…The job seemed extraordinarily simple. All I had to do was slide down a ladder, high-five two other ‘sailors’, stick my paw in a bucket of chicken, take a big bite, grin like an idiot and whoop with joy. In reality though, whooping and chewing chicken at the same time is more difficult than it sounds….

This post is the first in a series I’m going to do about all the strange and sometimes depressingly boring stuff I’ve done to make a buck. Even though my life is pretty low budget, my money doesn’t last forever.
Right now I’m in Australia, painting houses. I don’t mind painting. It’s meditative. A lot of people hate painting, which is great for me ’cause they are happy to hire me to do it for them, and in Oz, I can make decent dollars slopping paint around.
As I was brushing today, I got thinking about all the different things I’ve done over the years to keep myself fed.
I always try to get jobs doing things I like. Sometimes it works out, but a lot of the time the stuff I do for money is pretty random.
 

“Very Tasty!”
Flash-back: circa 1996

When I was in my twenties I got paid a lot of money to eat chicken. I like chicken, so you would think I would have been pretty happy about getting paid to eat it, right?   Wrong.

As a kid, I always wanted to be an actor. When I was seventeen I started acting school, and I took it all very seriously. I became obsessed with ‘method’ acting. I spent hours studying scripts, mumbling in front of the mirror, and analysing my character’s ‘motivations’.
After I graduated, I got an agent and started going to auditions.
In my head I was Robert De Niro, or Marlon Brando. Unfortunately, casting agents saw me more as John Cleese.

Actors are usually broke, and I was no exception. In 1996 I was not only a broke actor, I was also a young, broke father, so when my agent called me one day and told me he had a job for me, I was very excited (and surprised).
“Is it that crime mini-series I went for last week?” I stammered.
“No, darling…”
“The experimental feature film about transexual farm hands?”
“…no…”
I wracked my brain, trying to remember what other castings I had been to recently.
“Shakespeare in the park..?”
“No, I’m afraid not, dear boy. It’s a commercial.”
My heart sank.
My agent said brightly “It’s for Kentucky Fried Chicken.”
I could feel tears welling in my eyes.
“I want to do theatre and films, David. I told you, I’m not interested in commercials” I whined.
My agent clucked his tongue apologetically. “I know, darling. Well, that’s a shame. They really want you, and it pays two thousand dollars for one day’s work…”
“I’ll take it!” I blurted.

A week later I was sitting on the deck of a battle ship in Sydney Harbour, dressed as a sailor, eating fried chicken drumsticks.
The job seemed extraordinarily simple. All I had to do was slide down a ladder, high-five two other ‘sailors’, stick my paw in a bucket of chicken, take a big bite, grin like an idiot and whoop with joy. In reality though, whooping and chewing chicken at the same time is more difficult than it sounds. It is known in the TV business as an ‘appreciation shot’; kind of the chicken commercial equivalent of a ‘money shot’, I guess.
So many things can go wrong when you stuff fried meat in your mouth and then open it in front of a camera, especially if you are nervous and over-eager. Crumbs flying, grease dribbling… choking. After three takes I was a mess. After ten, I felt nauseous.

The chicken looked great, but it tasted like crap. There was a team of cooks, over behind the camera, dishing up new drumsticks for every take. They were a stern, white coated team of specialists from KFC, whose job it was to make the drumsticks look fantastic. Unfortunately, there was nothing in their brief about making it taste fantastic. The skin was crispy and golden, but the meat was cold, slimy, and tough. There was a guy crouched beside me with a plastic tub, and between takes, he encouraged me to spit the chicken into the bucket.

“Action!”
Chomp!
“Whoo-hoo!”
“Cut!”
Spit.
“Action!”
Chomp!
“Whoo-hoo!”
“Cut!”
Spit.
“Action!”
Chomp!
“Whoo-hoo-ergharghak!…ahak!… ergh!”
“Cut!”

There was a nice spread on the catering table at lunch time, but my fellow actors and I were so nauseous we couldn’t face eating anything except green salad.

I really earned my two grand.
I didn’t eat chicken again for a week.
That was not the last time I ate chicken for money, though.
I guess I had the face of a chicken eater, because a couple of years later, KFC called again.

This time my role called for even greater acting skill. In addition to chomping, grinning and whooping, I had to speak.
The scenario had me in a car, at night, with a bucket of chook bits and a hot girl. There was a police officer involved too. The narrative didn’t make much sense, but the sexual tension was palpable.
I can’t remember the whole commercial, but the script ended with me looking straight into the camera and crying emphatically:
“Very Tasty!”

The blonde model playing my girlfriend had the sort of glassy-eyed charisma that turns men into playdough. She was flawlessly pretty, and I recognised her from several other commercials that were already on TV.
We spent several hours sitting around waiting while the crew set up the scene. I put the time to good use, trying to impress my blonde co-star. I told her I was a Shakespearean actor, and planned to win an Oscar by the time I was twenty-five. Then I conspicuously performed a series of ridiculous vocal exercises, intended to impress upon her just how serious I was about my craft.

We were eventually called to the set. The director sat us in the car, and told us he wanted to shoot the girlfriend’s closeup first.
The camera rolled, and I watched my colleague perform with awe. She was a pro. She could swallow a whole chicken leg, smile showing all her teeth, and recite meaningless drivel simultaneously without blinking. She made it look so easy! She skull-fucked her drumstick, gargled the grease and batted her eyelids like she had been born in front of a camera.
She was done in two takes.

I started to feel very nervous. As a young actor, I considered models to be inferior; pretty, but not artists. I’d bragged about my acting credentials, and now I had to live up to all the hype I had generated and show this hideously beautiful girl that I had what it took. I started sweating so much the pancake makeup was dribbling down my chin.

When it was time to shoot my ‘appreciation shot’, it took twenty-three takes before the director was finally satisfied.
I was in a lather. I forgot what I was supposed to say, my hands trembled, my voice croaked, and every time I looked at the blonde sitting next to me, her perfect little smirk reminded me what a big rep I had been giving myself all night.
By take number fifteen, the pressure was excruciating.

“Take fifteen: action!”
Chomp. *Grin*
“Very tasty…”
“Cut! More energy kid! And… take sixteen: action!”
Chomp. *Grin*
“Very tasty…”
“Cut! Roll again!”

I just couldn’t do it right.
The chicken tasted like raw bull’s balls, my cheeks ached from chewing and grimacing, and the arched eyebrows of the blonde sitting next to me seemed to be saying ‘you went to acting school for three years for this?’
The director stayed calm but his voice was crackling with irritation.
“Sound happier kid! I need you to be charming here. Sell it, come on! Make me want that drumstick!”
Flustered and frustrated, I ventured, in a querulous voice: “What’s my character’s motivation..?”
The director stared at me and replied with barely concealed sarcasm. “Your motivation? You’re eating fucking chicken! Just look hungry!”

As I changed out of my costume, dazed and exhausted, and the makeup girl scraped the gunk off my face, I thought I had some idea what porn-stars must feel like.
I had a fat cheque in my pocket, but I felt like I’d been stuck under Ron Jeremy faking orgasm for three hours.

After that, I swore I would never do another chicken commercial, no matter how much money they offered me. I needn’t have worried. KFC didn’t call again.

I used some of the chicken money to make a short comedy film about a cannibal, which nobody thought was funny, but which eventually won an award at an experimental film festival.

 
BTW: When I did these TV Ad’s in the 1990’s, internet video wasn’t even a thing, but somehow one of them has found it’s way onto YouTube (well, part of it anyway). If you have a really masochistic nature you can watch it here… As Marlon would say: “the horror, the horror…” X-)

 
Happy holidays, amigos! Thanks for traveling with me in 2014. It’s been an exciting year. I look forward to having your company again in 2015! :-)

 
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