The Sky Is Falling, better known as Chicken Licken, Henny Penny or Chicken Little is an old cumulative tale and fable about a chicken (or a hare in early versions) who believes the sky is falling. The phrase, "The sky is falling," has passed into the English language as a common idiom indicating a hysterical or mistaken belief that disaster is imminent. [edit] Origin Although sometimes mistakenly listed as one of Aesop's Fables, the story actually originates from early African folktales, according to Joseph Holloway.[1] The basic motif and many of the elements of the tale can also be found within the Daddabha Jataka (J 322). The Jatakas comprise a large body of folklore dating from around Gautama Buddha's time (6th century BC) to the third century AD. However, this ancient version features a hare as the central character rather than a chicken, and the wise protagonist is a lion (the Bodhisattva or future Buddha).[2] [edit] Basic plot There are many versions of the story, but one premise is that a chicken eats lunch one day, and believes the sky is falling down because an acorn falls on her head. She decides to tell the King, and on her journey meets other animals who join her in the quest. In most retellings, the animals all have rhyming names such as Henny Penny, Cocky Lockey and Goosey Loosey. Finally, they come across Foxy Loxy, a fox who offers the chicken and her friends his help. After this point, there are many endings. In the most famous one, Foxy Loxy eats the chicken's friends, but the last one, usually Cocky Lockey, survives long enough to warn the chicken and she escapes. Other endings include Foxy eating them all; the characters being saved by a squirrel or an owl and getting to speak to the King; the characters being saved by the King's hunting dogs; even one version in which the sky actually falls and kills Foxy Loxy. Depending on the version, the moral changes. In the "happy ending" version, the moral is not to be a "Chicken", but to have courage. In other versions the moral is usually interpreted to mean "do not believe everything you are told". In the latter case, it could well be a cautionary political tale: The Chicken jumps to a conclusion and whips the populace into mass hysteria, which the unscrupulous fox uses to manipulate them for his own benefit, sometimes as supper. [edit] Characters As is common in fables, all the characters in this tale are animals. They mostly have rhyming names. Note that in the most common version, Henny Penny is the only character whose last name does not begin with the letter L. (In another version, the character is named Hen Len.) [edit] Adaptations - The Sky is Falling has been made into countless children's books, having both Chicken Licken and Henny Penny as main characters.
- The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales includes a long parody of the story.
- Henny Penny (2000) is a picture book by Jane Wattenberg and a parody of the story.
- Donald's Big News, an installment of the Mickey's Young Readers Library series, was a modernized version in which Donald Duck mistakenly thinks that Grandma Duck is going to lose her farm and recruits everybody in Duckburg to raise money through a yard sale.
- In the novel Cat's Cradle the narrator tells of renting his apartment out to a friend. When he returns, he finds "No, no, no, said Chicken-licken" written above his bed.
- In the novel The Sky is Falling by Sidney Sheldon a frequent reference is made to Chicken Little to describe the state of hysteria and panic.
[edit] Movies [edit] Television - The animated series Garfield and Friends adapted the story for the U.S. Acres segment "Badtime Story". Throughout the story, the characters (played by regulars on the series) blame the sky's falling on "all this tampering with the ozone layer". At one point, Wade Duck parodies the story's use of rhyming character names by going over a long list of Chicken Licken's followers, among them Catty Fatty (played by Garfield) and Beaver Cleaver (a reference to Leave It to Beaver).
- Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child, did a version of the story.
- A Rugrats episode is named "The Sky is Falling".
- In an episode of Ed, Edd, n' Eddy, Sarah tricked Ed into thinking that the sky was falling and Ed believed it.
- In the sixth season The Golden Girls episode titled Henny Penny — Straight, No Chaser, in an effort to encourage children to read over spring break, "the girls" perform a play version of the story after the children who were originally going to star in the play succumb to illness.
- An episode of Timon & Pumbaa is called "The Sky is Calling".
- American composer Vincent Persichetti used the fable as the plot of his only opera The Sibyl: A Parable of Chicken Little (Parable XX), op. 135 (1976), which premiered in 1985 in a production by the Philadelphia Opera Theater.
[edit] Modern popular culture The fable is referred to in many modern shows, songs and movies. - Much of the fable is recited in the opening of one episode of the Fox series Millennium (TV series).
- The Suite Life of Zack and Cody episode "Hotel Hangout", on which Carey Martin says to Marion Moseby, "Mr. Moseby, every little problem with you is like, 'The sky is falling! The sky is falling!'. Then a satellite dish falls from the roof and Moseby replies, "Sometimes Chicken Little knows what he's talking about!"
- The Season Five American Idol contestant Kevin Covais has been nicknamed Chicken Little shortly before his elimination. The nickname derives from the belief by another Idol contestant (as well as agreement by much of the television viewing audience) that Mr. Covais bears a resemblance to the character of Chicken Little in the 2005 Disney animated feature film.
- An episode of the sitcom The Golden Girls featured the girls performing a brief musicalization of "Henny Penny" at an elementary school, decked out in feathery costumes.
- Season Three of the television thriller 24 involved a situation during which President David Palmer was required to use the phrase during a press conference, as ordered by terrorist Stephen Saunders.
- In the Aerosmith song "Living On the Edge" they use the phrase "if Chicken Little tells you that the sky is fallin', even if it wasn't would you still come crawling back again?"
- British band Radiohead use the line "Go and tell the King that the sky is falling in" from the fable in their song "2+2=5" taken from the album Hail to the Thief.
- "Henny Penny, Cocky Locky, Goosey Loosey, Turkey Lurkey, Ducky Lucky, Chicken Little, it seems they are all on the move when the sun is falling in" is a line from the song "Moving in with" by British band Happy Mondays
- "Sky is Falling" is a song by British indie rock band James.
- "My Sky Is Falling" is a song by Jeff Chaulk under the pseudonym The Real Cavemann
- "The Sky Is Falling" is a song by Owsley, from the 1999 debut album Owsley and includes the line "Chicken Little had a big day today..."
- The Sky Is Falling is a 1977 album by Christian rock singer Randy Stonehill.
- "The Sky Is Fallin'" is a song by Queens of the Stone Age.
- The Sky is Falling and I Want My Mommy is a 1991 album by Jello Biafra and the band NoMeansNo. The title track has the subtitle "Falling Space Junk".
- "The Sky Is Falling" is a song by Thrice for their The Alchemy Index Vols. III & IV.
- "Chicken Little" is a song from the 1997 album Fancy, by the California avantrock band Idiot Flesh.
- A favorite phrase of former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld used during press conferences when posed questions about possible doomsday or other scenarios.[3]
- In King's Quest 7, Chicken Little is running around the village of Falderal screaming "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"
- In Toni Morrison's novel Sula, there is a character named Chicken Little, who Sula accidentally kills while playing.
- In their science fiction novella The Space Merchants (1952), Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth named a genetically engineered life form, which was grown in vats, Chicken Little.
- In the 1942 film My Favorite Blonde, Bob Hope's character says: "The sky is falling, says Ducky Lucky, for a piece of it just hit me on the head!"
- In the 1988 film Miracle Mile, it is unclear until the very end if a nuclear war warning was a prank or not. The main character, who was the starting point of the hysteria, believes the danger to be real, but at one point says: "Yeah, but I could still be Chicken Little."
- In the 1995 Terry Gilliam film 12 Monkeys, David Morse's Character approaches Madeline Stowe after her talk on the Cassandra Syndrome and relates her talk to his opinion of modern society, "Surely there is very real and very convincing data that the planet cannot survive the excesses of the human race: proliferation of atomic devices, uncontrolled breeding habits, the rape of the environment, the pollution of land, sea, and air. In this context, isn't it obvious that "Chicken Little" represents the sane vision and that Homo Sapiens' motto, "Let's go shopping!" is the cry of the true lunatic?"
- In the 21st century popular issue of global warming, many people are convinced that the world is ending.
- In the British comedy series Shameless, Mickey Maguire reads the story to his brother Shane while he is in a coma.
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