Silke Jasso
Spanning an impressive three decades, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson saw its share of weird moments. There was the time when host Johnny Carson dressed up as Adam and Betty White dressed up as Eve. There was the time a potato chip collector freaked out when she thought he’d eaten her favorite potato chip. And who could forget the time he was so frightened of a guest’s pet jaguars he jumped into the arms of Ed McMahon? Or when he earned a hug from Joan Embery’s adorable baby orangutan?)
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Carson was no stranger to eccentric guests and their wild pet animals on the iconic NBC talk show. So when he invited Donna Pyle and her award-winning rooster to the show, you’d think he would have anticipated what would happen.
Some Background on Donna Pyle and Her Rooster
To give you some backstory: Like Carson, Donna Pyle is a resident of northeastern Iowa. In the late ’70s, Pyle had risen to small-town stardom in the rooster-raising community thanks to her pet rooster named Baby.
You see, Baby was no ordinary rooster. He won two international cock crowing contests, (which who knew was a thing?) Cock crowing is a traditional sport in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany when birds are awarded for crowing the most number of times in a certain number of minutes. Before his Carson appearance, Baby had already appeared on two radio shows.
Watch What Happens When Johnny Carson Interviews a Rooster
Unfortunately, when Baby the Rooster was plopped down on Johnny’s desk, he must have been a little nervous (can you blame him? This was the late-night legend that jump-started the stand-up careers of the likes of Steve Martin, Jerry Seinfeld, Ellen Degeneres, Don Rickles, Bob Hope, and Jay Leno. This was the man David Letterman once said shined brighter than any star. This is a man one interviewed Madonna and SHE flirted with HIM.)
Baby might not have felt comfortable enough to crow, but he did feel comfortable pooping on Johnny Carson’s desk around six minutes into the interview (power move?) To his credit, Carson has nothing if not a sense of humor and graciousness.
After taking a moment to collect himself from the smell, Johnny said, “I’ll literally point something out to you, Donna: We didn’t bring him 1,800 miles to take a dump on my desk.”
Carson took this moment to cut to commercial. “But since it’s done, we’ll do a word from our sponsor and he’s going to crow his little heart out isn’t he? During the break, Carson and Baby must have had a heart-to-heart, because — sure enough — as soon as the commercial break was over, Baby let out a series of magnificent cock-a-doodle-dos.
