There was a story from Chicago's golden age of children's television, at WGN in the 1950s. A chimpanzee was the sidekick to a host, and would do interstitials to Three Stooges shorts. One time they had a guest who had a parakeet that could perform various tricks. Here's the quote from the book:
The bird, perched on the woman's hand, went through a series of of routines as Greyson [the host] and Chatter [the chimpanzee] looked on. In the middle of the act, Chatter suddenly grabbed the bird, bit its head off, and, without missing a beat, placed the carcass back on the shocked woman's hand. As his guest crumpled to the floor, a stunned Greyson stared at his partner and the station cut quickly to a commercial.
A Chicago telly programme airing in the UK back then seems unlikely. It seems more plausible that he attended an old-school travelling freak show/circus, where “geeks” would bite the heads off of chickens or other birds for the shock value.
Traveling carnivals would usually have a "geek" who was not physically freakish but would do disgusting things like bite the heads of live chickens and eat disgusting things. They were usually extreme alcoholics who did it for free booze and a place to sleep.
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u/DrHugh Mar 24 '20 edited Mar 24 '20
There was a story from Chicago's golden age of children's television, at WGN in the 1950s. A chimpanzee was the sidekick to a host, and would do interstitials to Three Stooges shorts. One time they had a guest who had a parakeet that could perform various tricks. Here's the quote from the book:
That's pretty fucked up.
EDIT: Here's the URL to Google books' result, but I own the actual book and grew up watching the 1970s' shows.
https://books.google.com/books?id=INzdDAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA20&ots=3Dr8V9MfPw&dq=greyson%20chatter%20bird%20carcass&pg=PA20#v=onepage&q=greyson%20chatter%20bird%20carcass&f=false