Built in 2004

Built in 2008

Having built the widest and longest single float in all of Mardi Gras, the Fat Bankers did not rest on their laurels. We, instead, followed the advice of the Grateful Dead that “too much is just enough” and built a second float, The Funky Fox. This float celebrates our preferred method of proclaiming Mardi Gras, dancing cages and the Foxy Fat Bankers—both female and male.  The Foxy Fat Bankers dance to the funky music, teaching everyone a new step.  This float is a tandem to the original Funky Tucks and makes the float combination among the largest in Mardi Gras.

Built in 2015

On Valentine’s Day 2015, the Love Child was born to the Funky Tucks and the Funky Fox. The Love Child, like most children, prefers to be situate between both parents anmd squeezes in between the Funky Tucks and the Funky Fox, creating a three-unit float family 150 feet long with two eight feet tongues. Over 140 riders and more beads than a million people could catch roll down the street, all with the best pulsating funk music! Check out the video below to see all three floats in action!  Extra points if you can detect where many of the men are focused.

Built in 2018

The Funky Uncle Lounge float is built around the concept of a mobile music hall because, after all, New Orleans has the best music and its contributions to the music world areIts structure pays homage to Tips, Jimmy’s, Benny’s, and the Mother-in-Law Lounge, music halls like no other, while its decorations honor the many artists that have created the New Orleans sound, some of whom have ridden on the float.  The float is a mobile stage, providing a venue for well-known Funk bands, such as Soul Project, to play to the Carnival goers as Tucks parades through New Orleans.  And its sound quality is peerless, incorporating state-of-the-art equipment and the technical expertise of Tips’s sound crew, making it the envy of some performing venues.  The float is an expression of the combined artistic talents of Baline Kern Artists, Damon Bowie, and the Fat Bankers in also heralding another Mardi Gras first:  It is its own prop so that no other is required.  The band and music hall, coupled with the riders forming the crowd, all create the scene of a New Orleans music hall while the front, curved stairs allow easy passage between the float’s decks (and so is Russell) with a balcony (and rider positions) on the second and a dance floor (and somewhat fewer rider positions on the first).  It also has a bar and a bust of Professor Longhair that each rider rubs for good luck upon alighting on the float.

The float’s name derives from the daughter of one Captain suggesting it in making reference to her godfather, another Captain: “What will the next float be named, the Funky Uncle?”   More than fun among long-time friends and a mobile music hall to help Carnival goers celebrate, the float has a more weighty mission in bringing Funk and music to underserved communities.  We use the float as a mobile stage during the off-months to bring Funk to the people because, after all, the Law of Supergroovalisticprositfunkstication declares that one must “Give the people what-they want when they want and they wants it all the time.”  During the period 2018 to the beginning of COVID lockdowns in 2020, and with the mighty and volunteer help of Baline Kern Artists, we brought live free Funk on Funky Uncle to eight underserved communities (or about once a quarter).  Since the onset of the pandemic and lockdown inApril 2020 we have live streamed a free concert each week—or about seventy three concerts—to the universe, providing entertainment for the people (especially during the darkest days of the Pandemic lockdown), work for musicians, entertainment professionals, and gig workers when there was little, and raised money for those in the music and entertainment community effected medically or economically by the pandemic.  We have raised over $450,000 and made distributions to more than 600 musicians, entertainment professionals, and gig workers.  Click below to see video of the Funky Uncle Float in action!