Rubber duck

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A modern rubber duck.

A rubber duck, rubber duckie, or rubber ducky, is a toy shaped like a duck, and is generally yellow. It may be made of rubber or rubber-like material such as vinyl plastic (which is more often used).

Its history is inevitably linked to the emergence of rubber manufacturing in the late 1800s. The earliest rubber ducks were made from harder rubber. The yellow rubber duck has achieved an iconic status in American pop culture and is often symbolically linked to bathing.

[edit] History

Jim Henson popularized rubber ducks in 1970, performing the songs "Rubber Duckie" and "DUCKIE" as Ernie, a popular Muppet from Sesame Street. Ernie frequently spoke to his duck and carried it with him in other segments of the show. The song "Rubber Duckie" and many of the characters of the show were performed by Jim Henson. On a special occasion, Little Richard would perform the song with Ernie.

Some variations on the standard rubber duck; a miniature duck, a purple "devil" duck, a reindeer duck, a duck in sunglasses, and a "dead" rubber duck that floats upside down.

In 2001, The Sun, a British tabloid newspaper reported that Queen Elizabeth II has a rubber duck in her bathroom that wears an inflatable crown. The duck was spotted by a workman who was repainting her bathroom.^[1] The story prompted sales of rubber ducks in the United Kingdom to increase by 80% for a short period.

Rubber ducks are collected by a small number of enthusiasts in countries including the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Japan, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, United States, and the Netherlands. The 2007 Guinness World Record for World's Largest Rubber Duck Collection stood at 2,583 unique rubber ducks, and was awarded to Charlotte Lee.

The rubber duck can be referred to informally as a "rubber duckie" or a "rubber ducky." Amongst collectors of rubber ducks, the spelling "rubber duckie" has achieved prominence, but both spellings are considered acceptable.

[edit] Variations

Besides the ubiquitous yellow rubber duck with which most people are familiar, there have been numerous variations on the basic theme, including "Devil Duckies" which sport demon-like horns, bride and groom ducks, "dead" ducks, pink breast cancer awareness ducks, rubber ducks with water activated LED lights, and character ducks representing professions, politicians or licensed individual celebrities.

[edit] Races

Some charities have run rubber duck races in which hundreds or thousands of rubber ducks are dumped into a river, pool, or other body of water and then floated down a race course marked off with buoys. The first one to float past the finish line is the winner (similar to the game Poohsticks). The rubber ducks are then retrieved and used again later. Due to environmental concerns, sites for duck races must be chosen with care.

There are hundreds of races held in the USA and internationally. The largest race in the United States benefits the Freestore Foodbank in Cincinnati, Ohio; over 100,000 ducks are raced to raise money for the organization.

One of the more famous rubber duck races is the Great Knoxville Rubber Duck Race[1]. This race received attention when the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that it was a lottery, which stopped the race for a few years. After the state amended its constitution to allow lotteries with special exceptions, the race was reinstituted.

A famous rubber duck race is the Halifax Duck Derby [2]. This race has 10,000 rubber ducks in the Halifax Harbour along Bishops Landing. There is a grand prize of $1 million Canadian dollars, and other prizes of trip anywhere in Canada, large screen TVs, and more.

Another famous duck race is the fast-growing Ken-Ducky Derby, held in Louisville, KY, and benefiting Harbor House of Louisville, a training and development facility for adults with disabilities. Accompanying the duck race is the Ken-Ducky Derby Family Festival with activities, arts and crafts, games, food and vendor booths for all ages. This event typically takes place on a Saturday at the end of September.

One other race was conducted in Australia in January 1988. It was run from the "High-level bridge" to the "Low-level bridge" near Katherine, New Territories on the Australia Day long weekend. Acting on behalf of the town's Bicentennial Committee, Royal Australian Air Force officers Andrew Cairns and Jock MacGowan constructed the release cage from PVC pipe, purchased and numbered the ducks, printed tickets, and even arranged a helicopter flypast for the auspicious occasion.

On August 31, 2008, the Great British Duck Race was held near Hampton Court Palace, London. An estimated 250,000 blue plastic ducks were used.

Rubber ducks are used in small quantities as herding targets for radio controlled model yachts, the objective being to move all of the loose ducks into a floating pen, analogous to sheepdog trials.

[edit] Oceanography

During a Pacific storm on January 10, 1992, three 40-foot containers holding 29,000 Friendly Floatees plastic bath toys from a Chinese factory were washed off a ship.^[2] Two-thirds of the ducks floated south and landed three months later on the shores of Indonesia, Australia, and South America. The remaining 10,000 ducks headed north to Alaska and then completed a full circle back near Japan, caught up in the North Pacific Gyre current as the so called Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Many of the ducks then entered the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia and were trapped in the Arctic ice. They moved through the ice at a rate of one mile per day, and in 2000 they were sighted in the North Atlantic. The movement of the ducks had been monitored by American oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer.

[edit] See also

• Flotsametrics and the Floating World: How One Man's Obsession with Runaway Sneakers and Rubber Ducks Revolutionized Ocean Science (book)

[edit] References

CBS (2003-07-31). "Rubber Duckies Map The World". CBS. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/07/31/eveningnews/main566138.shtml. Retrieved 2008-07-14. 

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Rubber ducks

• Photos of a rubber duck derby
• Duckplanet.com: A popular website about rubber ducks and rubber duck collecting
• Duck Travels: A rubber duck that has been travelling around the world for several years
• Whitesburg Duck Race: A duck race held during Riverside Days in Whitesburg, Kentucky
• Breast Cancer awareness ducks
• Short article about Barack Obama duck