A Good Egg : Fair-Goers Scramble to Meet Walking, Talking Yolk

Temperatures were nearly frying outside, but a 6-foot-tall dancing, handshaking egg managed to whip the competition at the Ventura County Fair.

Mr. Egg, a one-yolk show sponsored by the California Egg Commission, took on Smokey Bear, Pete the Plastic Bottle and Pluggie the Fire Plug, drawing away audiences wherever he went.

“It’s an egg! It’s Humpty Dumpty!” one child shouted as the yolk made his entrance between the avocado exhibit and the eggplants.

Sporting aqua surfer shorts, pink-and-white sneakers, a yellow sun visor and shades, Mr. Egg is the only product among the 38 farm exhibits in the Agriculture Building that talks back.

“He’s created a lot of goodwill,” California Egg Commission President Bob Pierre said.

Asked which came first, the gimmick or the egg, Pierre said Mr. Egg went through several evolutions. Pierre used to truck a 20-foot-long egg carton to county fairs until people told him it was ridiculous.

Pierre said he believes the new and improved Mr. Egg’s friendly image will lure some people back to the breakfast table.

Egg consumption is reeling from the impact of nutrition reports that caution the health-conscious to stay away from large amounts of cholesterol contained in a typical egg.

The egg market has taken a beating for several decades, a decline that concerns the 64 egg handlers and the 83 major egg producers in the state, Pierre said. Last year, the average American ate about 235 eggs a year, 24% fewer than an earlier generation did in 1969, Pierre said.

When Mr. Egg comes out of his shell, he is actually Wade Childress, 24, of Long Beach, a hard-boiled performer who spends his time at county fairs, conventions and food seminars representing the egg industry.

Being Mr. Egg isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, he said. In the 70-degree heat, the heavy costume can be a strain.

“It gets to be 120 degrees in here,” Childress said.

Pierre said Childress has asked for refrigeration in the costume. “It’s pretty tough when we’re having the weather we’re having right now.” But he said a cooler in the costume would be too expensive.

Sizzling weather helped draw people during the first three days of the fair. Attendance totaled 52,351 by Friday, an increase of about 4% over the same period last year, a fair spokeswoman said. The two weekends are expected to draw the largest number of people during the fair’s 12-day run.

But the crowds at the fair were also the result of the Ventura County Fair Parade, said Sue Kleine, who supervises agriculture exhibits. Last year, the parade went east and ended at Ventura High School. This year the parade started at the high school and ended near the fairgrounds.

Rep. Robert J. Lagomarsino (R-Ventura) led more than 180 floats, bands and car clubs past about 25,000 spectators who lined the 1.6-mile parade route on Main Street from Catalina Street to the San Buenaventura Mission.

Except for a pair of fighting and spitting llamas that had to be separated and one confused motorist who interrupted the procession briefly by driving against parade traffic, the yearly event was problem-free, Ventura police said.

Monique De Bien, 30, brought her two children to see the clowns for the third year in a row.

“I bring them every year, they like to see the clowns, the pretty girls and the horses,” De Bien said. “It’s getting better. There’s more attractions, and it’s not too crowded.”

One Ventura couple had the best seats in the house: the balcony of their bedroom in a second-story apartment along the fair route.

Renee Jacon, 18, and Matt Schodorf, 18, avoided the crowds and traffic as they watched 16 groups of Shriners, the Latin Lords and the Volkswagen car clubs roll past their window.

“I can’t believe there’s a SCAT bus in the parade!” Schodorf said as a South Coast Area Transit bus loaded with riders drove past. And about a woman dressed as a mouse surrounded by a giant wedge, Jacon said, “Well, that was a walking cheese.”