Hello, this is Dale Storms again, you poor people. This story is about a rooster from Oxford. Many of you are old enough to remember when the Pathé movies used to come on, and in the very beginning this rooster crowed his little head off right at the very beginning of the movies. That rooster’s name was Jackie, and he was from Oxford. There was a guy named Mort Cooper in Oxford, who in 1925 or six was a big expert on chickens, and he was trying to develop chickens with feathers on their feet. Don’t ask me why. And he had a lady whose daughter came and told me about this, this is how I know, who took care of his eggs and little baby chickens. And the minute little Jackie hatched, she knew he was different. And she sent her daughter up to Mort to say, “Come and look at this little chicken.”
And Jackie was just amazing from the minute he hatched. He would follow the kids to school and sit up on the fire department roof and wait for them to get out because Oxford Academy’s right there. He was trainable. He could do all sorts of tricks and things, and he was smart. And then one day, Mort read in the New York Times that the Pathé movie company was trying to find a rooster that would crow on cue. And it was $1,000 was the prize, and in 1927 that’s a lot of money. And so Mort stuffed Jackie in a box, got on the morning milk train to New York, ran into Madison Square Garden, where these tests were being done, as the last rooster failed crowing. And he said, “Turn out the lights.” He opened the box, shined a flashlight in Jackie’s face, and Jackie crowed his little head off.
And so he won and he became Mr. Pathé. He had a little bow tie he wore and he went to movie openings of Pathé movies with Mort. They traveled the world, all over the country with Pathé movies. And for about three years it was wonderful. And Little Jackie was just great. And then he met a very sad end. They were at a cocktail party and Jackie was allowed to circulate on his own because he did very well in cocktail parties. And he locked onto a tray of hors d’oeuvres that no one was paying attention to, and he ate the whole thing and it killed him. He died of overeating hors d’oeuvres at a Hollywood party.
Now, I’ve got to say, not every county has a rooster like that, and I have often suggested to the powers that be that when you come into Chenango County on the sign it should have a little Pathé rooster there because it is the home of the Pathé rooster. There were many Pathé roosters after Jackie, but he was the original Mr. Pathé. His obituary was in the New York Times, and the headline said, “Mr. Pathé succumbs to tray of hors d’oeuvres.” What can I tell you?
