The Evening Zoo was launched at AY Jackson Secondary School in 2003.
The first show aired on October 17th, 2003, under the name "Carlos and
the Chicken." The original hosts were Craig Kelly,
with the name "Chickenman," and Kyle Crego, with the on-air name
"Carlos." Kyle unfortunately needed to leave the show early in its run, but Craig
continued it until June 14th, 2007 as "The Chicken Show," when he aired his last show as an
AYJ student. The last song Craig played on the show at AY was "Time of Your
Life" by Green Day, and finished the show by talking to AYJ's
principal, Mr. Martin Kleiman. His last words spoken on the show were,
"Enjoy back-to-back 'Lady in Red!'," which was Mr. Kleiman's favourite
song. Craig said this in response to Mr. Kleiman jokingly announcing to
returning AY students that he would be taking over the show. Craig continued to air a few more shows on the AYJ station, until the fifth annual Christmas edition aired in three parts in December 2007. On January 23rd, 2008, Craig excitedly revived The Chicken Show on SPIRITlive, Ryerson University's online radio station. On March 26th of the same year, he happily welcomed "Deep Fried Danny" Galea and Bryan "Ollie" Perkins to the show, and they are now regular hosts on the show. In August of 2008, Craig, Danny, and Bryan welcomed the first female co-host, as Cydnie Kalkhourst, also known as "Junior Chicken Brought To You By Wendy's," joined the team for the upcoming season. Cydnie was a Floor President in residence with Crag and Danny during the 2008/2009 school year. Unfortunately, however, due to personal commitments, Cyd withdrew from the team after first term. In December of 2008, a new co-host signed on to take Cyd's spot as the "Chicken Show Lady." Nicole Wolfe, a co-worker of Craig's at the front desk of Ryerson residence, joined the team for the remainder of the season, and made her debut in semester two, on January 19th. Nicole adopted the on-air nickname "All White Meat Chicken Nuggets," despite Craig's wishes to aptly call her "Chicken Breasts." At the end of the 2008/2009 season, Danny and Nicole left the team, due to their graduation from Ryerson. We await the induction of Ben Lukow and Sonam Bhojani along with the launch of the new season in September 2009. Into the summer, Bryan announced that, for academic reasons, he would not be able to return to the team in the upcoming school year. And alas, due to schedule conflicts, Sonam was only able to make it on an occasional basis. But a series of recurring guests were cycled through to partake in the antics with Craig and Ben, including Michael Wagner, Thea Gagliari, Erin Walker, Jordan Jenkins, Andrew McAllister, Heather Sadkowski, Lauren Akbar, and Alex Orchard. Sonam's schedule confliced with that of the show's, and thus resigned as the resident female. But, as the second semester rolled around, Thea, Mike, and Jordan joined Craig and Ben as regulars. They combined to form what may have been the best semester the show had seen yet. They even made history in airing the first show without Craig, and broadcasting the first show completely from outside of the studio, broadcasting remotely from the Ram in the Rye, Ryerson's campus pub. During the off-season after the end of the 2009/2010 season, the team decided to change the name of the show to Chickenman's Evening Zoo. This will be fie first season, after seven seasons on the air, under this name, having been known as The Chicken Show since partway through our first season on the air, in the 2003/2004 school year. Into the upcoming year, Craig, Ben, Thea, and Mike, will continue as regulars, and because of a heavy schedule on Jordan's end, he will continue as a recurring guest, among many others. When we know the exact starting date of our show, we will add a countdown on our sidebar, so stay tuned to find out when we will return and what excitement we will have in store. |