Next up in The 2019 PopCult Gift Guide is the humble rubber chicken. The perfect gift for the person who is either simply too silly, or far too serious on your holiday shopping list.

The Rubber Chicken is a comedy classic. Simultaneously silly, rude, goofy, and surprising, the rubber chicken dates back to a more innocent time when nudity and flatulence were considered too vulgar for public consumption.

The origins of the rubber chicken as a comedy prop are unclear. Some sources trace the origins back to court jesters in the middle ages. Others claim that the use of dead plucked chickens as a comic symbol dates back to the French Revolution, which seems a bit odd, since that era is not usually remembered for having a rich legacy of prop comedy. One source points to a Swedish black-face performer, which sounds sort of like the beginning of a bad joke itself.

What we do know is that rubber chickens are silly, funny, corny and that they make a pretty good gag gift.

Archie McPhee, the decades-old purveyors of silliness, have opened a Rubber Chicken Museum in Seattle, and as an online retailer, they essentially have THE Rubber Chicken clearing house, with a variety of rubber chickens ranging from teeny-tiny inch-long pushpins to gigantic behemoth rubber chickens that measure nearly two feet long.

You can also get rubber chicken Christmas ornaments, band-aids, breath mints, jewlry, apparel, automobile accessories and auditory simulations. Some of their rubber chickens make noise, others don’t. The variety of sizes and colors is vast and inspiring.

You can find them all at Archie McPhee’s Rubber Chicken emporium, at a variety of prices. When you can think of any other gift for somebody for Christmas, give them a rubber chicken…then run away, laughing maniacally.

They even have one that glows in the dark.