I’ve actually been throwing this joke around with my wife for years. The “how funky is your chicken / how loose is your goose” cheer has always made my eyebrows arch. I have absolutely no idea what it could possibly mean, let alone how the comparison of seemingly-unrelated bird characteristics equates to supporting a sports team.
I did some brief research on the cheer while writing this strip, and discovered two things:
1. There was a song called “How Funky Is Your Chicken” recorded by the Jackson 5 in 1970 (on the same album as the classic “I’ll Be There,”) so this may or may not be the origin of the cheer.
2. I have a creative project that has driven me to research the phrase “how funky is your chicken.”
And yes, this really was the best cheerleader art I could find for this joke in my enormous library of royalty-free clip art.
MRS. SHOEBOX’S ASSESSMENT OF TODAY’S STRIP: It’s exactly what it should be, but their mouths are terrifying, and you might want to spell-check “promiscuous” (NOTE: She was right, I’d misspelled it.)
-=ShoEboX=-
The only time I can recall ever hearing that cheer was the original Buffy The Vampire Slayer movie, actually.
I believe the next two lines would be, “… now endeavor everyone to participate, and rhythmically gyrate the lower rear portion of your torso which is used for sitting upon”
This one brings back some memories. Whether they are good memories is debatable, but whatever…. nice one Box!
The cheerleaders have a kind of “Archie Comics” look about them. If they were slowing devolving into Morlocks.
Oh god, those mouths..
I GUESS they’re saying ‘how well can you dance?’ but it’s still pretty weirdsauce. Cheers in general are bizarre.
Are they dancing in a puddle, snow or did one of them have an accident/
i took the 1st part to be a “how foul is your fowl” play on words. i will now treasure the reality that i did not EVER get to have to hear inane cheers. you have made a bad day better. there are always those worse off.
and i can see why the line about never winning prettiest happened. i mean, i worked in a school with 50 high schoolers total 8th-12th, and we STILL had better looking cheerleaders. ugh! lol
Oh, thank goodness.
I thought they were offering the services of their duck.
Regarding loose geese, the Big Bopper’s 1958 song makes a reference: “There ain’t nothing in the world like a big eyed girl / That makes me act so funny, make me spend my money / Make me feel real loose like a long necked goose / Like a girl, oh baby that’s what I like.”
Your bird smells…
we would wait for the other team to get a penalty, then shout
“Crime doesn’t pay, Rah ! Crime doesn’t pay, Rah!”
Rah Rah Ree, Kick ‘em in the knee. Rah Rah Rawls, Kick ‘em in the other knee.
Cheerleader uniform budgets are always the first to be cut in tough times like these.
The cheer is all innuendo and uses sex appeal to engage the audience. It is probably more effective than cheers which are more logical and focused on the actual team but don’t have any crowd participation.