A. No, not because his wings were tired. Because it's his job. For 35 years, chicken channeler Ted Giannoulas has feathered his nest by visiting ballparks across the country, putting on a chicken costume and entertaining fans with an act that includes about a hundred different gags and skits filled with slapstick and pantomime.
If he wasn't the first performing sports mascot, he was the first to make it big, and he inspired a flock of imitators like the Phillie Phanatic. The Mascot Hall of Fame calls The Famous Chicken "the one who started it all."
Q. ... Come to Anchorage?
A. Because the Anchorage Bucs baseball team hired him to perform tonight. The Bucs have a long relationship with The Famous Chicken, who did his act at Mulcahy Stadium several times back in the '80s, packing the place with 5,500 fans in 1982 and drawing 4,214 for his last appearance here in 1990.
This will be the first time The Chicken has been here since the 1998 introduction of Beekman the Parrot, the Bucs' eye-patch-wearing, pirate-inspired mascot.
No word on whether fowl territory has been established for the two birds for tonight's game.
Q. ... Change his name?
A. Because he had to.
Among lots of old-school baseball fans, The Famous Chicken is better known as the San Diego Chicken. Some really, really old old-schoolers even remember him as The KGB Chicken.
No, he's not a former Soviet spy, but the name was hatched during the Cold War era. Back in 1974, San Diego radio station KGB went to the San Diego State campus looking for a college student willing to wear a hot, heavy chicken suit for a promotion. The pay: $2 an hour. Giannoulas was game.
Turns out he had game too. After the PR gig, he volunteered to wear the costume at a San Diego Padres game and became a sensation. That put Giannoulas, now 55, on a career path that continues to this day. But his employment with the radio station ended after five years, and when that happened, the KGB part of the name went away.
Q. ... Hire a lawyer (Part 1)?
A. Because Giannoulas and KGB had a less than amicable parting of the ways. When the relationship ended, Giannoulas went free-range and performed on his own in a chicken suit. The radio station sued him.
In 1979 Giannoulas prevailed, winning the right to keep on clucking. The court said he had to get a new chicken costume though, so when he did that, he renamed himself The San Diego Chicken. As his fame and fan base grew beyond San Diego, he took on the name The Famous Chicken. He answers to both names.
Q. ... Hire a lawyer (Part 2)?
A. Because someone had to put Barney the Dinosaur in his place.
In 1998, in what was actually a significant test of free speech, a federal judge ruled in favor of The Chicken in lawsuit filed by the Barney people.
One of his skits, The Chicken mocks and slaps the annoying purple dinosaur, and the Barney people filed a copyright infringement suit, squawking that the skit confused and upset children who thought it was the real Barney getting roughed up. The ruling affirmed the concept that comedians are protected by the First Amendment when they satirize famous people or, in this case, famous cartoon characters.
Q. ... Go to the White House?
A. Because George W. invited him for a game of T-ball in 2001.
Q. ... Go to Cooperstown?
A. Because one of his costumes is there. It's part of the memorabilia on display at the National Baseball Hall of Fame museum. Other than the rented suit he wore back when this all started, The Chicken wears suits made by his mom Helen.
Q. ... Hire an understudy?
A. Trick question. There is only one Famous Chicken.
"I'm the only one who wears the outfit," Giannoulas said in an email he pecked out to the Daily News. "Moreover, I've never missed single game due to injury or illness and my consecutive playing streak is longer than Lou Gehrig's and Cal Ripken's combined."
Giannoulas said he's worked more than 3,000 baseball games and another 3,000 sporting events, including basketball, hockey and football. He's made more than 10,000 personal appearances in costume, and even performed at an Elvis concert once.
"I'd love to experience a summer vacation," he said. "I did take a month off from my summer schedule five years ago and that was great."
Find Beth Bragg online at adn.com/contact/bbragg or call 257-4309.
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