Vince and Larry (crash test dummies)

Public service announcements (PSAs), which are typically a little depressing, brought a comedic approach to a serious issue in 1985. The issue was that American drivers weren't wearing seatbelts. The introduction of Vince and Larry, crash test dummies, to highlight the dangers of not using a seatbelt while in a collision provided the humor. The tagline of the Vince and Larry PSAs was, "You can learn a lot from a dummy." In the late 1980s, the tagline and the commercials went viral across America. Vince and Larry rose to fame.

The costumes for the actors Vince and Larry were put in storage after the campaign ended in 1998. The Smithsonian conducted a hunt to find the dummies in the first decade of the twenty-first century with the intention of acquiring them for their collection. A display on the development of car safety was unveiled in 2010 at the National Museum of American History. It featured early seatbelts, airbags, actual crash test dummies and their sensors, as well as other comparable tools. Vince and Larry, two former comic book stars who are now Smithsonian Institution relics, are seated among them.