| Through the years, Chicken Boy has been the subject of a ton of press--almost all of it good by the way. Herein, just a few excerpts . . .
Extra special thanks to Steve Harvey of the Los Angeles Times, whose column, “Only in L.A.” has featured Chicken Boy so many times that we refer to Steve now as the “God Father of Chicken Boy” (GFOCB). Officially, San Franciscans all hate L.A. For those of us who think there’s entirely too much quiet good taste around, and insufficient silliness, it’s still a nice place to visit. Where else do people protest the demolition of a landmark carwash? Or you can let the visionaries at Future Studio come to you. They’re the people who rescued Chicken Boy, who used to be perched on the roof of the Chicken Boy restaurant, when the restaurant failed. As Amy Inouye explains it in the catalog’s foreword, she and Linda “Shecky” Stonerock “really just meant to make sure he wasn’t put out to pasture. We merely offered to help him find a good home.” Chicken Boy. For years the city burghers searched for one symbol of L.A. The Hollywood sign? The restaurant at LAX? The Triforium? Feh!
Our town’s finest symbol was atop a fast-food restaurant in downtown L.A. An aware art studio, Future Studio, bought Chicken Boy and has it displayed, just like Universal Studios now displays its King Kong. But their King Kong is a Hollywood phony. Chicken Boy was real. I had a dream the other night that I was present at the unveiling of a red, 100-foot-high statue of the Chicken Boy in the center of Pershing Square. His head is the average, crudely realized fiberglass-chicken variety: red plume like a Mohawk over a puff of white feathers; broad, bright yellow beak and slightly crossed black oval eyes. He”s called a boy but is built like a man, with long legs in blue jeans and a tight red T-shirt over bulging biceps. In his outstretched hands he holds a bucket--one would presume of chicken, though it proves empty. “I think of him as very human--he’s more like a very odd-looking person,” says graphic designer Amy Inouye, the owner of “Chicken Boy.” Later, of course, she would talk to many people sho’d had similar epiphanies. There they would be, around Broadway and Fifth in downtown L.A., and they would glance up above the Chicken Boy fried chicken restaurant; their attention would be suddenly pushpinned, their credulity taken for a spin, by this two-story-tall rooftop apparition--a boy, nice enough looking, with his peppy blue slacks and red T-shirt, his two athletic arms cradling a take-out bucket and (or, rather, but) the huge, goofed-out head of a cartoon chicken with hypnotic, half-crossed Wile E. Coyote eyes that seemed to say, “Um, well, I’m part chicken, and yet here I am holding these chicken parts. Hey, how about this town? You want some chicken? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Whew.” California Crazy & Beyond by Jim Heimann (Chronicle Books, 2001), page 165
The New York Times |
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