The Dunny Show: When Kidrobot Turned Vinyl Into a Global Language #00006 — TNoTToys Publications

🌀 This post is part of an ongoing research series from Art Toy Gama’s editorial division:
📚 This Is Not a Book About Art Toy Exhibitions & ToyCons

Our Upcoming Art Toy Book: 1000 Iconic ArTToy Exhibitions

New York, 2004.
Visionaire Gallery.
A white figure with tubular ears, belly round, curves sharp.
It wasn’t cute. It wasn’t decoration. It was waiting.

Created by Paul Budnitz and Tristan Eaton, the Dunny was born from a collision: devil + bunny. A rabbit with attitude, a silhouette too simple to be ignored, too bold to be harmless. Its genius? Becoming a blank yet loaded canvas.

But unlike the Munny—the open, buy-it-yourself DIY platform—the Dunny wasn’t for everyone.
For its debut, Kidrobot handed it off only to a curated lineup of heavyweights: graffiti legends like Doze Green, Tilt, Fafi, Seen. Toy pioneers like Jason Siu and Pete Fowler. Illustrators such as Gary Baseman (creator of Disney’s Teacher’s Pet). Fine artists Alexis Rockman, Jessica Stockholder. Fashion designers Diane von Furstenberg and Heatherette. Even creatives from PDI/DreamWorks Animation Studios and Steuben Crystal.

Over 50 artists and designers bent that rabbit’s ears into new dialects of vinyl. And all of them were for sale, right there, in the gallery.

The Poster: More Than Promotion

Red. White. Black.
Typography bold, geometric. The figure stark, unpainted.

This wasn’t advertising. It was declaration.

The POSTER for The Dunny Show didn’t spoil the surprises inside. It didn’t showcase designs. It showed only the archetype itself: neutral, raw, a totem in waiting. Against a backdrop of red urgency and black contrast, the Dunny became an invitation and a challenge:

What happens when You give this body to an artist?

That POSTER worked like a thesis statement. A simple silhouette transformed into expectation. Proof that even before You entered the gallery, the story had already begun.

A Manifesto in Vinyl

Kidrobot wasn’t just selling toys. Budnitz knew vinyl could travel: from Hong Kong’s vinyl streets to New York’s galleries, from underground forums to the pages of Visionaire.

The Dunny Show was one of the earliest exhibitions to prove the ArT Toy was more than hype or merchandise. It was collaboration turned into ritual: an ArT Toy body carrying an artist’s soul.

It also marked one of the first moments when Kidrobot openly blurred the lines between Art, design, and retail. The show wasn’t just an event; it was a signal flare that ArT Toys could stand on gallery walls, not just in collectors’ bedrooms.

Every customized Dunny on display rewrote the body into a new language. Together, they didn’t just fill shelves; they framed a movement.

Legacy in Motion

Looking back, The Dunny Show feels like a genesis.
It didn’t just put Kidrobot on the global map.
It turned the Dunny into a totem of the Movement: proof that when you hand a platform to the right artists, You don’t just get ArT Toys: you get identity, Memory, rebellion.

What happened inside that Mercer Street gallery in summer 2004 didn’t stay there.
It rewired collecting.

In those months, and thanks to events like this custom show, came the rise of blind boxes, and Kidrobot’s transformation into the cultural hub of Western ArT Toys.

The Dunny didn’t stay a devil bunny.
It became an icon.
Not just a toy, but a cultural punctuation mark in the sentence of early 2000s vinyl.

🎯 Final Thought from Art Toy Gama

The Dunny Show wasn’t about rabbits.
It was about proving that even the simplest silhouette can hold infinite voices.

At Art Toy Gama we believe: Dis(Play) is the New Memory.

Every ArT Toy You collect is a fragment of Your autobiography.
Every exhibition like this is proof that Toys don’t just sit on shelves: they edit identity, they sculpt legacy.

👉 Join the first and only ArT Toy Newsletter in the world that bites like a rebel, not a press release.
Because what you collect today… is what tomorrow remembers.

#1000IconicArTToyExhibitions

We’re currently building an Upcoming Publication that explores and celebrates
the most iconic and influential Art Toy exhibitions around the world.

Each article in this series helps document, reflect, and invite the community
to take part in constructing this cultural archive — one exhibition at a time.

We’ve seen countless exhibitions since then: small and large, modest and monumental.
And we love them all.

No matter where they take place or the resources behind them,
every ArT Toy show adds something to the Movement.
Some will make history, others will make Memory. All of them matter.

This is not just documentation.
This is Dis(Play) in the making.
And You’re part of it.

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