30 years ago, a group of University of Wisconsin-Madison students played a prank that's remembered fondly -- by some, at least -- in Madison to this day.

The students -- members of a group called the Pail and Shovel party, which ran UW's student government at the time -- planted more than 1,000 pink plastic flamingos on the grassy expanse near the dean's office. (Interestingly, the student government's president at the time was Jim Mallon, who went on to become executive producer of TV's "Mystery Science Theater 3000.")

It's become a fabled Madison moment, memorable enough to induce local newspaper columnist Doug Moe to use his column as a platform to lobby for the pink plastic flamingo's designation as the city's official bird.

Moe knew there would be naysayers, and he addressed possible objections in his column. "I mean, Madison is a city with five official songs," he wrote. "Our council once debated renaming Bassett Street Ho Chi Minh Trail. Our manhole covers are sewer access covers. Through it all, we've always managed to laugh at ourselves. So what better symbol than the plastic pink flamingo?"