Hyperactive Shaolin Rabbit

In conjunction with the exhibition, Year of the Rabbit: Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo (July 9 through October 30, 2011), a gathering of artists (new and old friends of the Museum) have worked their creative magic on Frank Kozik’s Happy Labbit toy! Created by Frank Kozik and produced by Kidrobot, this cute little smorkin' Labbit has been created in many sizes and guises, with several popular mini series as well as larger figures. Jerome Lu was born in Mountain View and raised in the Bay Area by a family of wild monkeys. Even when he was a small chimp, they could see that he believed every crayon in the box had magical powers, and he would transform blank pages into colorful, fantastic worlds filled with monkeys, ninjas, robots and all his craziest dreams. His wild monkey relations soon recognized his artistic talent and nurtured it with a diet of Skittles and Corn Nuts. They made sure his art education included Saturday morning cartoons and ABC After School Specials. Now that Jerome has grown up to be a big monkey, they are quite proud that his childhood creativity has never diminished. In fact, it has grown, and he is working on his biggest art project to date: constructing a 20-story ultimate monkey ninja robot.