OFP 857

The new herbie movie, Herbie: Fully Loaded opens in a few weeks and as part of the whirlwind of publicity surrounding it, the Herbie & Friends promotional cruise across America stopped in downtown Fort Worth at the new Radio Shack headquarters, just a few blocks from my apartment. Being a proud bug owner, I took my New Beetle over at lunch to meet them and along with any other VW was allowed to pull up onto the sidewalk and park near Herbie. When I say Herbie I mean one of two dozen VW bugs used to portray Herbie in the movie. This one in particular was used in the junkyard scene where Lindsay Lohan's character first finds Herbie. Ms. Lohan, of course, is not making the publicty tour, but a group of young and bubbly marketing students is shepherding him back and forth across the country. There was a big crowd on hand to see Herbie and it's difficult to explain why a VW bug with racing stripes and the number 53 means something to so many people but I guess it does. Herbie is obviously a popular Disney character and is something more than just a person in a constume which I presume adds to the appeal. Disney certainly did their homework when they selected a VW Beetle for the original movie as years later, it's still one of the few cars that can make anybody smile. So it was cool to see Herbie but as far as Disney characters goes, he's no Jessica Rabbit. Speakign of which, how the same company who brought us that pneumatic character decided to spend a million dollars makign Ms. Lohan more family friendly for the Herbie audience I'll never know. I guess we've got Janet Jackson to blame.