Who the Hell is Chicken Boy and Why Does He Have a Day?

Chicken Boy, not to be confused with Mike the Headless Chicken, is not a boy at all. He’s a statue. Why is he called Chicken Boy and why does he have a day?

Meeting Chicken Boy

I first saw Chicken Boy’s Day on Brownielocks. I must’ve briefly looked into him because I added his day to September’s Weird Holidays & Observances listings.

But I never thought to research or write about him past that. Until now.

I happened to Google “Chicken Boy Day.” The first result to pop up was a link to the National Day Calendar, which had more information about Chicken Boy and his background.

|On September 1st, National Chicken Boy Day honors the birthday of an interesting statue in California….

Standing 22 feet tall and holding a bucket of chicken, this fiberglass statue of a boy with a chicken head stands along Route 66. Named after the former 1960s Chicken Boy Restaurant, he is also known as the “Statue of Liberty of Los Angeles.”

The iconic statue remained in place at the restaurant until the owner died in 1984. At that time, Chicken Boy was given to Los Angeles art director, Amy Inouye. 

I wanted to find out if the Chicken Boy statue was still standing anywhere. And, if so, where.

Not that he’s haunted, but he is a bit macabre. I mean, come on, he’s a chicken boy holding a bucket of chicken. Sort of cannibalistic in it’s own way.

Side note: Is that what you’d call chickens that eat each other? Cannibals? Or is that term only reserved for humans?

Anyway, that’s something I’d jaunt to see. So I Googled “Amy Inouye Chicken Boy” and was shocked to see not only does Chicken Boy have a day, he has a website and a very interesting story.

The True Story of Chicken Boy (a condensed version)

Chicken Boy was “born” in the late 1960s to stand sentinel atop a restaurant of the same name in Los Angeles. Standing 22-feet tall, Chicken Boy was (well, still is) made out of fiberglass and was a fixture of the landscape along Route 66 until 1984, when the restaurant closed.

Amy Inouye first spotted him three days after moving to L.A. As she wrote on the Chicken Boy’s story page:

|Don’t get me started on the chicken-headed mutant hawking fried chicken moral dilemma–I only know that he communicated to me that if he could be okay living in LA, I could be okay living in LA. As the years rolled by, he remained an oddly comforting constant in my life. I would tour out-of-towners past him late at night. I would look up and greet him on my way to Grand Central Market. People were starting to ask me how he was.

When she saw the restaurant had closed, she immediately called to inquire what would happen to the statue. At first the realtors didn’t understand why she was calling and ignored her. But she persisted and they eventually said, “If you want it so bad, come get it.”

So she did, intending to save a bit of historic Los Angeles roadside memorabilia by finding it a home in a museum somewhere.

Except, no one wanted it. She ended up having it for 20+ years before putting Chicken Boy back up.

Where to Find Chicken Boy

This is what it say on the Chicken Boy About page:

|Chicken Boy has been a pet project of Future Studio for a looong time. He now roosts on top of the building that houses Future Studio (a graphic design company) and the Future Studio Gallery.

The exact address is 5558 N. Figueroa St, Los Angeles, California.

For more info, check out the website: https://www.chickenboy.com/

Check-In

Does your city or state have an iconic statue?