Chicken Man (radio series)

Chickenman is an American radio series created by Dick Orkin that spoofs comic book heroes, inspired by the mid-60s Batman TV series. The series was created in 1966 on Chicago radio station WCFL, and was then syndicated widely, notably on Armed Forces Radio during the Vietnam War.

In the series, Benton Harbor, a shoe salesman at a large downtown Midland City department store, spends his weekends striking terrific terror into the hearts of criminals everywhere as that fantastic fowl, Chickenman. Or, at least, that's what he tells everyone. In reality, he mostly hangs around the Police Commissioner's office and irritates the Commissioner's secretary, Miss Helfinger.

Each episode begins with an overly-dramatic theme, a four-note trumpet sound echoed with Benton Harbor's "Buck-buck-buck-buuuuuck" chicken call, which is followed by a rousing cry of "Chicken-mannnn!" and voices shouting, "He's everywhere! He's everywhere!" This tagline became a memorable catchphrase, especially because it's repeated again at the end of each episode, two and a half minutes later.

Midway through the series, in 1973, Orkin added special weekend episodes called Chickenman vs.the Earth Polluters and, in 1977, a special LP was created by Orkin and Bert Berdis: Chickenman Returns for the Last Time Again.

Chickenman was created in 1966 by Dick Orkin, at the time a production director at WCFL in Chicago. WCFL's Program Director, Ken Draper, was inspired by the success of the Batman TV show, and asked Orkin to put together a two-and-a-half-minute comedy feature with a similarly "camp" sensibility.

In a 1996 article, Orkin explained, "I was never clear about what 'camp' meant, except that I guess it had something to do with the sacredness of absolute values that, when extended to irrational limits, became just plain silly... Thank God I hadn't known 'camp' was later considered a literary technique, or that would have killed the doing of it for me."

Orkin's Chickenman series was part of the late morning show hosted by Jim Runyon. Orkin played the male characters, including Benton Harbor and Police Commissioner Benjamin Norton. In a 1992 interview, Orkin admitted that Benton's character was "a little cardboardy," and refuted the rumors that Benton roughly resembles Orkin's own character: "This is, of course, nonsense. The resemblance is not even close to rough. It's precise."

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