Last update:

01/04/2002

Why did the chicken cross the road?

I am unsure of the original origin to this joke which seems to have confounded many wise souls during their existence within our fragile universe. A great many have tried to answer this seemingly vital question - without which most of our lives would be completely futile. I will try to answer this very question with the help of some of our very learned friends, or maybe it just may confuse you even more as to the true answer of this question, and if you do end up confused, just try to realize the truth - 
there is no chicken.

Machiavelli:  The point is that the chicken crossed the road. Who cares why? The ends of crossing the road justifies whatever motive there was.
     
John Locke:  Because he was exercising his natural right to liberty.
     
Albert Camus:  It doesn't matter; the chicken's actions have no meaning except to him.
     
The Bible:  And God came down from the heavens, and He said unto the Chicken, "Thou shalt cross the road." And the Chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.
     
Fox Mulder:  It was a government conspiracy.
     
Darwin:  Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in such a way that they are now genetically dispositioned to cross roads.
     
Richard M. Nixon:  The chicken did not cross the road. I repeat, the chicken did not cross the road.
     
Oliver Stone:  The question is not "Why did the chicken cross the road?"  but is rather "Who was crossing the road at the same time whom we overlooked in our haste to observe the chicken crossing?"
     
Jerry Seinfeld:  Why does anyone cross a road? I mean, why doesn't anyone ever think to ask, "What the heck was this chicken doing walking around all over the place anyway?"

Immanuel Kant:  The chicken, being an autonomous being, chose to cross the road of his own free will.
     
Grandpa:  In my day, we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road.  Someone told us that the chicken had crossed the road, and that was good enough for us.
     
Dirk Gently (Holistic Detective):  I'm not exactly sure why, but right now I've got a horse in my bathroom.
     
Bill Gates:  I have just released the new Chicken 2000, which will both cross roads AND balance your check book, though when it divides 3 by 2 it gets 1.4999999999.
     
M.C.Escher:  That depends on which plane of reality the chicken was on at the time.
     
George Orwell:  Because the government had fooled him into thinking that he was crossing the road of his own free will, when he was really only serving their interests.
     
Colonel Sanders:  I missed one?
     
Plato:  For the greater good.
     
Karl Marx: It was a historical inevitability.
     
Nietzsche:  Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road gazes also across you.
    
B.F. Skinner:  Because the external influences, which had pervaded its sensorium from birth, had caused it to develop in such a fashion that it would tend to cross roads, even while believing these actions to be of its own freewill.
     
Jean-Paul Sartre:  In order to act in good faith and be true to itself, the chicken found it necessary to cross the road.
     
Albert Einstein:  Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.
     
Pyrrho the Skeptic:  What road?
     
The Sphinx:  You tell me.
     
Buddha:  If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken nature.
     
Emily Dickenson:  Because it could not stop for death.
     
Ralph Waldo Emerson:  It didn't cross the road; it transcended it.
     
Ernest Hemingway:  To die. In the rain. 

Calculus Professor: The road, if expressed in the form (y2-y1)/(x2-x1) is approximate for cases where lim(y2-y1)/(x2-x1) as (x2-x1) -> 0, is represented by the derivative, or rate of change, of the road with respect to the chicken, such that the value of the chicken may be assumed equal to the value of (y2-y1)/(x2-x1), for small values of roads.

Arthur, King of the Britons: What do you mean? African or European chickens?

Lord Baden-Powell: Because as a Chicken Scout, it needed the Road-Crossing Merit Badge.

Cheech (or Chong): Just to be there, man.

The Chicken: I am crossing the road to block traffic as a protest against ..." (thump).

John Cleese: This Chicken is no more. It has ceased to function. Bereft of life, it rests in peace. It's a stiff. If it wasn't nailed to the road it'd be pushing up daisies. It's snuffed it. It's metabolic processes are now history. It's bleeding demised. It's rung down the curtain, shuffled off the mortal coil and joined the bleeding Choir Invisible. This is an Ex-Chicken.

Jacques Ives Cousteau: Zee cheecken, unaware of zee dangare beehind heem, crosses zee street. Weezout warning, zee Porsche strikes, and zee balance of zee nature ees maintained.

Stephen R. Covey: When the chicken and the road can work together for the win-win, the result is synergy! 

Jean Cretien, Prime Minister of Canada: "It wasn't a chicken, you know, it was an Inuit carving of a loon. But the RCMP should have been there anyway..." 

Aleister Crowley: Because it was its True Will to do so. 

Salvador Dali: The Fish. 

Stephanie Daniels: It was the turtle's day off.

Commander Data: I do not know. Although I have compared all of my 437 billion data points relating to chickens and roads, there is no positive correlation between the two.

Rene Descartes: It had sufficient reason to believe it was dreaming anyway.

E.T.: Chicken, phone home.

Wyatt Earp: Well, chicken, are you gonna do something, or just stand there and bleed?

Basil Fawlty: Oh, don't mind that chicken. It's from Barcelona. 

Sybil Fawlty: BASIL! Why is there a CHICKEN in my hotel?

Sherlock Holmes: It crossed the road because it was going to catch a train at Victoria Station at 3:15, to Edinburgh. And how did I know that? Observe, Watson, the patina of dust on the chicken's feathers, which indicates that it had been spending time in a library, reading about Scotland. And observe also that it was humming "Bonnie Lassie" as it waited to cross. Finally, and most important, observe the train ticket marked Edinburgh, stuffed under one wing, and the fact that Victoria station was where the chicken crossed the street, and finally that the only train to Edinburgh this afternoon is the 3:15....

Saddam Hussein: This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it.

James Tiberius Kirk: To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.

Timothy Leary: Because that's the only kind of trip the Establishment would let it take.

Dr. Hannibal Lector: So I could eat its liver, with some fava beans and a nice Chianti .......thththththththth.

H.P. Lovecraft: To futilely attempt escape from the dark powers which even then pursued it, hungering after the stuff of its soul!

Marvin the Paranoid Android: Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and what do they ask me? Why did the chicken cross the road? As if their pathetic cerebellums could even comprehend my answer. Chickens, don't talk to me about chickens... they're SO depressing.

Sir Isaac Newton: Chickens at rest tend to stay at rest. Chickens in motion tend to cross the road.

Jack Nicholson: 'Cause it (censored) wanted to. That's the (censored) reason.

George Orwell: Because Big Brother was watching to make sure that it did cross the road, although in its heart, the chicken never did.

Patsy: Oh, F*&% the chicken. Run it over and lets have a drink.

Arnold Schwarzenegger: It was going back...

Agent Scully: There simply must be a rational, scientific explanation. Chickens don't just "cross roads"

Homer Simpson: ohhhhhhhh Chicken.....

Bart Simpson: It's outta here, man!

John Steinbeck: The road baked in the relentless summer sun as the chicken, looking about, began to cross. It stopped occasionally to peck at a grass seed that had become lodged in a crevice in the cracked macadam. The chicken reached the other side, then began making his way to the Salinas, which lay muddy and turgid in the July afternoon, all the while thinking of the cool shade by the river and how good the can of beans in his bedroll would taste tonight.

Tim "The Toolman" Taylor: This here bird'll cross that road in no time flat, now that I've made a few "special modifications! We've added the Binford 7100 Multi-Purpose power unit, which I've souped up by adding a United Aircraft PT-6 jet engine - Urrgh urrgh urrgh! Heidi, bring out the chicken, please....

J.R.R. Tolkein: The chicken, sunlight coruscating off its radiant yellow- white coat of feathers, approached the dark, sullen asphalt road and scrutinized it intently with its obsidian-black eyes. Every detail of the thoroughfare leapt into blinding focus: the rough texture of the surface, over which count- less tires had worked their relentless tread through the ages; the innumerable fragments of stone embedded within the lugubrious mass, perhaps quarried from the great pits where the Sons of Man laboured not far from here; the dull black asphalt itself, exuding those waves of heat which distort the sight and bring weakness to the body; the other attributes of the great highway too numerous to give name.

Darth Vader: Because it could not resist the power of the Dark Side.

Mr. Worf: I do not know, Klingon chickens do NOT cross the road.

Yoda: Crossing the road makes not a chicken great.

ANDERSEN CONSULTING: Deregulation of the chicken's side of the road was threatening its dominant market position. The chicken was faced with significant challenges to create and develop the competencies required for the newly competitive market. Andersen Consulting, in a partnering relationship with the client, helped the chicken by rethinking its physical distribution strategy and implementation processes. Using the Poultry Integration Model (PIM), Andersen helped the chicken use its skills, methodologies, knowledge, capital and experiences to align the chicken's people, processes and technology in support of its overall strategy within a Program Management framework. Andersen Consulting convened a diverse cross-spectrum of road analysts and best chickens along with Andersen consultants with deep skills in the transportation industry to engage in a two-day itinerary of meetings in order to leverage their personal knowledge capital. both tacit and explicit, and to enable them to synergise with each other in order to achieve the implicit goals of delivering and successfully architecting and implementing an enterprise-wide value framework across the continuum of poultry cross-median processes. The meeting was held in a park-like setting, enabling and creating an impactful environment which was strategically based, industry-focused, and built upon a consistent, clear, and unified market message and aligned with the chicken's mission, vision, and core values. This was conducive towards the creation of a total business integration solution. Andersen Consulting helped the chicken change to become more successful.

FREUD: The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.