Rubber duck

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Rubber duck (disambiguation).

The quintessential yellow rubber duck

Some variations on the standard rubber duck. Clockwise from left: a miniature rubber duck, a purple devil rubber duck, a rubber duck dressed as a reindeer for Christmas, a rubber duck in sunglasses, and a black "dead" rubber duck that floats upside down

A rubber duck, or rubber duckie, is a toy shaped like a duck that is made of rubber or rubber-like material such as vinyl plastic. Almost all modern rubber ducks are made out of vinyl plastic rather than rubber. Most commonly, rubber ducks are designed to be used as floating bathtub toys. Not all rubber ducks are bath toys. Some rubber ducks are dolls or play figures similar to other squeeze or squeak toys typically given to children and sometimes dogs. Rubber ducks can be found in various colors, sizes, shapes, and outfits. Rubber ducks have achieved status as a popular icon and, while still primarily considered a children's toy, are used by people of all ages.

Rubber ducks may be equipped with a squeaker that makes a whistling or squeaking sound. More rarely the toy may have a squeaker that makes a sound resembling the quack of a real duck. Bath toy ducks sometimes have a hole in the bill which allows the toy to take in and then squirt water.

1 History
2 Ducks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
3 Duck races
4 Rubber ducks in movies and popular culture
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] History

TOm Rocks

The origin of the rubber duck is not known, but its history is inevitably linked to that of rubber manufacturing, the development of early rubber (and later synthetic rubber) toys including cars and dolls, and the advent of squeak toys which dates to at least the late 1800s. Although squeak toys are often thought of as dog toys, many people still enjoy the squeaking rubber duck. The earliest rubber ducks were made from harder rubber and lacked squeakers.

Ernie, a popular Muppet from Sesame Street, has helped to popularize the floating rubber duck bath toy with his song "Rubber Duckie", though rubber ducks existed long before the advent of this television show. The yellow rubber duck has achieved an iconic status in American pop culture. In the United States the rubber duck is often symbolically linked to bathing or bath tubs and to babies and toddlers.

As the rubber duck has grown in popularity over the years, many variants are sold including "devil ducks" and "dead ducks".

In 2001 a popular British tabloid newspaper reported that Queen Elizabeth II has a rubber duck that wears an inflatable crown in her bathroom. The duck was spotted by a workman who was repainting her bathroom and later reported it to The Sun newspaper. 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, New Zealand, United States, and the Netherlands. The Guinness World Record for World's Largest Rubber Duck Collection numbered 2,587 unique rubber ducks in 2006.

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] Ducks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The MIT dorm Simmons Hall boasts a large collection of rubber duckies displayed prominently in the building's yin-yang sculpture. Initially there was much controversy over the degredation of the art piece, but the ducks continue to float on for most of the year, weather allowing. Included in the ducky collection is a very large, 3' long duck fitted with a stylish construction helmet symbolizing the engineers at MIT. This duck resides in the pebble portion of the sculpture (balancing the many small ducks in the other half, e.g. yin-yang).

[edit] Duck 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 are floated down a race course marked off with buoys. The first one to float past the finish line is a winner. (This is 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. The creator of the rubber duck races is said to be Eric Schechter who began in the United States with the first rubber duck race for the Fiesta Bowl in 1988. Today, his company, GAME[1] has raised over $140 million for charities around the world. There are hundreds in the USA and over 60 internationally. The largest race in the United States benefits the Freestore Foodbank in Cincinnati, OH where over 100,000 ducks are raced to prevent hunger.

One of the more famous rubber duck races is the Great Knoxville Rubber Duck Race[2]. 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 their constitution to allow lotteries with special exceptions, the race was reinstituted.In 2006 the river Liffey in Dublin hosted the worlds largest duck race with 150,000 ducks.

Although Eric is credited with creating duck racing as a fundraiser, at least one other such race was conducted in Australia in 1988. It was run from the "High level bridge" to the "Low level bridge" near Katherine, NT on the Australia Day long weekend in January 1988. 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 managed to arrange a helicopter flypast for the auspicious occasion.

Rubber ducks are used in small quanties as hearding targets for radio controlled model yachts, the objective being to move all of the loose ducks into a floating pen.

[edit] Rubber ducks in movies and popular culture

In the country song Convoy (1975), by C. W. McCall, the truck driver protagonist uses the CB radio handle "Rubber Duck". In the 1978 film based on the song, the Rubber Duck character is played by Kris Kristofferson [3]. McCall also did a sequel song, Round the World with the Rubber Duck, which appears on his 1976 album, Rubber Duck. In CB (and other types of radio) terminology, a "rubber duck" often refers to a compact, helical, antenna with a vinyl or rubber coating for protection against weather.
There is a rubber duck featured somewhere in each game of the Hitman series.
In the film Constantine, John Constantine, played by Keanu Reeves, has a rubber duckie on the side of his bathtub.
On the television show Oz, prisoner Nikolai Stanislofsky mentions how he missed taking baths ever since being incarcerated. Fellow prisoner Ryan O'Reily asked Nikolai if he had a rubber ducky. Unsure of what he meant, Nikolai asked what a rubber ducky was, prompting prisoner Augustus Hill to say that it was "a product of capitalist imperialism." [4]
On the 10th of January 1992, a tanker carrying bathtub toys got caught in a storm. Thousands of rubber ducks fell into the ocean. Now those rubber ducks are tracked and are helping with the recording of ocean currents. [5][6]
In the movie Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), the character Arthur Weasley, on meeting Harry Potter for the first time, says: "Now, Harry you must know all about Muggles, tell me, what exactly is the function of a rubber duck?". [7]
In the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004), the character Truth says: "Don't look! Quick! Think of a yellow, rubber duck!" [8]
Megatron, leader of the Predacons in Transformers: Beast Wars, has a rubber duck that can be seen when he bathes.
In "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe", of the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" Series, the Captain of the "B" Ark (Who is constantly taking a bath) in the Golgafrincham Ark Fleet has a rubber duck. The Captain claims, "One's never alone with a rubber duck."
The second album of Bootsy's Rubber Band includes a song, "Rubber Duckie".
Sesame Street character Ernie has a rubber duck as his "bathtime friend", and has even composed two songs dedicated to his duck.
In the video game Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, there is a bathroom in the Arena area that has a rubber duck in it.
In the video game Metal Gear Solid 2, there is a rubber duck floating on the water near Emma's Room around the Filtration Chamber No.1
The video blog the show with zefrank features rubber ducks in several of its logos, and host Ze Frank often sings the line "Who likes the little little duckies in the pond? I do, I do, I do, a-chicka-quack-quack."
In the video game Toy Story 2, in one of the backyards there is a large rubber duck which you are supposed to pump up, throw into the pool and jump on in order to retrieve a token.
The 13th episode of VeggieTales, King George and the Ducky, prominantly features a rubber duck and the song "I Love My Duck".