Whatever happened to the chickens who worked the tic-tac-toe game on Cannery Row?

Dr. Leghorn Einstein bears the weight of history on his tiny feathered shoulders. He--or, more precisely, the three chickens who rotated his role among themselves--was one of the last remaining tic-tac-toe-playing chickens in America when his "Bird Brain" coin-operated game at the Edgewater Packing Co. on Cannery Row was shut down in July.

Previous owner Dick O''Kane, bowing to financial pressures and a constant stream of animal rights activists concerned about forced poultry labor, announced that the birds had pecked their last "Xs" and "Os."

I have
the chikens.
They are
on
sabbatical.

--Peter Casas,
Monterey businessman

One day, the chickens were gone. Poof. Media coverage ceased. People turned their attention elsewhere. The birds were forgotten. Were they languishing in basement cages? Had they been set free on some pastoral retirement farm? Had the SPCA made good on its promise and taken them in? Or had they met a darker, more sinister fate?

"I have the chickens," comforts Monterey businessman Peter Casas, who sells coin-operated games out of his Exceptional Marketing Concepts venture. "They''re in great shape. They''re on sabbatical."

Casas has had the birds since July, keeping them in a storage facility. He visits them daily. "I talk to them, I spend time with them," he reports. "Two of them are laying eggs. We''re looking for bigger cages for them." The retirement is only temporary, however. Casas is actively seeking new game-playing employment for them. "It''s only a matter of time."

Dr. Leghorn Einstein is one (or, three) famous bird. Early this year he was lauded by Calvin Trillin in a New Yorker article as a last vestige of vanishing Americana. In the 1970s, hundreds of "Bird Brain" games dotted the land, from New York''s Chinatown to the Santa Monica Pier. These birds were unbeatable--you dropped in a coin, played your heart out, and they beat you every time.

Today, just one known game remains, outside Rapid City, So. Dakota, at Reptile Gardens in the Black Hills. Manager Tom Lang reports that, in addition to a trio of tic-tac-toe hens, he has chickens who play basketball, who tell fortunes, who dance, and who play poker. "We train two to three new ones every spring. Three or four work each act. In the winter, we shut down and they rest."

Except for Reptile Gardens, where they train their own birds, the hundreds of chickens that once birded America''s coin-op games were all trained by Marian and Bob Bailey of Hot Springs, Arkansas. Marian Bailey, a former graduate student of behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner, began training small animals in the late 1940s, using Skinner''s method of positive reinforcement. Animals were rewarded for performing well, rather than punished for failing. She and her first husband, Keller Breland, invented "Bird Brain" in 1953.

"I trained the Monterey chickens," says Marian, who sold her Animal Behavior Enterprises business in 1990. "We''ve trained thousands of chickens. They train very easily. But they''re limited in the upper story--they''re simple animals."

The ''60s and ''70s were the heyday of trained animal games. "Then our customers changed in character," Marian says. "The Mom-and-Pop theme parks declined. There are hardly any of them left. Six Flags and Sea World took their place. They have no character, and the shows have suffered."

Bailey''s method of training through positive reinforcement is now gaining currency in the animal training world. More and more zoos have adopted it, she says, for which she is "very grateful." Bailey and her husband also consult for Canine Companions for Independence, a Santa Rosa-based organization that trains guide dogs for the disabled.

As if the New Yorker weren''t enough, Monterey''s chickens have made it to the big screen. Documentarian Mark Lewis, who makes animal films for National Geographic and the Discovery Channel, was out here recently shooting "The Natural History of the Chicken," scheduled for broadcast on PBS next spring.

"I came to Monterey to film Dr. Leghorn Einstein because he''s one of the last remaining chicken attractions in the U.S.," Lewis says. "He gave a lot of people joy."

Lewis says folks who protest "Bird Brain" need a little perspective. "We do a lot of horrific things to chickens. It''s hard for me to anthropomorphize a chicken''s life--how it feels for them to play tic-tac-toe. But I can tell you it''s better than being one of thousands of chickens in a commercial hatchery. I''ve been there, and it''s not fun. These chickens in Monterey have a reasonably good life. Not an idyllic life, but not a bad life."

Marian Bailey agrees. "If you open their cages, they come right back inside. These chickens live for a long, long time. One of those in Monterey is at least 10 years old. They''re very healthy, very happy."

Meanwhile, Peter Casas declined to have his chickens photographed. He still hasn''t found them work, and he doesn''t want their job prospects to be sullied. "It would just remind people," he says, promising he''ll schedule a photo-op once the birds are gainfully employed.

Hang on to your quarters.

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