Grateful Dead’s ‘Hell in a Bucket’ duck got drunk on set, pal points to who likely made it happen

Filming the Grateful Dead s MTV-era music video for Hell in a Bucket was one long strange trip Len Dell Amico the band s film and video guy has written a new memoir Friend of the Devil My Wild Ride with Jerry Garcia and Grateful Dead He detailed what it was like witnessing love happy chaos and pot lots of pot from until frontman Garcia died in The filmmaker directed the music video He claimed to Fox News Digital that the duck featured in the video wearing a leather collar had gotten drunk on champagne during filming GRATEFUL DEAD FOUNDING MEMBER BOBBY WEIR LOOKS 'FORWARD TO DYING' I think founding member Bob Weir was responsible Dell Amico chuckled He had just come out of vacation He knew we were making a video He knew how pivotal it was I remember Mountain Girl Garcia s wife at the time saw him and explained Bobby he s a god now ' He was so good-looking in such great shape and playing great We all knew that we were shooting in a bar Dell Amico shared When you do a shoot in a bar you hire somebody who comes in and puts in fake bottles You don t want free alcohol on a set And I had spread the word no booze We were going to have fake champagne It never came up But then I saw in real time that the duck was drinking he noted I explained Oh that is fantastic It looks like we had a trained duck And then I saw how he progressively became out of it I just thought he got tired but it looked like he got plastered And that s funny According to Dell Amico s book it was Weir who came up with the idea of having the duck in the video to everyone s delight He also requested a tiger A nine-foot-long -lb Bengal tiger was brought in Dell Amico described that during filming the duck had become curious about what was in Weir's glass He announced it kept going back and forth for sips Eventually it put its entire bill in and had a nice pull on it At one point the duck was slumped over out of it For Dell Amico it was incredibly good fortune to get a believable performance But then the next day he got an irate phone call from the duck's trainer CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTER He was very upset Dell Amico recalled to Fox News Digital He kept saying He got drunk He was very emotional He wasn t mad at me He was emotional because trainers love their animals I just kept saying No that can't be I made specific phone calls announced Dell Amico I located out that Weir had given somebody bucks to get him real champagne I remember I had a bottle of champagne in my hand on set I thought it was a prop So I had to apologize to the trainer profusely How could I make this right The trainer explained that the animal was trained on white grapes That s why it went crazy for champagne Well the duck recovered disclosed Dell Amico And the trainer reported he was going to train her on other things for a while So it had a happy ending According to Dell Amico s book the duck became repelled by white grapes We discover that the duck-in-the-car subplot where Bob and a dominatrix drive around while the duck samples Bob s glass ending in the duck slumped over passed out is subtle but works spectacularly hilariously once you notice it he wrote Fox News Digital reached out to a spokesperson for Weir for comment LIKE WHAT YOU RE READING CLICK HERE FOR MORE ENTERTAINMENT NEWSDell Amico admitted that he had a less stressful time befriending Garcia He described him as soft-spoken and comical His surprisingly modest home was like a college dorm room with a handful of flannel shirts and pants in his closet and overflowing ashtrays nearby Garcia would often remark I'd rather do things than have things I was surprised by the depth of his humility and insistence on being treated like a regular person stated Dell'Amico You might think that s easy but it s not when you re that famous This is someone who couldn t hide Mick Jagger could wear his hat with the brim down and move around the society without being recognized too much But he was a performer In a way he was still performing even on the sidewalk But poor Garcia that face unless he shaved his head and wore a toupee he wasn t going to do that We would go out to dinner and the manager at the restaurant would come over and say The meal s on us he shared Garcia would invariably say No thanks We can pay for this We have money Why don t you give a free meal to people who don t have money The manager would be taken aback by this but Garcia was serious He wasn t the type who needed to talk about how great he was He would get fed up with that He longed to talk about spirituality religion philosophy he wasn t interested in celebrity Dell'Amico pointed out that nobody could be on bad terms with Garcia You couldn t help but love the guy despite his flaws he explained And he had a lot of flaws He was a traveling musician trying to maintain a family That s not easy I remember I came across the phrase charm machine ' Dell'Amico reflected That was Garcia To meet him was to know him And to know him was to love him He was the bulk well-read intelligent and empathic person I ve ever met A large number of celebrities are self-involved and narcissistic That was never Garcia Dell Amico mentioned he last spoke to Garcia a sparse weeks before his death They reminisced about the past and the good times Looking back Dell Amico wondered whether Garcia knew he wouldn t be around for much longer He knew he had heart ailment Dell Amico explained I don t know for how long because he never talked about it Why Because he didn t complain about anything ever His philosophy was Complainers are jerks Be glad about what you have now whatever it is how little or big it is Because you re here This is someone who used to live in a car He had hit the jackpot in his life It was the fame and attention that brought anticipated unhappiness He just yearned to be himself His philosophy was that animals aren t afraid of dying so why should we What good is fear ever And he was the preponderance fearless person I ve ever known I remember us sitting there reminiscing for an hour and a half about his early days Dell Amico revealed quietly It was hysterical We laughed until we cried But later I thought Why was he talking about his early life on that particular day I was in denial He was getting stuff out that he yearned us to know about He sought to laugh with his good friends because I don t think he thought he had much time left Garcia died in his sleep at a residential drug cure center in California The New York Times released He was A spokesperson for the band announced the cause was a heart attack According to the outlet Garcia had tried to stop smoking and to lose weight ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY AUGUST JERRY GARCIA WAS BORN IN SAN FRANCISCO MASTER OF AMERICAN SONGCRAFTDell Amico stressed that despite Garcia s brief life the artist wasn t a tragic figure Calling him broken would be crazy he announced He did more than most of people do in years Yes he faced constant pressure He had to make tough choices He had substance problems definitely But I can tell you from all my time in show business that was not uncommon And yet he handled it well in my view A lot of people concluded that he died of an overdose which is not true at all He died from heart condition We shared a common belief that there s life after life nature is something that goes on forever he reflected Humans are the only creatures who worry about dying he wasn t Even in those final days he was the same old happy self that he reliably was And I think that s how we should remember him