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| Gordon, the AFLAC duck, before being roasted. |
Due to a glitch, the AFLAC duck was shipped to the Golden Wok restaurant on Ray Mears Boulevard in Knoxville. The duck, known internally as Gordon, was supposed to be shipped to Starlite Bowling Lanes where he was expected to appear in a new AFLAC commercial. Instead, he was roasted and served to Margaret Hemmings late Tuesday evening. “I just love roasted duck,” she explained. “Usually it’s not a famous duck. That’s almost sad, but he was delicious.” Golden Wok manager Feng Shui said it was not normal for their ducks to arrive by UPS, but they had just run out and wanted to please their regular customer, so served the duck anyway. “She always orders the duck, every week,” Shui explained. “We ran out once and could not serve her. She was very angry,” he added. A statement from AFLAC expressed their regret, but said they expected to phase out Gordon anyway and move on to a computer animated duck.