Read This: The feathery origins of “Guess what? Chicken butt”

A reference to these street vendors made its way into George Gershwin’s Porgy And Bess in 1935, though here, “butts” was rhymed with “guts.” A primordial ancestor of the modern day “chicken butt” joke also turns up in a 1962 novel by Charles G. Bell. By the early 1970s, version of the joke were being cited in academic works about language and early childhood education. Apparently, the term “chicken butt” served a double purpose back then. It could be used as a wisecracking answer to “What?” or it could just be employed as an all-purpose insult. The documentation, unfortunately, is both spotty and anecdotal. In all likelihood, Blevins finds, the humorous turn of phrase “originated in southern black-American culture at least as early as the 1960s and probably a bit before.” From there, the whole English-speaking world embraced it.

Regardless of its origins, the “chicken butt” joke has heartily endured throughout the decades. It’s such an integral part of kid-dom that it even popped up in an episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Demonstrating a surprising amount of wit (for him), Goofy uses it on Mickey, thoroughly humiliating the famous mouse in front of Donald.