Porn 'n Chicken was a club based at Yale University. The secret society blazed briefly in the headlines in 2001 when members announced plans to make their own pornographic film on campus starring other Yale students, although the film was never released or even completed. Nevertheless, a fictionalized version of the club's experiences was produced as a TV movie titled Porn 'n Chicken and broadcast on Comedy Central. Yale redirects here. ... This article is about the year. ... Porn redirects here. ... A television movie (also TV movie, TV-movie, made-for-TV movie, etc. ... Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel in the United States. ...

Possible beginnings

Some leaders of the PnC club in the 2000-2001 school year claimed that the club had been founded in 1996 during one of Yale's periodic grad student strikes. Grad students had founded PnC, this story says, both as an organizing society for a variety of monkey-wrenching activities intended to hurt the Yale Corporation, and as a venue to watch pornographic movies. According to a PnC leader quoted in 2000, "for the past five years they've been engaging in technological, intellectual, financial, and reputational terrorism against Yale with the main goal of damaging the careers of the Yale Corporation — those individuals who hold the purse-strings of Yale's bank account and represent the worst effects of a capitalist society." The Yale Corporation is another name for the President and Fellows of Yale College, which is the governing board of Yale University. ...

An alternate history contends that the organization was founded in slovenly frustration by a bunch of Yale undergrads who had not been asked to join any other secret societies. "We were sitting at dinner coming up with various combinations of words, and came up with Porn 'n Chicken," one told the Yale Herald. The Yale Herald is a weekly newspaper run by students at Yale University. ...

A third theory, and the one best supported by recent evidence, is that PnC did not exist at all, and that the entire organization had been fabricated by a group of pranksters on campus, possibly the secretive Pundits. These folks allegedly even staged meetings for reporters when necessary.

According to reports in the campus press, 30-35 students would show up for each screening. The crowd was overwhelmingly male, but never 100% so. Films were chosen with an eye toward "providing a meaningful experience for the audience," as one of the club leaders ironically described his responsibility. A club leader would provide commentary and fast-forward through 'the boring bits'.

Members claimed to have access to a secret bank account, presumably funded by club alumni, to cover their small expenses.

In the news

In the October 2000 Yale Herald article by Joseph Ax that is the first known public discussion of the club, it was mentioned that the club planned to shoot its own porno film that spring. The film's name, later infamous, had already been selected -- The StaXXX. "Everyone is invited to audition: undergrads, TAs, professors, local high school students," one of the club members explained. "We're pretty serious about this film. We'd like to have a screening at UPIX." The Yale Herald is a weekly newspaper run by students at Yale University. ...

In November 2000 they posted around campus for actors and actresses, and even filmed their first scenes in late January (one of their actresses was taking a semester in Nepal during the bulk of the filming, so her scenes were completed early). Blurry snapshots of the action appeared in the Yale Daily News. A week later the New York Times had the story, and a national media frenzy ensued. A front page of the Yale Daily News. ... The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ...

The New Yorker, Fox News Boston, Hustler, The New York Post, Brill's Content, The Village Voice, Premiere Magazine, The London Evening Standard, and others all inquired for information. Club organizers claimed that they were getting irritated by all the interview requests, and shut out MTV, the New York Post, and the New Haven Register. For other uses, see New Yorker. ... Fox News Channels slogan is We Report, You Decide The Fox News Channel is a U.S. cable and satellite news channel. ... For other uses, see Hustler (disambiguation). ... The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and the oldest to have been published continually as a daily. ... At least two well-known people have been named Steven Brill: Steven Brill is the founder of American Lawyer magazine, Court TV, Contentville, and Brills Content. ... This article is about a New York newspaper. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... The Evening Standard is a newspaper published in London. ... This article is about the original U.S. music television channel. ... The New Haven Register is a Connecticut newspaper based out of New Haven, Connecticut. ...

According to the stories that followed, many students wanted to be involved, but few were willing to let their names or faces appear in the film. The movie's plot accommodated this by following the induction of members into one of Yale's secret societies. Presumably this allowed the actors to wear masks most of the time.

The StaXXX

Towards the end of the school year, nobody saw any filming going on. Word leaked that the scenes that had been filmed first had since been destroyed at the request of one of the actresses. Sentiment shifted to the hypothesis that the film, if not the entire club, was merely a prank. Students who had been contacted earlier in the year heard nothing more. Posters were hung in April advertising a preliminary screening of the film, but the public was not invited and many doubted that any footage existed.

Club members insisted The StaXXX existed, and even asserted that a sequel was in the works. This film, to be called Dubya, would depict the sexual exploits of U.S. President George W. Bush during his years at Yale. The budding filmmakers offered that they were being represented by the Creative Artists Agency. When contacted, CAA acknowledged that it was representing a Yale student named James Ponsoldt in connection with PnC, but Ponsoldt vehemently denied having anything to with the club. George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is the forty-third and current President of the United States of America, originally inaugurated on January 20, 2001. ... Creative Artists Agency (CAA) is a talent and literary agency which represents a vast array of actors, musicians, writers, directors, and athletes, as well as a variety of companies and their products. ...

PnC (or people pretending to be PnC) continued to host events on campus, including a movie screening and lecture by Village Voice sex columnist Tristan Taormino. Tristan Taormino (born 9 May 1971) is an award-winning author, columnist, editor, and self-styled anal sexpert. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with her Bachelors degree in American Studies from Wesleyan University in 1993. ...

A trailer for The StaXXX was ultimately released and was shown before a screening at the Yale Film Society, but no other footage ever emerged.

The film

Porn 'n Chicken
Directed by	Lawrence Trilling
Produced by	Natascha Tillmanns
Written by	Lawrence Trilling A.D. Miles
Starring	Ebon Moss-Bachrach Angela Goethals Alex Burns Geoffrey Arend Michael Goldstrom Ginnifer Goodwin
Release date(s)	2002
Running time	100 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
IMDb profile

Soon it became known that Ponsoldt, along with fellow Yale alumni William Marino^{[citation needed]}, Colin Spoelman^{[citation needed]} and Joshua Newman^{[citation needed]}, had sold their PnC stories to Comedy Central, which then made its first-ever original movie about the club. Ponsoldt later told The New Yorker that he had been the mastermind behind PnC, received cash for his story, helped to write the screenplay, worked as an associate producer on the film, and appeared in a cameo. Director who has worked on many popular shows, including Alias, Monk, Scrubs, and Roswell. ... Angela Bethany Goethals (born May 20, 1977) is an American actress. ... Ginnifer Michelle Goodwin (born May 22, 1978) is an American actress. ... Also see: 2002 (number). ... Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel in the United States. ... For other uses, see New Yorker. ...

Porn stars Jenna Jameson and Ron Jeremy appear in the film as guest speakers at a club meeting. Jenna Jameson (born Jenna Marie Massoli on April 9, 1974)[4] is an American pornographic actress and entrepreneur who has been called the worlds most famous porn star[5][2][6] and The Queen of Porn.[7] She started acting in erotic films in 1993 after having worked as... Ron Jeremy (born Ron Jeremy Hyatt on March 12, 1953) is an American pornographic actor currently residing in Long Island, New York, United States. ...

Comedy Central's film premiered on October 13, 2002.

Porn 'N Chicken has not been publicly active since the end of the 2000-2001 school year.

Sources

• The New Yorker, "Talk of the Town," October 14, 2002
• Rebecca Dana. "Porn 'N Chicken: The movie that never was...is", Yale Daily News, 2002-09-06. 
• Joel Stein. "The Chicken Was Delicious", Time. 
• Joey Ax. "P 'n C puts the 'stick' back in 'drumstick'", Yale Herald, 2000-10-13. 
• Eli Muller. "Sex in the Staxxx", Yale Daily News, 2001-01-19. 
• New York Times, January 26, 2001
• Joey Ax. "Sex at Yale: from prude to pornography", Yale Herald, 2001-02-09. 
• The New York Observer February 15, 2001
• Eli Muller. "Ads say porn flick will debut, but few, if any, will see skin", Yale Daily News, 2001-04-20. 
• The Daily Pennsylvanian, September 19, 2002
• Ball State Daily News, October 14, 2002