The Chicken Show was launched in 2003, by two students at AY Jackson Secondary School in suburban Ottawa. The first show aired on October 17th, 2003, under the name "Carlos and the Chicken." Carlos parted ways with the show soon after, but Chickenman continued to host the show on AYJ's internal radio station throughout his 4 years at the school, and aired his final show on the station on June 14th, 2007. Chickenman closed the final show by interviewing the school's principal, Martin Kleiman, and discussing in-depth the song "The Lady in Red," Mr. Kleiman's favourite song.
On January 23rd, 2008, Chickenman excitedly revived The Chicken Show on SPIRITlive, the student-run online radio station at Toronto Metropolitan University, where he was studying in the Radio and Television Arts program. On March 26th of the same year, he happily welcomed friends "Deep Fried" Danny Galea and Bryan Perkins as co-hosts, marking the first time since the departure of Carlos in 2003 that the show had regular co-hosts around the table with Chickenman. During Chickenman's remaing 3 and a half years hosting on SPIRITlive, many other co-hosts came and went, including (just to name a few): Nicole Wolfe, Jordan Jenkins, Ben Lukow, as well as Thea Gagliardi, who would later become Chickenman's longest-serving on-air partner in crime.
The show continued to broadcast from the TMU campus until April 26th, 2011, which was a pretty iconic show in The Chicken Show's history. It was the last show that The Chicken Show would broadcast on SPIRITlive; it was the first time for both SPIRITlive and for The Chicken Show where a show would be broadcast completely remotely (as we broadcast our final show live on location from the Ram in the Rye, TMU's campus pub); and it was the final time that all co-hosts would be physically located in the same place while broadcasting - more on that in a second.
After a hiatus of about 2 years, Chickenman relaunched The Chicken Show on July 30th, 2013, as an online stream from a home studio, which streams right here on this site. Danny and Thea rejoined the show in their former co-host positions, and with the three on-air team members being located in three different cities across Ontario, the studio was designed with the ability for co-hosts to "dial in" to the show by Skype. There it is, there's your explanation for why the final SPIRITlive was also the final time we were all in the same place at the same time - we started social distancing and teleworking before it was cool!
Thea continued as a regular co-host, and became the longest-service voice on the show after Chickenman. She introduced Hez to the show, who also went on to be the next-longest-service voice on the show. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Chickenman spent some time and money upgrading the home studio, which added a few additional features and functionalities to the show and the audio stream. Firstly, a 24/7 audio stream was added, meaning that listeners can tune in at any time (even when a live broadcast is not taking place), and catch a music stream known as the #MixTape. Secondly, the technological improvements allowed for recordings of previous shows to be posted on the site; currently recordings of all shows from the current iteration of The Chicken Show can be accessed on-demand right here on the show, so if you miss a live show you don't need to wait for a rebroadcast. Thirdly, and possibly more importantly, it afforded the show the opportunity to (once again) broadcast completely remotely, without the requirement for Chickenman to be in the home studio to produce the show; this was tested in an early 2021 show, with Chickenman broadcasting from his parents' house, and Thea and Hez broadcasting from their normal satellite studio. And of course, since this all went down during the COVID-19 pandemic, the (is it fair to call it antiquated?) Skype line that on-air staff would dial into to broadcast remotely was replaced with a newer, shinier Zoom line. Around this same time, Allie G became the latest addition to the team, when she became a regular guest co-host, and quickly won the hearts of listeners.
It's currently June 2022 as the latest update is being written, and looking forward to the show's 20th anniversary on air, which is a bit more than a year down the road, Chickenman sends a big thanks to everyone who's been a part of the show so far, and can't wait for many more great years on air!