The Rubber Ducky Isn’t Made Of Rubber (Video)

According to a 1973 Sesame Street calendar, Rubber Duckie’s Birthday is January 13 so around the country it’s National Rubber Ducky Day! A friend of Ernie and Big Bird, Duckie made his debut in a February 1970 episode [Below You can sing along with Ernie]

• The rubber ducky (also spelled duckie) has come a long way from his first concept as a chew toy for children. While the origin of the first rubber ducky is uncertain, many rubber molded toys from dolls to those in various animal shapes came about when rubber manufacturing developed in the late 1800s.
• The first rubber ducks were chew toys. In the mid-1800’s, weekly dips in the tub went from oldest to youngest. Dad went first, then oldest brother, down to the youngest child. To persuade the youngest into the unwelcoming water, out came the rubber duckie. Some didn’t even float. Why? They were intended as chew toys.
• During World Wars I and II, rubber was a valuable commodity which was rationed, and by the 1940s with the advent of plastic, the rubber ducky began being produced in vinyl and plastic.
• The earliest patent for a rubber duck toy was patented in 1928 by Landon Smart Lawrence. His design was for a bath toy which was weighted and when tipped would return to its upright position. The sketch included with the patent was that of a duck.
• In 1933, a latex supplier licensed a series of Disney characters and made inexpensive bath floaters: The most popular were Donald and Donna Duck. While Disney’s brand recognition helped, companies looking to mass-market cheap ducks didn’t want to depend on a license.
• Sculptor Peter Ganine is believed to have been the now-familiar generic duck’s primary designer, patenting a toy in 1949 for a period of 14 years. Ganine reportedly sold over 50 million of them.
• Sales of the iconic yellow rubber ducky we’ve come to know today soared in Britain in 2001. Why? A British Tabloid, The Sun, reported Queen Elizabeth II had a rubber duck in her bathroom that wore an inflatable crown.
• The rubber ducky became a Toy Hall of Fame inductee in 2013. Founded in 1998, the Hall of Fame has only inducted 52 other toys.
• Artist Florentijn Hofman’s giant Rubber Duck has been transforming harbors into bathtubs since 2007.  Cities the world over pay for Hofman’s duck to draw big crowds.  It’s a statement duck at 5 stories high.  But then a guy named Craig Samborski made another enormous inflatable duck.  That duck, called “Mama Duck,” is even bigger.  Hofman claims that Samborski’s duck is a fraud.  According to Hofman, the studio considered pursuing legal action against Samborski, although ultimately decided it was too expensive.  It may be time to release the quackin.
• In the middle of a raging storm in 1992, a cargo ship carrying a huge assortment of vinyl toys tipped over. Descending into the Pacific were nearly 29,000 tub playthings, including untold thousands of rubber ducks. Bobbing and drifting, the tiny yellow birds took weeks, months, and years to wash ashore in Hawaii, Maine, Seattle, and other far-flung locations. Their journeys were able to tell oceanographers crucial information about waves, currents, and seasonal changes—what one journalist dubbed “the conveyor belt” of the sea.
• One duck, after for 15 years and three oceans, eventually landed on the west coast of Scotland. In 2003, the toy distributors even offered a $100 US savings bond reward for each duck. Sellers have been known to fetch up to $1,000 on the open market. No less than Richard Attenborough reported on the rubber ducks in Blue Planet II to show how interconnected our oceans are.
• Rubber ducks are collected by a small population of people, and the largest collection, as of 2011, that was recognized by the Guinness World Records, included 5631 unique ducks, and these were owned by Charlotte Lee of the United States.

Sources:

National Day Calendar

CBC/KIDS

Mental Floss

Interesley

Ten Random Facts

Sesame Street/YouTube.com