the shoulders of the San Diego Padres. Baseball historians consider it one of the greatest promotions ever conceived. And the Padres sold out 49,000 seats. There average attendance that year was 14,000. It was a wild affair that night at the Murph.

A. What’s the big deal? Chickens hatch from eggs everyday.

Q. Oh, what brought this about was the radio station and I came to loggerheads over my career growth. Philosophical differences. The radio station that hired me out of college chose to fire me and then filed a lawsuit to ban me from branching out on my own. To make a long story short, the court ruled in my favour and made me a free-agent chicken. So the ceremony was symbolic of me breaking out on my own.

Q. You ever get yourself in hot water by taking a joke too far?

A. There’s been those who have been upset by their own misunderstanding. For example, one time in the 1970s, Lou Pinella got really, really upset at one of my gags that I was doing with Ron Guidry, his Yankee teammate, out on the mound. Lou took exception of me dropping the ball on the ground instead of putting it in Guidry’s glove to start the inning. He tried to pull me away and threw his mitt at me and was yelling at me to stay away from Guidry. Unbeknownst to Pinella, it was all planned out before the game. Guidry even came to me with the idea. [Laughing] It didn’t help that Lou had just struck out the inning before with the bases loaded. he was not in a good mood walking out to his position. So when he saw me doing this goofy thing with his starting pitcher, he went crazy. At the start, the audience thought it was all part of the act, but seeing how red Pinella was turning red yelling at me ... then he goes over to the first base umpire and started peeling him out. 'Get this bleep and bleep chicken off the field. What’s a chicken doing on the bleeping field, anyway. Messing with my pitcher...' Now the audience is really getting on Pinella — hooting and hollering because Pinella is going off the handle for real. So after Pinella clears out, I go over and under the catcalls to Pinella I ask the umpire if I overstepped something or did something wrong. And he tells me 'Don’t worry about Pinella. The only difference between Jimmy Piersal and Pinella is Piersal has his papers.' Piersal was a ball player in the '60s who was whacko and had to have psychiatric help and was truly certified. He went on to be a very famous broadcaster now with the Chicago White Sox.

Q. With or without Lou on your case, it’s got to get hot inside your suit?

A. It’s so hot, my eggs are hard boiled. You know, I’m always in heat. My act isn’t considered half baked anymore, it’s fully baked. It’s like a famous U.S. president, Harry Truman, used to say: 'If you can’t stand the heat. stay out of the chicken.' Or something like that.

Q. Has the suit evolved with your act?

A. Certainly. This is a third generation outfit, but I’ve been wearing the same type of suit the last 20-25 years.

Q. How often do you go through them?

A. A couple a year, at least. Just from the wear and tear and the slapstick nature of my act.

Q. Not to mention the smell?

A. No, I keep it laundered on a daily basis. Chickens are pretty good with their hygiene. It’s a wash and wear and very pliable. Nothing hard shell about it.

Q. How much longer you plan on busting your beak?

I still feel like a spring chicken. I love performing and next Tuesday at Nat Bailey the fans will see the funniest night of the year. You can’t play forever; although Julio Franco and I are trying.

Q. Anything special planned for your visit to The Nat?

A. One of my acts is bringing out little kids dressed in baby chicken suits to copy all my moves. Kind of like a bunch of baby ducklings with their mother. I’ve been at this so long that one year I did the routine I picked a four-year-old Nick Swisher out of the crowd. [Laughing] Of course Nick is a big-time player with the Oakland As and a former Canadian.

Q. Do you guys still laugh about that?

A. He loves telling that story. And he swears, to this day, it’s the proudest his mom has ever been of him on the baseball diamond.

Q. When was your last visit to Vancouver.

A. It’s been a long time. Seven long years. And I used to come up there every year when they were a Triple A affiliate.

Q. Before I let you fly, I got to ask you about Barry Bonds and the new homerun record?

A. I like what Vince Scully said, the Los Angeles Dodgers broadcaster. Vince said 'Granted Barry Bonds, in hitting his homerun, is breaking another baseball record. But when Hank Aaron his his homerun, he broke baseball history.’ Big difference. I like that comparison a lot.

Q. Thanks so much Chicken. Bird's the word.

A. You’re very welcome. Eat Beef.

[MacNews]

Funniest Q&A ever. :lol:

[Lions_Fan_4_Life]

Anyone else planning on seeing the Chicken at the Nat next week?

[Rammer]

Having talked to the Chicken in Calgary once upon a time, it will sadden you to know that there is more than one Chicken attending events. While Ted Giannoulas may be the original, the Chicken talks and you will hear different accents in different areas of the USA and Canada.

[MacNews]

Having talked to the Chicken in Calgary once upon a time, it will sadden you to know that there is more than one Chicken attending events. While Ted Giannoulas may be the original, the Chicken talks and you will hear different accents in different areas of the USA and Canada.

Oh well, as long as we are getting the original, bona-fide chicken, that is all that matters.

[Lions_Fan_4_Life]

For anyone going tomorrow night I'm going to be one of two PA Announcers:P