There is an almost unbelievable story about Homosassa. The underwater viewing area known as the Fishbowl was lowered into the Spring on bananas. The owners of the Spring at the time, Norris Development Co., needed to slide the underwater observatory which weighed 157 tons to its present location in the spring on skids. To accomplish this, they needed to lubricate the skids, but they did not want to use a lubricant that could injure fish or the spring. They needed something biodegradable and natural.
They remembered the old comedies where someone slipped on a banana peel. They decided to cover the skids with bananas to slide the Fishbowl into the Spring. They had a crane to balance it as it slid into place. The whole process of moving the underwater observatory was captured in a Popular Mechanics article in January 1965 https://books.google.com/books/about/Popular_Mechanics.html?id=ReMDAAAAMBAJ page 126.
They chose bananas, because they are commonly depicted as being exceptionally slippery. The joke was actually on them. The slipping on banana jokes were based on a certain variety of banana: the Gros Michel that almost went extinct from the Panama Disease in the first half of the 19th century. Their replacement the Cavendish bananas are much less slippery.
When the Gros Michel variety first starting dying of Panama Disease, the banana growers moved their plantations around Latin America to try to avoid the blight, but eventually almost all commercial bananas were wiped out. As the banana plantations were ruined by the fungus, there were banana shortages around the world. This lack of bananas is believed to have inspired the song called “Yes, We Have No Bananas.”
The banana variety that were used to replace the Gros Michel variety was the Cavendish variety. The Cavendish bananas were considered to be not as creamy or flavorful. They also bruise much more easily and spoil more quickly. The advantage of the Cavendish was that they were immune to the Panama Disease. Another benefit was that their banana peel was not nearly as slippery. The Cavendish bananas now make up 99 percent of the bananas that are sold commercially.
Today the Cavendish variety is being threatened by a new variety of Panama Disease called Tropical Race 4. This fungus is wiping out banana plants around the world. This means that they may have to choose a new variety of bananas to use and if it has a slippery peel the banana peel jokes might just make sense again.
