![]() South Korea now boasts more than 80,000 restaurants, and at least one soap opera, devoted to chimaek: the sacred, double-fisted combo of fried chicken and beer made popular in 2002 during the Korea–Japan World Cup. ![]() South Korea is the world’s most dedicated and miraculous laboratory for fried chicken, perhaps the only place in the world as obsessed with breaded poultry as the American South. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.E-Pilot Evening Edition Home Page Close Menu This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. ![]() UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Imitating chicken clucking to tune of song).Ĭopyright © 2023 NPR. SIMON: McKenzie Kimball, director of Fruita, Colo.'s, Mike the Headless Chicken Festival. And it's something that would make our community proud and just give them a space to enjoy each other's company. It's not any particular emphasis on one thing. And secondly, they just wanted the community to have something fun and silly that would bring everyone together. KIMBALL: The person who started the festival - I actually know her quite well and was talking to her about, you know, what was it about this story that made you all want to start a festival, you know? And she said, first of all, it was so exciting to celebrate somebody - something's will to live. And maybe this is the whole inspiration of the festival. SIMON: You know, I find myself getting misty-eyed thinking about Mike. This year - we're really excited - we're adding a history tent that talks about Mike himself, the festival, a myth-busting board and a bunch of information about what the festival came to be. So we have the little marshmallow Peeps as well as chicken wings. KIMBALL: We've had a lot of different iterations, but the current festival - its kind of main feature is a Peep- and wing-eating contest. What do you folks do with the Headless Mike festival? And he really behaved like a pretty normal chicken because of all that was left behind, even without the head. Lloyd talks about in interviews that he would still try to kind of, like, preen and peck. He actually was pretty normally functioning. And there were actually some scientists that took a look at him and basically discovered that the base of the brainstem was still intact, which is kind of - for people and animals - basic functions. KIMBALL: So they actually took him to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. SIMON: How did he manage to survive and live for 18 months? And so they decided to make a festival, and it kind of reincarnated the story of Mike. And it happened to be that one of the recreation directors was a part of the Rotary Club as well and thought that it might be an interesting thing to bring the community together and celebrate this chicken's will to live and celebrate a little bit of quirky Fruita history. And in the late '90s, a local Rotarian brought it up at one of their meetings in relation to history of the town. It wasn't a popular story in the '70s, '80s. And for a long time, it wasn't really, like, common knowledge in the city of Fruita. KIMBALL: It's pretty exciting, actually, because the story, like you said, happened back in 1945. Who wouldn't want to see a headless chicken? When I asked the question, why did he captivate so many people, I think I know. Kimball, thanks very much for being with us. And festival director McKenzie Kimball joins us. Today, Mike's hometown of Fruita, Colo., holds an annual festival in his honor. Over 600 people lined up a day to get a glimpse of headless Mike. And Lloyd Olsen took their show on the road. ![]() His head was gone, but vital organs, including brain function, remained. But Mike escaped being an entree by surviving. Farmer Lloyd Olsen severed Mike's head one day in 1945. A chicken named Mike ran around for 18 months with its head cut off.
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