Lab Notes: Rubber chickens are an ubiquitous staple in the prop comedian’s closet.
Most are approximately 20″ long and made from a rubber & latex composite material. Our researchers also found 7′ rubber chicken replicas that “laid” an egg and squawked when squeezed. We tested several brands in both sizes.
Testing: The lab staff loved the idea of having a 20″ rubber chicken and found all of them to be relatively realistic from 3 feet away, but were unsure of what to do with the chicken. Several testers whacked each other over the head with it and one tester hung his chicken from the rear view mirror of his truck. The 7″ squawking rubber chicken seemed to elicit more playing time, laughs and raised eyebrows, but no one thought it was a real chicken or any type of small, plucked poultry. 76% of our control group found the squawking chicken’s egg laying “cute”; 14% found it “gross”; 5% answered “unsure” ; and yet another 5% answered “delicious”.
Conclusions: Though we hope to some day be able to include the 20″ rubber chicken in
one of our gift boxes, we opted to go with the 7″ rubber chicken for a variety of reasons: Its size made it easy to fit in one of our boxes, its size did not seem to detract from the site gag and most people found the squawking darn cute.
Mirth in a Box includes the 7″ Squawking Rubber Chicken in Comic Relief, a gift basket filled with smile-inducing nonsense and pranks.
