PROPS: Life-Sized Celebrity Cutouts

So you want to get President Clinton or Puffy Combs to appear at your event, but they're booked. Or you want James Dean there, but he's, well, dead. Here's a two-dimensional solution: life-sized cardboard cutouts. While they don't have the cache of a living-and-breathing celebrity, they can add a fun touch to an event where some kitschy props are appropriate. Advanced Graphics makes more than 200 different cutouts--Austin Powers, John Wayne and the casts of Star Wars and Star Trek are big hits--and the California-based company can even use a photograph to make a two-dimensional version of a CEO or honored guest. Another alternative: Cutouts with motion-activated voice boxes that say a character's signature line, or whatever you program them to say. The basic cutouts retail for $29.95 each, but order 8 or more and you can get them for less; custom-made or talking cutouts cost more. Or you can always try a celebrity wrangler. --Chad Kaydo
Posted 07.30.01