Why are rubber chickens so popular?

Life-like and extra korny

Our local drugstore is laid out so that the shortest path between the main entrance and prescription pick-up is through the toy aisle. I am sure this is to the chagrin of all parents (until they get on to it) but it also has resulted in Drake and I occasionally picking up a gag purchase.

Drake's most recent gag was a small rubber chicken. He knows that I tend to forage tupperware containers in the fridge for snacks, so he simply put the rubber chicken in a container in the fridge. And waited until I found it. And waited. And waited some more. Seems I wasn't in a very snack-y mood that week. I  saw that something was in there - but I didn't know what it was and didn't bother to investigate. Finally, I was curious enough to pull it out and open it up. We have since gotten a lot of milage out of that rubber chicken. It's just, well, so fun.

When Drake bought the rubber chicken, the guy at the check out went on about how popular rubber chickens were, that they had just gotten a bunch more in stock, and that they are frequently out of rubber chickens. I found this a bit hard to believe, until this recent Seattle Times story about how popular rubber chickens are:

When I got the nation's rubber chicken expert on the phone, Gene Rose had just taken delivery of another 40,000 of the critters at his legendary Salt Lake City novelty company.If anyone could explain the allure of the naked fowl it would be Rose, whose Loftus International is the premier distributor of rubber chickens across the land. But he has not a clue. "I'm always asked that. But I don't know."It's unreal how many of these we sell," the 83-year-old chicken czar marveled. "It's just been a crazy thing."

He said he's never done any sales promotions. "It's promoted itself. You couldn't have a better product than this. It's just a natural. If you've got something good and you don't know why, just keep packing and shipping."

Rose's company packs and ships by the tens of thousands to stores that can't keep them in stock.

Who knew?