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Geeks: A Brief History Geek: A person/entertainer in a carnival sideshow who would bite the heads off of chickens, snakes, rats, mice and other small creatures. The Geek was a popular sideshow attraction during the 1940's, 1950's and into the 1960's. They would perform several shows daily, during which they would parade around an area that was usually fenced in, with a floor covered in sawdust to absorb the blood and other bodily fluids released during the performance.	The person playing the Geek was usually a wino/bum that the carnival hired to perform their disgusting feats. These whacked out characters were often recruited locally by the advance man before the carnival/circus came to a city. Some Geeks would stay with the sideshow through several venues before vanishing into the countryside. Although they made very little money, it was usually enough to keep them in cheap wine, enough to hold them over until the next performance or the next binge.	Many of the Geeks were billed as Wild Men, with long hair and beards and filthy clothes. They would slink around the fenced-in area, holding their hapless victims high in the air in order for the spectators to see that the creatures were indeed alive and not faked in any way. Then the Geek would suddenly stick the creature's neck in their mouths and bite the head clean off, often spitting the bloody bit at the crowd. The most common creature used was a chicken. This was because the Geek could drop the body, which would then run around the pen for several seconds, often bumping into the fence, before falling over, thus scaring the younger members of the crowd, many of whom would run screaming from the tent. They also used chickens for another reason: The bodies could be gathered, plucked and cooked as part of the carny folk's dinner each night! The Geek became a thing of history during the 1960's, even before the sideshows became obsolete because of the extreme cruelty of the act.