Arts & Entertainment
Want to Commemorate the 2024 RNC or DNC? The National Bobblehead Hall of Fame Has You Covered
If it appeared in a movie, sports game or meme, chances are it’s been made into a bobblehead.
And if it’s a bobblehead, it’s likely exhibited on one of the dozens of wooden bookshelves inside the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum.
Located in Milwaukee, the museum carries more than 10,000 bobbleheads ranging from professional athletes and iconic musicians to scientists and politicians.
“You name it, it’s represented in bobblehead form,” said Phil Sklar, the museum’s co-founder and CEO.
The museum’s political genre carries extra significance this week as Milwaukee hosts the 2024 National Republican Convention.
To commemorate the RNC and the Democratic National Convention (set to take place in Chicago next month), the museum recently revealed two of its newest bobbleheads: an elephant and a donkey standing with skylines of the host cities behind them.
“We think those are really fun bobbleheads that people who are either attending the conventions or just want something fun to commemorate the historic events in their cities might want to have,” Sklar said.
But politics represented in bobblehead form is nothing new. Sklar said the first-ever political bobblehead was of John F. Kennedy from the early 1960s and scores more have been made since.
The museum carries shelves of bobbleheads representing U.S. presidents, vice presidents, first ladies, lawmakers and U.S. Supreme Court justices. There are also bobblehead “scenes” depicting heated moments on the debate stage or famous speeches at the White House.
For Sklar, who opened the museum with longtime friend Brad Novak in 2019, bobbleheads can offer a release during campaign seasons when tensions might run high.
“It is a way for people to show their support for a candidate, and some of them are more satirical and somebody might get it as a gag gift for a friend,” Sklar said. “But a lot of them are lighthearted.”
The museum is open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday to Friday and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
