By Dustin Krugel
Posted: April 4, 2002

They stand approximately seven inches in stature and weigh little more than a regulation-size basketball. But in the eyes of fans and collectors, bobbleheads are almost as big as the players they portray.

“Bobbleheads have been popular across the country and our fans had been asking, ‘When will the Phoenix Suns give away bobbleheads?’" recalled Suns Vice President of Public Relations Debra Stevens. "How can you argue with that kind of demand?”

The Suns delivered this season debuting four distinctive bobbleheads featuring the likenesses of Stephon Marbury, Dan Majerle, Shawn Marion and Penny Hardaway (which will be given away to the first 8,000 fans at the Suns’ final game of the season on April 17 vs. Dallas).

At sporting events across the country, long lines usually mass before any game that features a bobblehead promotion bearing the likeness of one of the home team’s favorite players. In fact, a number of Suns fans lined up outside of America West Arena at 10 a.m. the morning of the Dan Majerle giveaway at the Suns-Warriors game on Feb. 2.

But it’s not only the fans who adore the cute, wobbly-headed dolls. Pro athletes are among the collectors, including Majerle, who added one of his own to his growing bobblehead collection.

“Mine looked like Conan O’Brien,” he joked, referring to the late-night television host. “I think they’re pretty cool. I’ve got a couple of other ones at home. When my kids grow up they’ll be able to see it and laugh a little bit. They’ll probably take it to school for show and tell or something.”

Steve Avanessian, Vice President of Marketing for Bensussen Deutsch & Associates, Inc., the company who produced the Suns’ Bobbleheads, as well as the Diamondbacks' last season, said that they have become so popular amongst the athletes that some are actually begging for bobblers of their own.

“‘I want a bobblehead, I want a bobblehead,’” he mimicked. “It kind of became like a little mini-academy awards for a lot of players.”

One of the reasons for the bobbleheads’ success is due to their limited availability. Unless you want to pay top dollar on eBay or at a sports memorabilia store, the only way you can get them is by going through the turnstiles at games. In fact, it’s not uncommon to see the pint-sized, spring-loaded figures up for sale on eBay even before the game is completed.

“Collectors are so savvy these days that they want something that is truly collectable,” Avanessian said. “People are going to hang on to that for a long, long time. And they only become more valuable over time. Somebody becomes a Hall-of-Fame player or they retire or they switch teams, and you have the original uniform... People are just voraciously collecting these things.”

Of course, not everyone collects the statues with dollar and cents on their minds (mostly dollars). Some just like their big heads and gregarious faces.

Shawn Marion, Dan Majerle, Stephon Marbury and Penny Hardaway each posed for a number of photos, which were used to create their mini bobbling likenesses.

Not that long ago, bobbleheads were considered a dinosaur in the sports memorabilia industry. Their appeal had worn off long ago after they first emerged as popular collectibles in the '60s and '70s in the United States. But their actual origins began well before that, Avanessian revealed.

“Apparently, the original ones that came over were from Germany and they were called Nodders, and they were large ceramic figures of animals and things like that," he said. "But from what I understand, one of the very first (sports figures) was a New York Knick that was done in the 1920s.”

Many believe the current bobblehead craze started in 1999 when MLB’s San Francisco Giants gave the collector’s dolls away during a marketing promotion at one of their games.

BD&A, the nation’s leading manufacturer of bobbleheads, has modeled athletes from the NBA, WNBA, MLB and NHL, in addition to a couple hundred custom bobbleheads, including a very popular Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio Bobblehead.

Unlike like the bobbleheads of yesterday, which consisted of generic, short, pudgy figures, today’s generation of bobbleheads actually resemble their likenesses.

“The thing that’s so different about the bobbleheads that we’ve been producing the last year is that they actually look like individuals,” Avanessian said. “What we really started seeing in 2001 is the last variant in what bobbleheads can really be and that’s three dimensional embodiments of the sports figure that they are portraying.”

Many of today’ bobbleheads come complete with bulging biceps, tattoos and headbands just like the real pros. For instance, one glance at Houston Rockets guard Moochie Norris’ bobblehead shows how real these dolls actually look. He sports an incredible replica of his king-size Afro. Even Orlando Magic guard Darrell Armstrong’s bobblehead matches his real-life scars on his forehead.

So how do they get the bobbleheads to actually look like the real-life characters?

Avanessian said its starts with several different photographs and images of each individual from every angle. Sometimes it includes sifting through videos to watch that person’s distinctive movements.

A bobblehead spec sheet is also required. This includes info such as: actual height, body type, skin tone, facial expression, left/right handed, hair length, teeth showing, etc.

After all the images are collected, a lengthy process of sketching out the characters in mechanical drawings begins and then the sculpting takes place.

“They are all hand molded and hand crafted,” Avanessian added. “We take a look at them, make whatever final tweaks need to be done, whether it’s a mustache that is too big or two small, or an eyebrow is off, some of the most unique things. A sweatband may be missing or the wrong color, or there’s a stripe where there shouldn’t be a stripe. And then we go to production.”

When the production is completed the dolls are finally ready to be shipped. The whole process can take up to four months.

And then the fun begins when they are delivered in a box to anxious fans.

“I think it is cool," said Marbury on Jan 10, the night his bobblehead was given away to fans before the Suns-Grizzlies game. "I’m going to be in 8,000 homes!”