How Oklahoma Invented the Chicken Dance

This is a weird and wild story of how Oklahoma invented the Chicken Dance. It was actually a happy accident in the availability of props, but we'll get there.

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First and foremost, the song was written back in the 1950s. A polka classic that took the world by storm, spreading through small communities of polka-loving people...

Think The Lawrence Welk Show

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Written by a Swiss composer and popularized by Oktoberfest bands across the world, it was originally called Duck Dance in Europe. England termed it the Birdy Dance, but America went all in by accident one year in Tulsa.

The Tulsa Oktoberfest.

While the Tulsa Oktoberfest is highly regarded as one of the top German festivals in the world, ranked just behind the original in Munich, that wasn't necessarily the case in 1981. It was less of a tradition back then, still just some new event for Tulsans(?) to enjoy.

It was the third year of Tulsa's Oktoberfest, and even up to the moment it started, nobody was sure if it was going to happen. Rain had plagued the festival grounds, nobody was willing to show up for a slop-fest covered in mud.

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Since it was a local happening, Tulsa's local KJRH News Channel 2 showed up to do a live report from what they assumed would be a failed festival, but Oklahoma has never let the weather cost us a good time.

In order to convince people to come down to the struggling Oktoberfest, they planned to show some of the music and dancing going on. Since there was this unique little easy Duck Dance sweeping the festivals at that time, they opted for it, and Channel 2 wanted to help.

"We've got a duck costume you can wear!"

Channel 2 rushed someone back to the studios to grab an old duck costume they had lying around in storage, but by the time they got back to Oktoberfest, they realized it was a chicken. A giant chicken costume.

In the best example of putting on a happy face, someone dawned the chicken costume and performed the dance.

It has been known across America as The Chicken Dance since that moment at the 1981 Tulsa Oktoberfest.