Rubber Duck Graffiti Prevention 4 Editorial Image

Although the first rubber ducks came out in the late 1800's, invented by chemists Charles Goodyear, who would later become more famous for car tiers, his ducks were not the pretty yellow and floating ducks of today, but a more solid duck intended as a teething toy for both infants and dogs. It wasn't until the Walt Disney Company teamed up with a latex company in the 1930's that we had one of two different, floating bath tub duck toys. The next big improvement came in 1947 when sculptor Peter Ganine filed a patent for his yellow duck with a squeaker imbedded, made of vinyl. Then in 1970 there was the very big hit song, 'Rubber Duck' from the big children's television show 'Sesame Street', that the bath tub rubber duck became really popular for children and adults alike, to this very day. Archeologists have shown that graffiti has been a problem going back to ancient times and all around the world, and it has only gotten worse in more modern times. When storefronts and whole building sit vacant and boarded up for longer periods of time, these become magnets for graffiti. There are products and services to help combat this, then there is Shorty Maniace idea. Having gotten tiered of always having to clean up the graffiti on the boarded up storefront from his adjacent barber shop, and having some leftover rubber ducks from a recent Halloween event, and after first talking with the buildings owner for permission, the whimsical Maniace started screwing ducks into the boards. These are such bright fun things, now people would rather be seen photographing them, then caught graffitiing over them. His idea has grown to include more and more duck with different characters to a once broken toilet seat, now refurbished to hold turtles. As enjoyed 24 27 February 2024.