It's Not A Chicken It's Dave

A CHICKEN TRAPSES IN TO KFC

SERVER
Next please.

CHICKEN
I'm looking for my mate, Dave.

SERVER
I'm sorry?

CHICKEN
Just tell me where Dave is.

SERVER
I'm sorry is this some kind of joke?

CHICKEN
Do you know how many f**king roads I crossed to get here!? Get Dave Now!

SERVER
Okay, well, can you at least tell me what your friend looks like?

CHICKEN
Funny guy eh? you've got a picture of him up on the wall dickhead!

SERVER
What? that! but that's just a generic picture of a chicken.

CHICKEN
Oh that's hilarious. That's like me taking a photo of you and putting it up in my bedroom and you walking in and me saying oh that's just a generic picture of a guy serving.

SERVER
No, seriously, that is just a random picture of a chicken. It's not based on any particular chicken. Honestly.

CHICKEN
Mate. It's Dave. It's got all Dave's stand out features.

SERVER
It does?

CHICKEN
It's got his feathers, his feet, his head, his wings, his neck. Hell It's even got that wee tub of sauce he carries around with him everywhere.

SERVER
Well I'm sorry but I can safely say I've not seen a chicken called Dave in here.

CHICKEN
Oh so you just go round taking random photos of chickens and wack them on your wall, is that it?

SERVER
No. THAT chicken isn't even real. It's made up.

CHICKEN
Oh so now you're saying I've made Dave up. Dave is a made up chicken, yea?

SERVER
NO. That isn't Dave. It's a chicken our marketing people have designed.

A MAN WALKS IN DRESSED AS THE CHICKEN

SERVER
Look! there he is now. Our chicken mascot.

CHICKEN
DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

GUY DRESSED AS CHICKEN REMOVES HEADPIECE.

CHICKEN
OH....MY....GOD.

SERVER
You see.

CHICKEN
Dave ate a human!

END

I like very much.
Not 100% how well the last joke works with the head being removed though, maybe peeking out from the open beak works better?

It's a neat idea, but I think you get stuck in a zig zag argument.

I'd say the idea that chicken crosses the road, to find his mate at KFC and they deny they've ever seen him.

Is simple enough to keep the dialogue to the bare minimun

Quote: Ahem @ 2nd October 2014, 10:42 AM BST

I like very much.
Not 100% how well the last joke works with the head being removed though, maybe peeking out from the open beak works better?

View original

Thanks Ahem! That is a better idea actually. Nice one!

Quote: sootyj @ 2nd October 2014, 11:39 AM BST

It's a neat idea, but I think you get stuck in a zig zag argument.

I'd say the idea that chicken crosses the road, to find his mate at KFC and they deny they've ever seen him.

Is simple enough to keep the dialogue to the bare minimun

View original

Hey sooty. I know what you mean but I can't help myself. Dialogue and bare minimum don't really suit me!

Thanks for the feedback

I thought it was great, especially the first few lines, splurted at:

CHICKEN
Funny guy eh?

also agree with the zig zag argument but you wouldn't need to cut much to sort it. And I don't get the last line:

CHICKEN
Dave ate a human!

Quote: Mikey88 @ 2nd October 2014, 8:59 PM BST

I thought it was great, especially the first few lines, splurted at:

CHICKEN
Funny guy eh?

also agree with the zig zag argument but you wouldn't need to cut much to sort it. And I don't get the last line:

CHICKEN
Dave ate a human!

View original

Thanks for the feedback Mikey!

I like it because I finished reading it. I rarely ever finish reading. So yes it was entertaining and pulled me the whole way through.

Really like the idea, but agree that there is some padding in the middle. The argument gets too convoluted - the stuff about generic pictures of chicken, in particular, doesn't earn its keep.

The ending's a bit too linear. It's OK, but would benefit from some sort of unexpected twist. But what?

Very nice idea. Road line funny, and I like the punchline. I agree it gets flabby in the middle, but nothing a quick trim wouldn't fix.

Good work.

For me the ending wasn't linear at all Dave has eaten a human is not linear for me.

For me I think it would be more grounded in reality if the guy going in was actually dressed in a chicken costume cos if you have a chicken talking to a server that's already absurd enough so it makes it harder for the reader to spot anything else that's also a little absurd.

Or unless you actually meant A guy dressed in a chicken costume in the beginning because first time I read it I thought it was an actual chicken the whole way through.

Cos I thought like what scooty said how you were making a joke about why did the chicken cross the road, to find his mate in KFC.

@RUPE
I'm still not sure how the ending is linear. You want a twist like say, he sees people being served chicken wings and he starts to cry and think it's dave that's being served?

Hi Gansta,

I think it's linear because the guy is supposed to be a chicken but visually he's a bloke dressed as a chicken - so how do you explain that? It must be that the chicken ate the bloke. The logic of the plot dictates that conclusion. Maybe that's not a bad thing, because it's a good sketch as it stands, but I wondered whether there was a way of throwing a curve into it.

Rupe

Hello all and thanks for resurrecting my little sketch.

I can confirm the chicken is in fact a real chicken and not a human dressed up where's the fun in that?

@ HalfwayGangster - Yip...It's a take on the chicken crossing the road.

Thanks for all the suggestions and recommendations.

@Rupy

Hahaha I laughed when I read your line of reasoning and I can understand how that's obvious to you, when you say it that way.

But there's something a little weird I have to point out - the Chicken protagonist from his reply "Dave ate the human" is saying he sees Dave as a chicken costume, a big walking chicken costume that is his mate and he didn't know humans wore this thing. When the human took off the chicken costume it broke his reality .

So from another perspective, a logical response from the audience would be to think that the Chicken would go "oh shit, Dave is actually a costume, not a real chicken, being worn around by humans" and all along the Chicken protagonist thought that this costume was a walking actual Chicken - his mate, Dave.

So the twist Craig did was to make the Chicken ignore the fact that his reality was just broken by a human exposing themselves wearing the costume, and still assume the costume is his friend Dave.

But I totally see why you would say it's linear from your reasoning, but this is taking the Frame of the chicken, not the Frame of the audience or the reader viewing this event, which is us. From our perspective we would see the Chicken reacting strongly against the broken reality of his mate Dave actually being a costume worn by a human, so the twist came when the Chicken still stubbornly thinks the costume is his Mate dave the chicken.

That was a very entertaining reply HG!

I think it's pretty cool how Craig's brain did this all subconsciously. It must be the case that somewhere in the back of Craig's mind he understood these small assumptions for the things to turn out funny for the audience.