Coin-Operated Arcade Game, Piano Playing Duck
date: label: date made
content: ca 1975
name: label: maker
content: Animal Behavior Enterprises, Inc.
notes: label: Description
content: This carnival game consists of a wooden crate painted blue, gold, and yellow with a metal mesh window on the right front and a cash box left of it. A cord extends from the back. Two metal handles for carrying the object are on both the right and left sides. Opening a door on the left side reveals two metal boxes. The back one has various electrical cords and a rotary switch. The front one appears to have held food.
label: Description
content: A door on the back opens into the main compartment. It has a floor partly covered with mesh, as well as a toy piano with a lamp on it. The left side of the compartment has a dispenser for food.
label: Description
content: A mark on the cash box reads: PIANO DUCK (/) TYPE D.
label: Description
content: The piano-playing duck was manufactured by the firm of Animal Behavior Enterprises, a company established in the late 1940s by students of the behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner. In use, it included not only the crate, piano, and lamp, but a duck or chicken. The staff of ABE trained the duck to turn on the lamp and then play “several rippling cadenzas” before the lamp went off to signal the end of the performance. This example of the game was displayed in Massachusetts, first at the Aquarium of Cape Cod (also called Aqua Circus and ZooQuarium) in West Yarmouth and then at a private animal preserve / rehabilitation center in Westport. The Westport concern was operated by Damase (Jiggs) Giguere.
label: Description
content: For a related object, see 2004.0075.01. For related documentation see 2015.3170.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Arkansas, Hot Springs
topic: label: Subject
content: Psychology
label: Subject
content: Entertainment, general
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Mathematics
label: See more items in
content: Teaching Machines
label: See more items in
content: Science & Mathematics
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Damase and Yvonne Giguere
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2015.0290.01
label: catalog number
content: 2015.0290.01
label: accession number
content: 2015.0290
objectType: label: Object Name
content: game, coin-operated
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: wood (crate, piano material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal (mesh, handles, circuitry, food box material)
label: Physical Description
content: plastic (piano keys material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 105 cm x 142 cm x 88 cm; 41 11/32 in x 55 29/32 in x 34 21/32 in