The most awesome mascot there ever has been. Basically all other mascots do routines the chicken invented. The chicken should be in the baseball HOF. I've seen him many times fill stadiums the teams couldn't. He was not a team mascot after leaving San Diego, he was a national mascot all over the country for all sport franchises. No other mascot has ever done that. Just an amazing talent and even with all that costume on, a real human being is obvious.
Love the Chicken! I met him when he came to my hometown. We have a minor league baseball team & he came to do his routine. I have his picture & autograph in a frame from 1981. He was so funny!
As a San Diegan born in 1972, The San Diego Chicken was a big part of my childhood. Thanks for all the laughs, Ted! I wish the Padres or the Chargers had locked you up with a long-term contract when they had the chance!
I assume he still does Padres games today from time to time. As for a long-term contract, after what happened with the radio station and the court battle, its understandable why Ted felt its better to freelance and not be locked into a long deal.
It was the promo guys at KGB radio that invented the chicken. Ted made it THE CHICKEN and eventually won the rights to the character. I remember those days, before and after the court case. There wasn't a better mascot.
Being a pro photographer, I shot the ''Chicken'' for many years, at various sporting events. We came to be professional freinds of sorts.He would come into a crowd and pick up infants and put his big yellow beek around their heads, parents and crowd loved it. I shot the whole thing and gave parents my business card. Great for my business and ''Chickens'' popularity.. Years later my daughter came along, I planned for her '' Chicken'' moment for well over a year and 9 months.Got my wife and 14 month old beautiful girl tickets in front row, on top of 3rd base dugout. Ted [Chicken] came up to my wife, who was holding our precious baby girl for him to take. I was positioned slightly to the side and behind wife and baby, facing the ''Chicken. Was perfect, well.... almost. It was just like I'd planned, for so long, sort of.. But she started crying and Ted acted like he was going to launch her over 3rd base. Click, click, click.... Fast forward, hung on my study wall, is a neatly cherry framed 30 x 40 print,.Colorfully frozen in time, is my infant daughter Lindsey. Intensely bawling, with a look of terrified bewilderment, on her once sweet, smiling face. Was a Chicken's big yellow foot attempting to drop kick her curiously contorted, infant face. Not exactly how I planned, but priceless anyway. Ted is a great original talent and sweet human being. My once cute ''baby'' girl, is now my lovely 25 yr old daughter and Mother of my precious 4 yr old grand daughter. I'm retired, but planning a ''Chicken'' , Mother & child reunion of sorts. I can hardly wait, well....... sort of.
This is hilarious to watch! I have fallen in love with the chicken over the years and really appreciate this compilation of his greatest bits! Many I had never seen! Thanks for sharing!!!
The baby part is great. "Hi. My name is Michael and I work in promotions for the Detroit Pistons. Will you give us your baby so a guy in a giant chicken costume can dance with him/her at mid court? Of course we will provide any necessary psychological treatment that may be needed."
Man, oh, man I love that chicken! He's a force all by himself and is hilarious! I've loved him for years! Greatly appreciate this vid because I saw some bits I'd not seen before! Thanks so much!
i remember watching him when i was a kid, i actually have the vhs tape of this XD my dad would always play it for me and my brother and we would always stop what we were doing just to watch him XD ironic now that i'm scared of birds but i will always love the chicken he is a definite legend!!!!
Was in the Bleachers when he came to Wrigley Field some game, maybe 1980 ish or so...anyway half drunk idiots would go up to him and buy him a beer for him from a nearby vendor---Chicken would open that beak wide, down the whole beer---high 5 the half lit dude---laugh then spit out the WHOLE thing in they guys face----funniest thing you'd ever see...Thanks Chicken.
I remember when he was at the radio station. Went to a Monday night game Chargers against the Jets and the chicken got so drunk it was hysterical. Fans kept feeding him beers.
I remember that ! As KGB chicken he did occasionally have a few beers at games. but after he won the rights to the character he stopped "drinking in public."
This was one of my absolute favorite VHS as a kid! I watched it so many times! Thank you for uploading! I’ve been looking for this exact video for years!
When i was a kid i used to have this on eitther dvd or vhs i cant remember which and i couldnt remember what it was called for the life of me and ive finally found it i remember i used to watch this almost religiously
Only thing disappointing in this is that he once during a Padres game attempted to rob an armored car stationed outside the fence. They literally stopped showing the game and basically followed him. It was funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life and my dad and I laughed nonstop. We also talked about it for years until he passed. God I would love to find that.
"Everything it was cracked up to be" LOL. I see what you did there. I was at the great hatching game back in '79.. I was 13 then. Props to Ted for all his work over the years.
The guy in the costume at least in the 00's was great only cause when I was a batboy in 08 and 09 for a minor league team for the reds I got caught by him putting on the chicken head he just laughed and said no one can resist
I saw him in Atlanta in 1981. He drew a crowd of about 35,000 during a time when the Braves were commonly getting under 10,000 a game. He put on brilliant show.
(3:42) Narrator: Po saw the San Diego Chicken rolling over. Po: *giggle* Po saw San Diego Chicken roll over! Narrator: So Po rolled as well. Po: *gasp* Uh-oh! (Po collapses to the ground & rolls away) Po: Weeee!
@gabrielmorath6252when I was broadcasting radio play by play for the late, great LAREDO APACHES indy minor league team, GIANNOULAS came to town in the 1995 season. I learned two things: HE ATE ABOUT A DOZEN OR SO, ICE CREAM BARS, I am guessing it lowered his body temp before he would go out in any oppressive heat to perform wearing that costume..and.. 2. As was his reputation and according to people I knew in the baseball biz before his visit, he seemed very arrogant. I saw both of those things. Maybe he was just having a bad day.. Ironically, four years later, because we did not have a preseason mascot, only an in-season one, and because I could only do play by play in-season, obviously, after being asked, I donned the JEREMIAH THE BULLFROG costume for the late, great, BAYOU BULLFROGS OF LAFAYETTE, an indy minor league team in the same league as LAREDO had been playing in, before that APACHES club was folded by its TEXAS-LOUISIANA LEAGUE owners. I had a blast as JEREMIAH and used a lot of TED's schtick as far as hand motions and arm spreading and shoulder and leg and head movement. It was great not having to behave as a human. Of course, not being a full-time comic mascot, just a promotion appearances one, I respected folks space. Except.. when bratty 12 year olds one time began to take their plastic baseball bats and hit me across the back, and below the belt with them, lol. That's when ol' lovable JEREMIAH dressed in his sewed-in catchers gear and uniform would take his gloved hands, and give those kids a big ol' hug, just as, LOL, he took his hands and fingers and pinched those brats right on top of their trapezius neck muscles connecting their shoulders to their necks and heads. Suddenly, they did not want to hit ol' JEREMIAH below the belt anymore..yet to the crowd and their parents, it just looked like ol' JEREMIAH was huggin' them..lol.. Oh, those were good times..😏
TED Giannoulas is a man. I remember when he was the KGB Chicken and had the radio call sign KGB on the front of his costume. As a fan of him, I remember being really happy when he won the court battle to the rights to be the Chicken. Thee were a lot of large costume mascots decades before, but was the best and opened the door for a lot of others in that field.
