Those pink-suited Bunny People who shake their groove thang in Intel ads worldwide have apparently become a minor sensation: A series of Bunny People dolls, originally intended for promotional use, have become the toy-du-jour for Intel employees and industry diehards.
Seventy-five thousand bendable dolls, which don't really look like bunnies but are instead shiny-suited technician-types, come in either 7-inch or 13-inch sizes. They were originally ordered by Intel this fall; that order quickly proved too small when Intel employees started buying them at US$7 each. Intel spokesman Bill Calder said more than 350,000 dolls have now been sold or given away at industry conferences, and 250,000 more are currently on order. The dolls have been spotted in varied new-media ad departments and decorating kitschy geek abodes - and are being sold on the Web and at outlets like CompUSA.
"The technicians work day in and out making the Intel processors - it's great because it's a validation of what they do," Calder explains. "We knew it would be hot, but we didn't know just how hot it would be."
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Shining anti-censorship example: Tabitha King, wife of horror writer Stephen King, is helping to fund the distribution to Maine school students of the novel Bastard Out of Carolina, a graphic story of a family torn by alcoholism, incest, and poverty as seen by a 12-year-old girl. The offer is a protest against attempts to ban the use of Dorothy Allison's autobiographical 1992 novel in the classroom and a recent ruling by the Maine Supreme Court granting school boards broad power to limit how the book can be taught. Copies will be handed out next week outside high schools in several communities. (12.Dec.97)
