A rubber

Rubber

Natural rubber, also called India rubber or caoutchouc, is an elastomer that was originally derived from latex, a milky colloid produced by some plants. The plants would be ‘tapped’, that is, an incision made into the bark of the tree and the sticky, milk colored latex sap collected and refined...

 chicken

Chicken

The chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...

is a prop

Theatrical property

A theatrical property, commonly referred to as a prop, is an object used on stage by actors to further the plot or story line of a theatrical production. Smaller props are referred to as "hand props". Larger props may also be set decoration, such as a chair or table. The difference between a set...

 used in comedy. The phrase is also used as a description for food served at speeches, conventions, and other large meetings, and as a metaphor for speechmaking.

Comedy

A rubber chicken is a replica of a completely plucked but otherwise complete barnyard fowl made from a latex injection mold. A popular sight gag and slapstick

Slapstick

Slapstick is a type of comedy involving exaggerated violence and activities which may exceed the boundaries of common sense.- Origins :The phrase comes from the batacchio or bataccio — called the 'slap stick' in English — a club-like object composed of two wooden slats used in Commedia dell'arte...

 comedy prop, rubber chickens are sometimes used by comics

Prop comedy

Prop comedy is a comedy genre that makes use of humorous objects, or conventional objects used in humorous ways. The stage and film term "prop", an abbreviation of "property", refers to any object handled by an actor in the course of a performance. Although some form of prop comedy has likely...

 as a mock weapon. They are also sometimes used by jugglers

Juggling

Juggling is a skill involving moving objects for entertainment or sport. The most recognizable form of juggling is toss juggling, in which the juggler throws objects up to catch and toss up again. This may be one object or many objects, at the same time with one or many hands. Jugglers often refer...

 in place of clubs. The origin of the rubber chicken is obscure, but is likely a natural change of the use of pig bladder

Pig bladder

Pig bladder is the bladder of a domestic pig, similar to the human urinary bladder. Today, this hollow organ has various applications in medicine, and in traditional cuisines and customs...

s. In the days before the development of plastic

Plastic

A plastic material is any of a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic organic solids used in the manufacture of industrial products. Plastics are typically polymers of high molecular mass, and may contain other substances to improve performance and/or reduce production costs...

 and latex

Latex

Latex is the stable dispersion of polymer microparticles in an aqueous medium. Latexes may be natural or synthetic.Latex as found in nature is a milky fluid found in 10% of all flowering plants . It is a complex emulsion consisting of proteins, alkaloids, starches, sugars, oils, tannins, resins,...

, bladders were inflated and attached to a stick. They were used as props by jesters and minstrels for the same comic effects as the modern rubber chicken.

One account attributes the use of a prop chicken to John Holmberg, the Swedish black-faced clown of the early 1900s. At that time, gluttony was fashionable and considered a sign of affluence, and Holmberg would perform with his pockets full of fake food in order to make fun of the upper classes.

Another likely apocryphal account, which is printed on the tag of rubber chickens manufactured by Archie McPhee

Archie McPhee

Archie McPhee is a Seattle-based novelty dealer owned by Mark Pahlow. Begun in the 1970s in Los Angeles as the mail-order business Accoutrements, in 1983 it opened a retail outlet dubbed "Archie McPhee" after Pahlow's wife's great-uncle....

, claims that the symbol originated during the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

 with soldiers hanging a chicken from their musket

Musket

A musket is a muzzle-loaded, smooth bore long gun, fired from the shoulder. Muskets were designed for use by infantry. A soldier armed with a musket had the designation musketman or musketeer....

s for luck. The apocryphal history of the rubber chicken as used by revolutionaries led a Discordian group, The International Rubber Chicken Society, formed in New Fairfield, Connecticut

New Fairfield, Connecticut

New Fairfield is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 13,881 at the 2010 census. The town is considered part of the greater New York Metropolitan Area and lies approximately from New York City...

, to use the emblem of the rubber chicken. The International Rubber Chicken Society's occult symbolism may also have led the pseudo-secret society to use the rubber chicken (a sight-gag with the initials "R.C.") to suggest a link between them, Discordian occult practices, and the Rosey Cross ("R.C.") of Rosicrucianism. Monty Python's Flying Circus

Monty Python's Flying Circus

Monty Python’s Flying Circus is a BBC TV sketch comedy series. The shows were composed of surreality, risqué or innuendo-laden humour, sight gags and observational sketches without punchlines...

featured a recurring bit having a raw chicken-carrying knight who hits people when they begin to ramble. Andrés Bustamante

Andrés Bustamante

Andrés Bustamante is a Mexican comedian who works at TV Azteca and dubbed the voice of Mike Wazowski in the film Monsters, Inc.He has worked with TV Azteca...

 also featured rubber chickens during his shows in the 1990s.

A rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle is a gag object found in LucasArts'

LucasArts

LucasArts Entertainment Company, LLC is an American video game developer and publisher. The company was once famous for its innovative line of graphic adventure games, the critical and commercial success of which peaked in the mid 1990s...

 Monkey Island franchise games. It is also used as a rating system in the TV show Good Game and Good Game-SP.

Food and speechmaking

The term "rubber chicken" is used disparagingly to describe the food served at political or corporate events, weddings, and other gatherings where there are a large number of guests who require serving in a short timeframe. Chicken, pre-cooked, is held at serving temperature for some time and then dressed with a sauce as it is served. Consequently the chicken meat is tough or “rubbery.”

Someone who "travels the rubber chicken circuit" is said to do so by attending or making speeches at many such gatherings, often as part of political campaigning.

Rubber chickens in the news

• At the staging of Ionesco
  Eugène Ionesco
  Eugène Ionesco was a Romanian and French playwright and dramatist, and one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd...
  
  's The Killing Game, theatre critic Gerhard Stadelmaier was sworn at and had a rubber chicken thrown at him by actor Thomas Lawinky, who later offered his resignation.
• During the fifth end break (curling
  Curling
  Curling is a sport in which players slide stones across a sheet of ice towards a target area. It is related to bowls, boule and shuffleboard. Two teams, each of four players, take turns sliding heavy, polished granite stones, also called "rocks", across the ice curling sheet towards the house, a...
  
  's version of halftime and/or a seventh inning stretch) at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin
  Turin
  Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
  
  , Italy
  Italy
  Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
  
  , a man ran across the ice wearing nothing but an online gambling ad and a strategically placed rubber chicken. Chief referee Keith Wendorf tackled the man, and an umpire covered him with a coat before he was led out of the arena by the Italian police.