There's a famously amusing anecdote that adman Jerry Della Femina always laid claim to, but—its onscreen nod in Mad Men notwithstanding—it wasn't his egg to hatch. Even if Jerry did recreate certain events for a Big Apple revival, long before the story made its way into the annals of Madison Avenue legend, "The Great Chicken Incident" was already a tale well known in Second City lore.
It involves live poultry, two advertising creatives—most notably, my dad—and the long-term repercussions of a practical joke gone terribly wrong.
(I never did find out what happened to the chicken.)
