By Jim Bissett
The Parkersburg News and Sentinel
MORGANTOWN — Every dog has his day.
And, if he’s really lucky, his own bobblehead.
“That’s the plan,” Phil Sklar said with a chuckle on Tuesday – which, in his world, is the day before the big day.
You know: National Bobblehead Day.
Wednesday was the day that goes with an official shake in the affirmative to all those jittery figurines of your favorite sports teams, TV personalities and even the occasional cryptid, which we’ll get to.
Sklar is the co-founder of the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum in Milwaukee.
And the Wisconsin enterprise marked Wednesday’s occasion in a most West Virginia way, with its official debut of “Musket” – the mythical canine buddy to the Mountaineer of West Virginia University.
If you aren’t familiar, the latest locally themed bobblehead has been around since 2012 as the star of “Musket’s Big Adventure.”
That’s the title of the book of tail-wagging tales written in part as a promotional tie-in to WVU Medicine Golisano Children’s, the hospital that treats young patients from all of West Virginia’s 55 counties, plus surrounding states.
“Pretty cool pup,” Sklar said.
The production run will be 2,026 individually numbered Musket bobbleheads, Sklar continued, all retailing for $35 apiece, plus a flat-rate shipping charge of $8 per order.
Visit www.bobbleheadhall.com for all the ordering particulars, Sklar said.
Musket, Sklar said, will be the opening act to a bobblehead of the WVU Mountaineer-in-waiting. The company hasn’t quite gotten the Name, Image and Likeness nod for the buckskin-clad icon, he said.
“Not just yet – but we know how the state of West Virginia loves its WVU sports teams and Mountaineer mascot.”
A love of baseball sparked the founding of the hall in 2014.
Sklar, who earned an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and was a financial analyst, collected baseball cards as a kid before branching into bobbleheads depicting the stars of his favorite sport and America’s pastime.
His college buddy and co-founder Brad Novak handled promotions for several baseball teams in the minor leagues during his previous career.
In 2018, the pair created a bobblehead in honor of a Special Olympian raising money to get him to that year’s Summer Games in Seattle.
A brand was built, and — well — bobbled.
Other custom creations would follow: Sister Jean Delores Schmidt, the Roman Catholic nun and chaplain of the Loyola men’s basketball team, was one of them.
In 2022, Sister Jean was 103 and still praying and cheering when Loyola made a serious run during the NCAA Tournament that year.
From the world of politics came Bernie Sanders, some 14 other lawmakers and a political duo known from hill to hollow in the Mountain State: then-Gov. Jim Justice and his faithful bulldog companion, Babydog.
Otherworldly West Virginia is represented, too, Sklar said. Mothman, the Point Pleasant cryptid with the household name, is one of the hall’s biggest sellers.
“We’re constantly taking orders for Mothman,” he said.
A bobblehead version of Sklar’s mother, meanwhile, sits on his desk in Milwaukee. He smiles and shakes his head every time he looks over.
“Who knew?” he said. “Follow your bliss. And your bobblehead.”
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