Chicken Little (fable)

Chicken Little (sometimes called Henny Penny) is a children's beast fable about a little chicken who loses her (or his) head after an acorn falls on it.

Two Endings

The main emphasis of the story, that one should never jump to wild conclusions without considering the evidence, and that one should never believe a rumor, is unchanged in either case, but the alternate endings could be classified as either more or less disturbing.

• Ending 1: Foxy Loxy, taking advantage of the gullible crowd who have in mind to warn the king that the sky is falling, leads them to a "shortcut" which happens to be the entrance to his den. He and his family descend upon them and enjoy a very fine meal.

• Ending 2: Wise Owl, woken by the commotion, demands to know what the group is up to. By examining the hard evidence, he decides that Chicken Little came to a bad conclusion for his lack of thought. The whole group leaves in dismay, especially a humiliated Chicken Little.

The Movie

In 2005, Disney released a computer-generated animated film based loosely on the story of Chicken Little, casting many of the original characters in the roles of kids. The premise is that Chicken Little discovers that something really bad is indeed falling from the sky, but he is forced to save the day because of his previous loss of credibility.