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Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

TAGS: books family Kids

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Skittles sorting machine, version 3

David LaFerriere's sandwich bag art

gwailo_joe

Since when do ANY of those birds have a pink fleshy protrusion growing out the back of their collective skulls?

The Churkendoose is an Abomination.
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones
  
  The flesh protrusion is actually an atavistic fin, last expressed in this bloodline 300 million years ago.
  
  With that much genetic engineering, you’ve got to expect some hideous deformities to creep in.
- PurpleWyrm
  
  It’s obviously part chicken, part turkey, part duck, part goose and part cassowary
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones

“Washable cover.” Because the sheer horror of the Churkendoose led many tots to lose their Maypo.
Jake0748

Is this like the turducken that John Madden was always yapping about?
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  This outranks the turducken by one goose.
  - Jake0748
    
    Ah yes. I see that now. How could I have missed it.
  - Boundegar
    
    Except… It’s ALIVE!
    - Guest
      
      … but less tasty.
BarBarSeven

It might taste good, but is it kosher?
- http://twitter.com/chriscoreline chris coreline
  
  its 1/4 kosher,
  fortunately, im 1/4 Jewish.
Ashen Victor

Part Chicken, Turkey, Duck and Goose, all delicious.
- http://twitter.com/chrisjimson chris jimson
  
  I’m sure ultimately it still just tastes like chicken.
Chentzilla

There’s a Soviet cartoon (also children’s picture book) about a goose who exchanged various body parts with other birds, until he turned into an even more bizarre chimera:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsDooCbg2V4
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Okay, what gives? You are in the US, aren’t you?
  
  This video contains content from Quiz Group Pro, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.
  - Chentzilla
    
    No, I’m in Russia. Either there’s a proxy I don’t know about, or your IP checker makes a mistake.
    Please believe me that I want to share, not to troll.
    How about this one:
    http://rutube.ru/video/4c8d3ec2932fe6a00f65b9b7e88512e2/#.UJOd8fKVp6Y
    ?
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      That one works.
      
      Your e-mail certainly suggests that you’re in Russia, but your IP claims to be in White Plains, New York. Maybe it’s time for me to stop using Geobytes. I checked yours and mine on several other IP locators and everybody but them has it correct.
      - http://www.kmoser.com kmoser
        
        In Soviet Russia, proxy hides behind you!
      - http://profile.yahoo.com/554IFMAWGY7IHNY4LQDIMZPL3I Lilly
        
        WELL PLAYED!
purple-stater

My mother still has a copy laying about. Ah, memories. :-)
woid

I will swear, with no supporting evidence, that there is a 78rpm kiddie record of a song called “The Churkendoose” based on this book (or is it the other way around?) — with a lyric something like “Part chicken, turkey, duck and goose… Look out, it’s the Churkendoose.”

Or so a deeply buried, possibly misfiring synapse tells me.
- woid
  
  Ha! Supporting evidence!!!
  
  http://www.kiddierecords.com/2007/index.htm
  
  Narrated by Ray Bolger, with music by Alec Wilder (once-well-known composer, and one of Sinatra’s favorite early-career arrangers).
  - http://fat-tire.myopenid.com/ ft
    
    I listened to this a lot as a kid and was delighted to find it a few years ago online. Ray Bolger, in case someone didn’t know, was the Scarecrow in Wizard of Oz.
Mandana Khoshnevisan

GASP! I have been trying to remember what this book was called or even if it existed, for YEARS! And there it is! I think my mom, or maybe her brother, must have owned it, and I read it at grandma’s house? I know I’ve read it lots of times, but it was somewhere in the recesses of my … and every time someone talks about a turducken, it comes to mind … but it’s not exactly a hilarious anecdote to relate to others if one can’t remember what it is or whether it even exists.

Thank you, Boingboing. Thank you.
CastanhasDoPara

Quachurkendooswanstritchemu

That makes 8. I invite you to beat that..

Also Shrabster, that is all.
Heevee Lister

I didn’t have the book, but as a kid I had (and may still have somewhere) the Ray Bolger record. (My parents weren’t perfect, but they got some things right.)

The Churkendoose always talks in verse. He can’t walk, but he can tap dance. The Rooster is the voice of norms and authority, attacking the intruder, the stranger, the other: “What good are you?”

The Churkendoose wonders, “Can’t the chicken, turkey, duck, and goose, live in peace with the Churkendoose? Does the pear tree say to the apple tree, ‘I hate you ’cause you’re not like me’? Does the green grass ask the sky so blue, ‘I’m green, why aren’t you green too’? … They’re different, yet they get along, and no one seems to think it’s wrong … Can’t you like me just because I’m me?”

In an era when American racism was institutional, The Churkendoose quietly promoted tolerance. It gently suggested that we look beyond external appearances to the real person inside. We could do with a little more kids’ entertainment like that today.

PS – Yes, the Churkendoose was ugly. So was Lederer and Burdick’s Ugly American. Bonus points for the BBer who’s actually read that 1958 book and knows who the good guy is. Hint: the title doesn’t mean what you think it does.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jenni-Dougal/100000021871773 Jenni Dougal

It’s… Manbearpig!
rg70

My mom was born in ’42. She had this book and passed it on to my brother and I in the 70s. I think it is still somewhere in a box at her house.
Keith Hopkins

There was also a sixties version read by Soupy Sales. I had it when I was a kid. So long ago…
acerplatanoides

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscovy_Duck

The Churkendoose: Part Chicken, Turkey, Duck and Goose 1946 book

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