Atlas Obscura:
Each day for nearly one hundred years, a group of ducks have left their penthouse at Memphis’ Peabody Hotel and waddled down a red carpet to spend the day playing in the lobby fountain.
Every morning around 11:00 AM, the ducks are led down from their rooftop penthouse to a red carpet bordered by adoring onlookers. Accompanied by a Sousa march, the five ducks trot up a small, custom stairway into the placid waters of the marble fountain where they dutifully swim until they are once again led back upstairs around 5:00 PM. The whole ceremony is preceded over by the “Duckmaster,” a position originally filled by a circus trainer that joined the hotel in the 1940’s, and which is now filled by the occasional celebrity such as Molly Ringwald or Peter Frampton.
I’ve seen this duck march and it’s a wonderfully silly Southern tradition. If you’re ever in Memphis (it happens in the Peabody Hotel in Orlando, Fl as well but it’s just not as good), you owe it to yourself to go see the ducks. Thanks to AdiKingsley-Hughes for the link to the video.
Sorry, I think you’ll find that the Orlando version closed some time ago.
I’m really not a fan of trained animal shows. they just seem to be humans doing their best to prove we’re not ourselves just animals. This one seems to be particularly lame.
And this just sounds like somebody grinding an axe on the wrong stone. There’s nothing about that skit that has any element of trying “to prove we’re not ourselves just animals.” (That’s one of those accusations certain people like to cast about, apropos nothing, because it’s nearly impossible to defend against. Meaningless accusations are like that) If you actually watch the showman and his audience, the motivation is simple entertainment, and the people there appear to have been entertained.
I’m just saying that trained animal shows always feel TO ME like it’s human beings out to prove something. Although I do like dolphin shows… I’m sure if I was staying at that hotel, I’d go and watch it once, and I’m certainly not calling for a ban or any such thing. Just providing my opinion, which many won’t share.
you’re reading far too much into it. it’s not a trained animal show, like the dolphin acts you enjoy for some reason. it’s instead theatre of the absurd — this is a very expensive fancy hotel downtown memphis, and ducks play in the lobby fountain all day. that’s it.