The Rubber Chicken

Like JFK, The Paint Show Gets A Legacy

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 05:27:13 GMT

Posted by Andrey

TRC's readership is many things. One of those things is a viewership. And with that in mind, we present the first in a series of Televised Segments that you - the fans - Implicitly Demanded in the Wiki. Not only is this more evidence of how interactive, and mindful of our public we are, it's also an embarrassing indication of our insufferable tendency to pander.

Most of all, however, it's a highly amusing bit of collaboration with Local Celebrity Adam Pateman, whose standup comedy you can procure on YouTube, and let's face it - probably should.

The next installment of Perry's Picnic will be appearing as soon as you ingest this one, and if you like it, say so in the so-called Forums and we'll see what we can do with regards to pandering some more. A higher-quality version of the vid is available on the YouTube page right under the abominably low viewer-count.

Warning: Podisode Content Advisory

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:09:33 GMT

Posted on June 25, 2008 by Tim

In the interests of public safety and social conscience, the audio recording described as "The Rubber Chicken Podisode #2" carries the following content warnings:

HIMN: Horendous Improvised Musical Number
MS: Medium-level Movie Spoilers
BoP: Bag of Puppies
DAO: Strong Discrimination Against Orphans
SNH: Sir Nigel Haversmith
CAWE: Conversation About Wine and Ears
S-D: Mild Splicey-Dicey sequence that may be unsuitable for small children

This Podisode has been classified with a rating of RU (Reprehensible and Unreleasable). If you believe this rating to be in error, an appeal can be submitted in writing to forums.thatchickensite.com.

The End Times Are Closer Than They Appear: I've Seen the Road "Signs"

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:18:01 GMT

Posted by Andrey

I die and am reborn. Clothed in midnight, lapping at the ashes blown from the mind-incinerator, I wait below the oceans, like a small kitten who has fallen hilariously behind the couch during an encounter with a piece of loose string.

I am one of the Piscine Overlords, and in the depths of your earth – a planet more alien to you than you dare nightmare – we are legion. The hour we hunger for draws ever-near. With every hollow breath, it closes on us like a cat-door closes behind a small kitten as he makes his first darling trip into the front yard.

Nothing can stop us, for we are older than the stars. We are older than time. We are older than a kitten. But as the final days of your dominion here wane, you may find solace in the one true chronicle of the coming darkness.

Pay heed, human. Careful heed to Episode 204 of the Rubber Chicken Podcast. For here, the seeds of the apocalypse are sewn.

Sewn like a precious little sweater for your kitten.

Shedding the Shackles of Quality Control

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:32:28 GMT

Posted by Alastair.

To get our charmingly schizophrenic schedule back on (off?) track, it is my misguided honour to introduce The Rubber Chicken Podisodes, a punchy companion series of bonus sketches and outtakes. These shorter, more casual shows will form the sticky putty between Podcasts proper. It might be a glorified "look over there!" to buy ourselves time, but we hope you enjoy it all the same.

In this first diversion, you'll find extra season one material, a preview of things to come, and the full version of You're My Fish, the positively bopping theme song to Andrey and Gord's play Lovestruck. It is most gnarly.

Meesa Moving to Alderaan

Thu, 22 May 2008 10:44:56 GMT

Posted by Alastair

You can't stop the music, but reality can mute it for a while. Thankfully Mr Chad McCanna (TRC alumn and newly baptised podcast initiate) was nice enough to travel back in time to a 2004 poetry night and give this performance for such a rhyme-deprived occasion. Ta, love.

Let our eratically scheduled updates trickle directly to your Xerox Alto.
Subscribe to The Rubber Chicken on Google Reader TODAY.

The Ghostly Caress of Lecture Hall 4

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 21:27:56 GMT

Posted by Andrey

Another page turns in the great, dusty book of history on whose every page the genesis of saidchickenspace.co.uk is scrawled in blotchy, barely-legible chicken-scratch. And as surely as the next two paragraphs are going to be about me trying to subtly underline and milk the relatively mild pun I just made (CHICKEN scratch, am I right?), so do the machinations of the time-barons also decree that this new ninth year of written articles on TRC will kick off with a Completely New Face.

It is my utmost pleasure at this juncture to conclude my update text by introducing you to the lovely, dynamic, and ridiculously well-dressed Michael Cope, who has broken bread at our table before podcast-wise, and now makes the grim transition to written articles with a meticulous, cerebral 40-pager about Leni Riefenstahl's controversial editorial technique.

By which I mean zombies. And when I said it was my pleasure before, I meant it was my pleasure to conclude the update text, not introduce Mike. Frankly, the man is a hack.

Sincerity Alert. Flee! Flee to the ApathyDome!

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 08:03:36 GMT

Posted April 11, 2008 by Alastair

Pop open a bottle of self-indulgence: it's eight years to the day since a gawky Nintendo fanpage appeared, launching a string of very different websites (the first and last having only two things in common) cleverly disguised under the same name. Yes, eight. You keep quiet about our year of downtime and we'll keep quiet about your year in Amsterdam.

A manly "thank you" peck on the cheeck to:

Time Magazine's 2006 Person of the Year - yes, you. I'm often pleasantly surprised to learn just how many of you are out there. Certainly more than our writers (long dependant on "we only have two readers" jokes) would care to admit. It sure is swell of you to give a darn.

All thirty-seven past and current contributors. I haven't the space to name you all, but I do have the time to combine your initials, remove the duplicate letters and rearrange the remainder into a collective anagram. Thank you, "Spank F.M. Jag Width Jr, Bc", for keeping this unlikely operation afloat.

Telltale Games, for giving the greatest gift of all.

Let's Show That Fourth Wall Who's Boss

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 04:41:53 GMT

Posted by Alastair

As we bask in the jocular afterglow of Inappropriate Website Replacement Day, Amateur Bowling Club USA's war against the devious Enfield Bowling Enthusiasts rages on. Facebook users (or "Facesimiles", as they prefer to be known) can help forge the continuing saga of New Hampshire's second largest militant religious bowling cult by joining this group.

Waitwaitwait, don't leave yet! Not before checking out the freshly-glazed Podcast 203: King Podcast and the Knights of the Roundtable. This moronically ambitious episode had a longer gestation period than the average human child, so if you don't love all 1307 seconds as you would your own firstborn, you'll find me locked in my room with a tub of low-fat sorbet and a stereo looping REM's Everybody Hurts. But hey, no pressure.

Incidentally, 1307 is also the year Oshin of Hetoumi was crowned ruler of Armenia following Levon III's assassination by the Mongols. Coincidence?

"Hit Me Baby One More Time", Sadomasichism and YOU!

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 01:58:40 GMT

Posted by Alastair

If there's one thing the superficial persona I invented for the sake of this introduction can't stand, it's ambiguous lyrics. When I'm getting down to the doof doof doof doof music us young people totally dig, I want the song's meaning to be unmistakably obvious.

Piece of Me by Britney Spears, on the other hand, is a piece riddled with riddles. With odd self-depreciating lines like "Oh my god, that Britney's shameless" and seemingly unrelated references to the paparazzi, it's impossible to tell where she's going without some sort of in-depth, line-by-line analysis. And so with the moral support (of the writing-several-passages-outright variety) of Chad McCanna and Andrey Summers, I put together exactly that.

Sensitive readers are advised that this article contains graphic images of the spiky-haired guy from Good Charlotte.

In(substantial)mission.

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 11:02:56 GMT

A Far More Convenient Truth

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 03:49:41 GMT

Posted by Andrey

Here at whatchickenlist.gov, we are all about the environment. By this I am, of course, suggesting only that at any given moment we are in or near the environment, but I like to think that makes us an authority on the matter. Certainly as much of an authority as an arguably un-elected Presidential Candidate who at one time had no beard, then grew a beard, and then just shaved it off again.

If Al Gore can't even decide what his own face looks like, how can he reliably perform plastic surgery on the face of our planet? This question is implicitly asked and tacitly answered by our own Alastair Robert Craig in a feature that he did not title The Unofficial Spice Girls Reunion Scrapbook. To find out what he really titled it, you'll just have to Admit You're A Spice Girls Fan. Just kidding. You can also Click Here.

Wiki Me Up Before You Goo-Gle

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 13:41:39 GMT

Posted by Alastair

It has been conclusively proven that people prefer to read about how well-written something is than to read something well-written. ThatChickenSite.com: The Official Homepage of the "Release Blossom on DVD" Firebombing Campaign understands this, and thus we point you towards The Rubber Chicken Wiki, a haven for dubious general knowledge, indulgent running gags and the merciless deconstruction of our own Really Lame Mythology (RLM).

I'd like to invite you trendy tab-browsers to click your mousewheel on whichever of these recent additions take your fancy, then ask "what the hell is this?" when you find them three hours later, sandwiched between your game of Facebook Scrabble and the Lindsay Lohan pictures you opened purely out of academic curiosity, honest to god, please don't hurt me.

You, Ten Years From Now
The Land of Canoes
Harold Holt (Deceased)
The Mooon People
Morty Bechbaum

Myles Darwin's Theory of Evolution
Thomas Jefferson
Sir Nigel Haversmith IV
The Turtle Song
Sam I Yam

Gapalagos Islands
The Omega Device
That Web Store That Ripped Us Off When We Tried To Buy Brett A Microphone
The Full List

The Podcast was Paul

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:59:24 GMT
Posted by Alastair

Once more we record noises and combine them in a manner coherent to the human ear, then tell you about it in this, a sentence. (Or if your internet browser doesn't detect mildly irritating ambiguity, please follow this link to Podcast Episode Two Zero Two.)

I hope you dig it, but please don't Digg it until March. Our bandwidth quota has already done a lot of growing up this month.

Speaking of feigned maturity: the Land of Canoes Cotton Torso-Concealer is now available in a naughty-word-free version, for those who prefer their t-shirts obscenely colourful but not colourfully obscene. Conservative but flamboyant homosexual men the world over now have no reason not to own one. Jawsome!

Go Ahead, Chase Some Waterfalls. I'm Cool With It Now.

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 12:19:55 GMT

Posted by Andrey

Things haven't been the same here at somechickenlink.co.uk since we were linked by digg.com, causing 23 000 people to swarm the place at once, upping the readership from its previous numbers: 3 pain-fetishists and Tim's dad.

With our newfound fame and crashed server, we were no longer able to walk among you as men. Alastair Robert Craig bought a candilabra (for the spelling), Tim Morrisson downed a Soviet-era satellite, Ben Kosmina returned some videos, and I had dinner with the Sultan of a fictional middle-eastern nation state.

Then, it turned out that audiences who visit from digg.com... leave again.

So, I suppose this one's for Tim's dad. And I guess I'll be uploading some low-res MPEGS for the fetishists in the next few days.

Back to the grindstone, huh guys?
The fetishists know what I'm talking about.

At Home in the Technodrome

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 03:09:11 GMT

Posted by Alastair

As the randomly cycling tagline in the top right corner currently says (we have a 1/32 chance of being right here, so what the hey), we are trying desperately hard not to become a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fansite. This is every bit as sincere as the junkie who swears his next shot will be his last.

Alas, along comes an episode like Shredder's Mom (in this case, Shredder's Mom), our childhood heroes take on global warming, a gifted artist signs on, and BAM. One step closer to inevitability.

And you know what?
We'd do it all again.

In time you, too, will come to understand why Shredder's Mom Has Got It Goin' On.

eCyber TechnoCommerce 2.0

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:01:59 GMT

Posted by Alastair

Like a killer wasp in an out-of-place simile, The Rubber Chicken Store is active once more.

First amongst the new batch is the Land of Canoes t-shirt. Such is the overpowering chirpiness of this colourful, yet tastefully understated design that it physically gave cartoonist extraordinaire Andy a headache. Don't let his sacrifice go unrewarded - order today!

Next on the rolecall is the timeless Quack Cap, now with a freshly revised URL and 50% more timelessness. You've learned why the sun shines, now shield yourself from the answer!

If it's all the same with you, I'd rather not link to the third item. Some scars take longer to heal than others.

Shhh. They're Listening.

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:14:06 GMT

Posted by Alastair

As an alleged comedy website editor, it's my duty to post only the most humorous and engaging of content. As an online journalist, I have an ethical responsibility to put that duty aside when it gets in the way of the greater good.

When Andrey contacted me from a secure line in his homemade bomb shelter with evidence that the biggest attack on American soil was elaborately planned and executed by the US government itself, I told him to stick to the demonic love advice columns, and can't he bloody well call me at a more civilised hour?

Andrey's body was found in an abandoned mineshaft three days later.
In the spirit of posthumous novelty, I am obliged to post his haunting final words.

Enjoy!!!

Everything Old Is New Again

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 15:05:26 GMT

Posted by Ben

Still with us, eh? Nice to hear. To those of you who are new readers, welcome! And of course, to our loyal fanbase of two, it's nice to have you back again as well. As you can see by poking around through the various sections of the site, the whole recovery of our favourite articles is continuing slowly but surely.

However, some of our articles are, in fact, being tarted up for the new site. What does this mean for you? No more screenshots the size of postage stamps! Now that we can presume that the average Web 2.0 user doesn't have a 28.8k modem, we can make our media bigger and badder. And in true George-Lucas-poking-about-with-history fashion, some of our more popular articles have had their writing tightened up. If you're using FireFox, which is a great browser but doesn't natively support ALT tag tomfoolery, you can grab a plugin here to fix that, and look at all of our stupid inane comments.

You might have already seen these improvements with the Letters & Words articles Street Sharks and Get Carter, which have been up since the site launch. Another article has been added to that exclusive club: Snip, Trim, Dye: The Acid Trip That Is NanaOn-Sha. Originally, there were NO pictures from Um Jammer Lammy in this, which really bugged me about the aritcle. So I've fixed that, along with some text additions.

So, for those who haven't read this, enjoy! And for those who have, take a look, I'm sure you'll get a kick out of the new stuff!

Free HEROES Episode Downloads

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 13:31:24 GMT

Posted by Alastair

What? The title? Oh, no, not at all. Our best chance of winning back website traffic, you see, is to work these attention-getting, Google-friendly keywords into The Rubber Chicken's everyday vernacular with Wes Andersonesque subtlety. Much as Margaret Thatcher would slowly work her way into a bubble bath as she gently caresses her PICTURES HERE.

Apparently we've been drawing in the internet's least literate deviants this way for years. Read Andrey's sobering search string breakdown for the full story, but only if you value a jolly good laugh over your faith in humanity.

I'm Worried That If I Use The Word Podcast In This Title, It Will Contradict The Title of the Podcast.

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 15:48:40 GMT

Posted by Andrey

No sooner does the wheel of industry begin turning again here at thischickenpage.ru than a shiny new Podcast rises from the ocean. In minutes, the great beast has batted the head off of the statue of liberty in a horrifc display of might that can only be called a "three-pointer". Watch with us now, as shaky cam-corder footage with impossibly long battery life chronicles the lumbering journey of this behemoth from the deep, and the insect-like warmaking our feeble metal-throwers attempt to make upon it.

Cloverfield references aside, though, we've tried real hard to distance our podcast from being defined as the shaky handy-cam footage of audio programs.

I don't know exactly how I'm helping with that right now.

I've had a year to plan this memorable comeback headline.

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 15:44:41 GMT

Posted by Alastair

We're back. Slap me silly with the complete works of noted contemporary playwright Tom Stoppard, we're really, truly, flamboyant font-worthily

We had hoped to relaunch with something a little more Now, a little more Web Two Point Oh, but that's peanuts to the larger compromise of not having a website. If the intended redesign does go ahead, it will be as swift and unannounced as a chloroform-soaked rag in a back alley.

Follow the link below to RSVP for our makeshift Reincarnation Party, where you can rub shoulders with the likes of Red Dwarf's Norman Lovett, legitimate psychic Uri Gellar, the voice of AOL's "You've Got Mail", and Michelle Rodriguez (who, I'm led to believe, has very nice shoulders indeed).

Celebrity Burning Question:
The Mystery of Earth's Yellow Sun
Flippin' heck, it feels good to be back. I always thought existence rather suited The Rubber Chicken.

Next: Return of the Podcast