I trust the Smithsonian has sturdy walls...

Posted Friday, 16 July 2010

The Smithsonian Institution. Long regarded as the most educated place in America. When one hears of something being inducted into the Smithsonian, one can assume that it is M4D L337 important to American history. Buzz Aldrin's spacesuit, Mickey Mouse concept sketches, the Wright Brothers' aeroplane, the filming model of the original USS Enterprise, things of that nature. Yesterday, something arrived in the Smithsonian Institution, putting it on the Map of Niftiness.

Vince and Larry, the slapstick crash dummy advocates for safety belts, were inducted into the Smithsonian. Vince and Larry, themselves, were present to accept the honour.
Why would a pair of crash test dummies be accepted into this elite society?
Picture this... the 1980s. Automobile collisions are one of the greatest killers in the United States simply because drivers would ignore their safety belts. After years of giving Americans grave warnings about the dangers of such behaviour, someone at the Ad Council finally got a new idea. Don't make it a grave affair ("You're going to die if you don't don't buckle up!") -- suggest to the television viewer that it would be in his best interest by presenting a 30-second educational show with two crash dummies (Vince and Larry), demonstrating how safety-belts can save one's life in a collision ("Don't be a dummy! Buckle your safety belt!")
Somehow, they managed to win over the American public with their slapstick antics and catchy raps and suddenly, as though by magic, auto-crash fatalities started becoming less frequent. People started using their safety belts -- in some cases, for the first time since the car was purchased. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration directly credits Vince and Larry with this new trend in American road safety.
So popular were these two crash dummies that they became as recognisable as sports-team mascots. People started asking for manufacturing rights to the characters, making lunchboxes, t-shirts, buttons, paper goods, and all sorts of things.
However, the thing for which I, personally, remember Vince and Larry is in the toy section. In 1991, Tyco Toys produced a line of action figures called the Crash Dummies, inspired by the Vince and Larry PSAs, with the aforementioned dummies as a part of the line. Eventually, Vince was replaced by Slick and Larry by Spin, and the line became known as The Incredible Crash Dummies.

Oddly, the NBC News article didn't mention that. In any case, various props and costumes from the PSAs were placed into the collection for all to see.

If only this had occurred a few years ago -- Night at the Museum 2 could have benefited from Vince and Larry's presence. Taking the Model T out for a spin.