Chicken Jack
Episode numeral: XXVII
Original air date: 10/18/02
In a busy city, Jack finishes up a chicken dinner at his new favorite restaurant before stepping out into the street. Unfortunately he doesn't watch where he's going and bumps into a wizard, who berates him for his clumsiness before casting a spell on Jack. When Jack flees, he realizes that he has been turned into a chicken, but before he can really come to terms with this he's captured by a corpulent bastard named Cacciatore, who wants to use his new "chicken" as a contender in an underground fighting ring.
Despite being a chicken Jack still retains all his fighting skills, and is able to dominate the field and bring Cacciatore much fame and fortune. However, due to the constant fighting and Cacciatore's abuse, Jack slowly begins to break down from exhaustion and on the break of starvation. After another grueling fight, Cacciatore and Jack are approached by a mob boss who wants to showcase Jack at a mainline event. Cacciatore is more than pleased, gussying himself up and preparing Jack for his debut.
Fortunately for Jack, Cacciatore bumps into the same wizard that cursed Jack at the beginning of the episode. The wizard turns Cacciatore into a chicken and Jack's humanity is restored, and after days of not eating he returns to the restaurant for a meal... Only this time he takes shrimp instead of chicken.
This episode provides examples of:
- Asshole Victim: Cacciatore is a thoroughly unpleasant person, and not much of value is lost when he's turned into a chicken.
- Bad Boss: Cacciatore keeps Jack locked up in a cage between fights, giving him neither medical treatment nor food to keep his strength up.
- Beastly Bloodsports: Cacciatore's main line of work is providing contenders for an underground fighting ring. Jack is his latest (and greatest) contender.
- Berserk Button: Be careful and don't bump into the wizard - OR ELSE!
- Brought Down to Badass: Jack still has all his fighting skill as a chicken, and so is able to more than hold his own in Cacciatore's fighting ring.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Jack only lightly bumps the wizard and immediately apologizes. The wizard yells at him and turns him into a chicken for this.
- The Dreaded: The opening of the episode shows the inhabitants of the city quaking in fear and falling over each other to clear a path for the wizard. Their fear is entirely justified, given his ability to cause Forced Transformations.
- Fat Bastard: Cacciatore is a portly man who makes a living by pitting animals against each other.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Before the wizard bumps into Jack, people are seen quickly getting out of his way as he strides across the market place. Clearly, they have seen what the wizard is capable of.
- Forced Transformation: A cranky wizard turns Jack into a chicken. The same fate befalls Jack's handler/captor Cacciatore at the end of the episode.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Merely bumping into the wizard (even lightly by accident) is more than enough to set him off.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: When Caccioatore is eating his meal, he notices that chicken! Jack is starving inside his cage and appears genuinely concerned. He then gets up and gets a plate of lasagna while commenting on how thoughtless he had been, making it seem like he's realized how poorly he's been treating him and is going to feed him the lasagna. He then sits down, and instead of sharing his food, he begins eating the lasagna all for himself, revealing that the thoughtlessness he'd been referring to was forgetting the lasagna, as it turns out.
- Karma Houdini: The wizard who turns Jack into a chicken. It's implied he only changed him back by accident while in the process of turning Cacciatore into one.
- Karmic Transformation: Cacciatore spends most of the episode abusing chicken!Jack, only to be turned into a chicken at the end.
- Small Role, Big Impact: The surly wizard only appears at the beginning and end of the episode, but is responsible for Jack’s predicament stuck in the body of a chicken, and later reverses it.
- Rage Breaking Point: Jack's composure finally breaks at the end of the episode. Played for Laughs.Food Vendor: Ah, you're back. What'll it be? The chicken, right?
Jack: NO! NO CHICKEN!
(Smacks his fist on the counter, sending a toothpick flying into a nearby wall)
Jack: ... Ahem. I mean, no thank you. Actually, I would like to try the shrimp today instead. - Widely-Spaced Jail Bars: In the scene where Jack is starving inside his cage while Cacciatore is eating, the bars are so far apart that he could've fallen out by accident.
- You Dirty Rat!: "The Finisher", the last critter Jack fights during his first night as a fighting chicken, is a mangy-looking robotic rat.
