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Big Boy is back.
With his red-checked overalls, pudgy waistline and grown-up Kewpie Doll hairdo, the seven-foot Beef Boy Wonder - who once hoisted his hamburger over a restaurant roof -has an esteemed new place in Wisconsin history:
He's now a cultural artifact.
Rescued from the scrap heap of history by a UW-Madison art student and years later adopted by one of the state's venerable institutions, the fiberglass phenom fills out the Capitol Square lobby of the Wisconsin Historical Museum, 30 N. Carroll St., through Feb. 4.
Irresistably, kitschably and paunchily cute, the chubby bub has halted crowds of visiting schoolkids in their tracks since he went on display last week. Nostalgic adults, too, linger near his humble platform, chewing the fat about a trade figure who once grinned down onto traffic on South Park Street.
"Wouldn't that look great in your living room?," one museum-goer quipped last week as he leaned in close, gazing into Big Boy's...