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The San Diego Chicken has entertained millions of fans, and even has his own trading cards
When we look back at our lives there is inevitably a moment we make a split-second decision, a decision that changes our life forever. Take a left or right turn, get the courage to ask out that pretty girl, purchase a lottery ticket on a whim.
For Ted Giannoulas, that seminal moment came in 1974 as a 20 year-old college student in his radio communication class at San Diego State University, when he raised his hand to volunteer to wear a chicken suit for $2 an hour for a San Diego radio station promotion.
“The radio station had a one-week promotional gimmick during the Easter break, spring break as it's called nowadays. Back in 1974, they needed someone to dress somebody up in a chicken suit and send them to the zoo to give away candy Easter eggs, and radio station stuff,” Giannoulas said. “They dispatched a representative to the campus of San Diego State to find anybody that would agree to do this detail for two bucks an hour.
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“The guy walks into a radio communications class where I was hanging out — he was an alumnus a few years previously — to recruit somebody there. I’m just one of only five students shooting the breeze after class hanging around and he asks for a volunteer on the spot. He's got to pick somebody with a budget of two bucks an hour. He looks around the room, sees me as the shortest guy in the room and picks me, figuring I’d fit the suit. There was no interview, no job application to fill out, not even an audition. He just had a quick excuse to get out of there and did so. It took all of 90 seconds and he was gone, just like that.
“I went to the zoo, did my stint and the rest was chicken history,” said Giannoulas, better known as The San Diego Chicken, KGB Chicken or The Famous Chicken.
In his character, Giannoulas has entertained more than 65 million people in over 8,000 appearances. He’s met U.S. presidents, co-starred in his own television show, been featured on numerous baseball cards, and more since first donning the chicken suit in the spring of 1974.
Giannoulas moved to San Diego from London, Ontario with his family in 1969. He attended Hoover High School in San Diego, the same school that Ted Williams attended.
“I did get to meet Ted Williams, believe it or not. It was a great honor and there's a little story behind it,” he said. “I was doing ‘The Baseball Bunch,’ a TV show in the ’80s hosted by Johnny Bench and myself. Ted loved that program so much that he went to extraordinary lengths to call the producers and asked to be a guest. We were all taken aback.
“He flew out to Arizona where we did the show, and did an episode with us. It was unheard of for Ted Williams to do TV, but it was great, and I got to talk with him about Hoover. We compared notes if any of his old teachers were still there when I went. I believe there was one still working the English class and that was really something. I enjoyed working with Ted, a great guy and he really enjoyed that the show.”
Giannoulas turned his one-week stint as a chicken into an extended engagement because he wanted to get into Jack Murphy Stadium to watch the Padres.
“I worked the week for the radio station at the zoo, but then I saw the Padres were having Opening Day and I figured I could get in for free with this get-up,” he said. “I called up the team to see if they’d let me come down in the chicken get-up and they were amenable to that. I told station management I could go to the game and advertise their call letters on my chest on the chicken suit. They said go ahead, give it a try, and it was a hit.”
Giannoulas didn’t set out to become a mascot. He wanted to work in radio, but saw this as a way to get his foot in the door. As the first in what would become a long trend and tradition of stadium mascots, Giannoulas had to look toward others for inspiration.
“The blueprint was comedians like Harpo Marx and the stand-up comedians of the day, Richard Pryor, Steve Martin, Saturday Night Live with the original crew, and more,” he said. “It was unique, never seen before really. I was a jokester, a prankster in the audience with the fans.
“People seemed to enjoy it, and then eventually the Padres loved it so much, it became part of the fabric of going to a Padres game.”
Giannoulas’ act as The Chicken became popular with fans and players alike fairly quickly. Soon he was being asked to take the act on the road.
“My first road game was in St. Louis, 1976. The Cardinal players called me from their clubhouse with an idea,” he said. “Since they weren't coming back to San Diego, they wanted to pull their Kangaroo Court money together and, rather than have an end-of-the-season party with it, they were offering me to fly out to St. Louis and perform.
“[It was] the players’ idea, Keith Hernandez, Lou Brock and many others. When the Cards’ management heard the story, they told the players that they instead would cover the expense. I went out there free of charge anyway. It was fun, and their fans really enjoyed it.”
Giannoulas’ time with the radio station KGB in San Diego ended after a few years when he was fired by the station. The radio station tried to put another person in the chicken suit but it wasn’t well received by Padre fans who booed the new person in the chicken suit. This would lead to one of the biggest promotions in sports history, “The Grand Hatching.”
“Upon being fired from the radio station in ’79 is when I broke out solo with my own chicken suit,” Giannoulas said. “KGB and I had had philosophical differences over my career growth in a chicken suit. So, I came up with the idea to relaunch my career.
“All the national newscasts, even Walter Cronkite, dispatched film crews to San Diego to cover it. The Grand Hatching was perhaps the greatest single night promotion in the history of baseball, selling out Jack Murphy Stadium. It was such an exciting event in June of 1979, The Grand Hatching relaunched my career.”
One of Giannoulas’ favorite moments performing as The San Diego Chicken came at the expense of former major league outfielder Kevin Romine during a Winter League game in Puerto Rico.
“I was told during a rain delay of a game in San Juan that Kevin Romine doesn’t like to be touched. And if you touch him, he had to touch you back,” Giannoulas said. “It’s just a superstition he had. So with the tarp out on the field and raining cats and dogs, I figured I’ll go touch him and then run out onto the field in the rain storm to see if he tries a chase to touch me back.
“He’s sitting in the visiting team’s dugout and his shoes are off. I touch Kevin, then bolted out of the dugout and he starts chasing me around in his socks, trying to touch me back. I was running away, the fans were going nuts because a lot of them knew all about Kevin’s superstition since it was well known throughout the winter league down there. He’s moving pretty fast for a big guy so I’m maneuvering quickly, slipping and sliding all over the place on the tarp. He finally did get me, but boy was he soaked, as much as me. It was a funny sight.”
Giannoulas never missed a performance due to injury but that doesn’t mean he didn’t suffer some bumps and bruises while performing in his chicken suit.
“I remember one night in Atlanta Fulton County Stadium,” he said. “I was to be driven out to the field in my introduction in the second inning. The grounds crew guy was to drive me out there in his mini-tractor and I told him when he got out there to make a hard turn and I’ll go flying off the back of the bed. I'd make it look like I’ve been thrown off and take a pratfall in my intro. He did the hard U-turn and I went flying. Unfortunately, the pratfall failed on my end. I separated my shoulder. Oh my gosh, it hurt but I went on with the game.
“It's interesting that a few innings in, broadcaster Skip Caray noticed The Chicken wasn’t using his left-wing. He speculated that I hurt myself and was absolutely right. I went on and performed several weeks with a shoulder that I barely moved.”
Giannoulas also avoided serious injury during another fall at a St. Louis Blues game at the old St. Louis Arena.
“During a faceoff break, the organist was playing Zorba the Greek,” Giannoulas recalled. “I was at the top of isle, so I start dancing down, one step at a time. That's when the music picks up. I start dancing quicker and the crowd’s clapping in unison. And here I came, but the place had steps that weren't built to code. I misjudged one of them and go tumbling all the way down from the middle of the aisle to the glass.
“The Blues’ fans are in hysterics, thinking this is part of the sketch. It wasn’t. I ended up breaking my foot in the fall and it was painful, but I didn't think it was broken. I just felt that it may have been bruised, and I played through the rest of the game and then a few additional ones, hoping the bruise might go away, yet it didn't. The next week, when I had an open date, I had a doctor look at it and he said, ‘Son, you have a hairline fracture, a broken foot.’ I had to go in a cast, but I still never missed a single game.“
Giannoulas has been featured on numerous baseball cards over the years and still signs autographs through the mail. He has an outstanding signature and believes he’s signed over a million autographs in his lifetime.
“I have signed millions of autographs. I continue to sign to this day,” he said. “I always had good handwriting, but tell I'll tell you this, do a couple of million signatures and practice makes perfect.
“It was an amazing surprise to be featured on a baseball card in 1982. It was the brainchild of the San Diego Padres vice president of marketing and he pitched it on his own to the baseball card companies. Donruss stepped up immediately in 1982, so we went to pose for a photo on the field of Jack Murphy Stadium. They made the card up and it was an unprecedented hit. I still get requests to sign my cards through the mail today.
“They asked me to do it again in ’83 and ’84. And then a few years later, they came out with another card set called Triple Play where I was featured. Then, by the early ’90s, Upper Deck had me in a in a photo with Cecil Fielder. That was shot during a sketch that I did at a Tiger Stadium game, and they used it for Cecil’s card the next year.”
Giannoulas is semi-retired now, but will still suit up for parades and special events.
“I might do the odd parade, TV or trade show at the age 69. But, while the heart is still willing to perform at games, the bones are saying not so fast, pal,” he said.
— Jeff Baker is a longtime collector and host of the popular TTMCast podcast. You can email him at ttmcast@yahoo.com.
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Jeff Baker
