THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 20, 1996 TAG: 9601200433
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JIM DUCIBELLA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
The gag wasn't working.
Ted Giannoulas had hoisted the poster of the bosomy Hollywood starlet-type in a cheesecake pose onto the glass at Scope and had pounded the boards furiously, trying to get South Carolina goalkeeper Sean Gauthier to look over.
He wouldn't.
No problem. Can't ruffle The Chicken that easily.
Within seconds, Giannoulas had slapped a poster of a, ah, fuller-figured gal in an equally suggestive pose to the glass.
Then, the capper. Spray paint.
``Miss Carolina'' he scrawled.
Gauthier never moved. But Stingrays defenseman Scott Boston turned, then put his head down and shook his head, trying to stifle a chuckle.
The crowd howled. The Chicken crowed. Victory.
``It's an aphrodisiac for me,'' he said Friday before the Hampton Roads Admirals and Stingrays got going. ``You make 'em laugh and they love you for life.''
What's left to say about Giannoulas, who's devoted 21 of his 43 years to entertaining sports audiences around the world with nary an egg laid? Perhaps this: No one linked on the American sports scene has achieved such popularity combining innocence and irreverence since Babe Ruth.
Asked to drop the puck at center ice, Giannoulas waddled out in one of the trademark day-glo orange-and-yellow costumes his mother still makes for him - one per month - squatted and, well, you get the picture.
Folks love it.
More than two decades after a San Diego radio station offered him 10 days inside a chicken suit at $2 an hour, Giannoulas spends 250 nights a year on the road, filling arenas and stadiums and tickling people's ribs.
``There's nothing that excites me more than going out there and making 8- or 9,000 people laugh - or, on the major league venue, 40- to 50,000 people laugh,'' Giannoulas said. ``It still tickles me knowing that I've got 90 seconds out there and still can make people laugh.
Giannoulas is no shrinking violet whose alter ego emerges only when he dons a costume. He's a genuinely funny son of Greek immigrants who knew he had the gift of glee at age 7 when teachers couldn't keep a straight face around him. In college, he studied journalism and Marxism - as in Harpo - and he adapts his routines from what he watched the Marx Brothers do in movies.
``I see myself as a visual comic, much along the same way as Harpo Marx or Peter Sellers,'' he said. ``What I do is very physical. I've got to reach audiences through body language, and they respond back to me through the universal language - laughter.''
When a pair of players barged into the glass directly in front of where he was seated Friday, Giannoulas flung himself backward as if hit by a truck, popcorn flying out his hands to cover the fans seated nearby. It looked natural and spontaneous and the crowd went crazy - but it required hours of practice to perfect.
``Sight gags like that, meshed in the theatre of sport, seem to really have hit the funny bone of American audiences,'' Giannoulas said.
Mascots have gotten a bad rap lately, some sued by fans for their overzealous behavior. Some spectators view them as more asinine than atmosphere.
Giannoulas has had no such problems. He worries about the state of his craft and having his reputation tarnished by imitators with far less talent.
``If I felt it could be done, I'd train 50 guys, send one to each state and sit back and collect the royalties,'' he said. ``But just as Phil Jackson can't coach another player to play like Michael Jordan, just like the NHL has only one Wayne Gretzky, there's only one Chicken.''
The man who's appeared with presidents, done stupid pet tricks with David Letterman and never met a baby he didn't have room for under his gentle beak, says he's proud of the contribution he has made to sports and sports fans.
``I think what I've done is to remind everyone that, in the end, it's just a game,'' he said. ``The Chicken reminds us all that the walkouts, the lockouts, the strikes, the back-biting, the holdouts - when you finally blow away all the smoke, it's just a game. And here's a guy out there reminding us we're here for laughs.
``We need fewer attorneys in this country and more comics.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
A ham who never lays an egg
MOTOYA NAKAMURA
The Virginian-Pilot
The San Diego Chicken opened Friday night's game at Scope with his
version of the ceremonial puck drop. His straight men were Rick
Kowalsky of the Admirals, left, and South Carolina's Brett
Marietti.
by CNB