Clucks and yucks: a rubber-chicken salute

Cluck with superiority if you must. But you're smiling. Admit it. Come on now.

Even those who claim to have a sophisticated sense of humor can't help themselves. There's something about us that just loves a rubber chicken.

Oh, we've dallied with the whoopee cushion, gone through the fake dog-poo phase and toyed with the hand buzzer. There was that fleeting fly-in-the-ice-cube period. And the flirtation with the phony blood and barf.

But none of those has the staying power of the plucked poulet.

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.

This particular chicken, hanging from its lifelike orange rubber feet, costs $6. I paid cash for it at Uncle Fun, a crammed emporium in Chicago.

The simple but elegant packaging hyperbolizes that this is "The World Famous Rubber Chicken." In the corner, in tiny letters, it says, "Made in China."

Gene Rose said the chickens used to be made here, but the U.S. manufacturer couldn't keep up with the demand.

So even Americans' favorite gag has been outsourced. Which is no laughing matter.