Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Chicken Fat

This song will be familiar to all you babyboomers out there. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy released this song to all public schools throughout America as an exercize inititive.

Robert Preston (of The Music Man fame) is the fellow that performed the song.

I remember us kids gathering at R.A. Mitchell Elementary School - gathering in the back area of the lunch room (an area in front of the stage) and the P.E. teacher would lead us all in exercising to the song Go You Chicken Fat, Go!

The P.E. teacher would get us all in a circle and then drop the needle on the old 45. The old institutional looking player was positioned at the edge of the stage and the static riddled song blarred across the entire lunchroom. It was a daily thing and it's what we did every school morning.

2 comments:

Greene Street Letters said...

Believe it or not...
My Grandson who attends Eura Brown knows this song because they still use it in his p.e. class....ain't that weird?
My first introduction to CHICKEN FAT Was on the MORNING SHOW with Tom York and Pat Grey. They would excersize to this record. Those were the days....
thanks for memory!!or rather THE memory....
mb

Anonymous said...

I started at R.A. Mitchell in 1970
My P.E. Teacher was Mrs. Riddle. On the first day of school...When "Chicken Fat" began... me, and all the kids that I knew just giggled, but it was not a joke. We had to start exercising!! We exercised to that every morning. Oh, to be able to do that now! Flabby Flo