The Bobblehead Fauci Goes Viral During the Coronavirus Crisis

MILWAUKEE — The National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum usually makes its money producing bobbleheads of sports heroes, but it found a new niche during the coronavirus crisis: public officials who suddenly entered the American consciousness. “We were getting requests for a lot of different people,” said co-founder Phil Sklar. That’s why he’ll never forget the day he and co-founder Jeff Novak opened up a giant skid full of bobbleheads of a guy they knew only as Michael Poll from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee cafeteria.

The bobbleheads were a hit, and soon people were asking for the likeness of Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984. Fauci quickly became America’s voice of reason during the pandemic, and his steady professionalism and expert-informed calm brought a dose of normalcy to days of fear and isolation.

And so Sklar and Novak began making bobbleheads of government leaders, ranging from Gov. Andrew Cuomo to White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx, and they started donating proceeds to first responders during the pandemic. But the most popular bobblehead of them all is the one that depicts a smiling Fauci.

The figure captures a moment from a press briefing in which the medical exec chuckled and covered his face in reaction to something President Trump had said, and it went viral. The bobblehead costs $25 and $5 from each sale is donated to the American Hospital Association’s Protect the Heroes campaign in support of the 100 Million Mask Challenge to help get personal protective equipment to healthcare workers.