Rooster and Chicken Jokers

 A fascinating subset of my bird jokers (itself a subcategory of flyers and of animals) are the rooster and chicken jokers.   First of all, there's the jokers from an entire playing card deck with chicken artwork.

Each card features a fine art illustration of  chickens, roosters, or chicks. It's from Prospero Art ($12.50, still available).

The Piatnik Cabaret deck features roosters on the jokers. Frankly, I don't understand why there are roosters on the jokers. I have included at the bottom of this article many of the other cards from  his deck since I like it so much. It's basically Toulouse-Lautrec and similar artists from Paris with their artwork of the dancers and girls from the end from the 1800s. If you are interested, I think this deck is still available.

These next two rooster jokers were, I believe, produced as part of a deck about one of the great video games. Could it be one of the Final Fantasy releases?

Another rooster with comments like: 'Mind your own business', "Work with your Mind', and 'Lead a Quiet Life'. Can anyone explain to me what that has to do with a rooster and what that deck is about?

This next rooster joker is rare and it's one that I think I found in a used deck in a junk store in the 1970s. I was just reading the 52 Plus Joker March auction list and I saw this joker was the A Dougherty joker for their low end Steamboat decks.   

Any info on this rooster?

Another pair of rooster jokers which I can't seem to provide any illuminating information about.  sigh. 

Here's one of my favorite jokers of all time. I bought it in the mid 70s in a barn junk store up in New England.  Admittedly, it is a peacock, not a rooster. Sorry, too beautiful to not include.

Here's more cards from the Cabaret deck.  Since I love that artwork, I've included a lot of it. 

And a quote fromfrom birplayingcards.com website where they talk about the Belle Epoque in France.

The Belle Époque in France was the exotic epoch between the Franco-Prussian War of 1871 and the Great War of 1914. It witnessed a cultural explosion – Impressionism, Zola, the Ballets Russes, the Eiffel Tower, the Paris métro, the Paris Opéra and the Moulin Rouge. It was here that Toulouse-Lautrec, all four foot of him, drank absinthe (hidden in his cane), talked and loved and sketched the demi-monde – that eclectic classless mix of pimps and pansies, artists and aristos. He created the posters that enticed the cabaret’s clientele, in the new process of colour lithography, a medium he relished. From 1891 until his death in 1901 (from syphilis and drink), 

Next you should look through  the other animal sections of the joker collection.

1. Ensemble Animal combinations (cats AND dogs)



Animals: Flyers - Bee Boy

1. Cats  or  Dogs . Now there's a big cat subsection! 
2. Flyers:  Birds, Owls, Bees,  Butterflies  & Dragons . Now there's a rooster & chicken subsubsection!
3. Horses , zebras, donkeys, giraffes ...
1. Fantasy horses: centaurs, unicorns, pegasus
   
4. Monkeys, bears, and others with paws 
5. Animals with antlers, horns, and tusks
6. Varmints - the annoying small wild animals
7. Reptiles, amphibians, sea creatures