As a secret character in NBA Hangtime, Dan Amrich is shown in game wearing the Keio Flying Squadron bunny ears. When Dan was invited by Mark Turmell & Sal DiVita to appear in Hangtime as a secret character, Williams/Midway said it'd be fine to wear the ears in the game. Enter AMRICH for the player name & 2020 for the PIN to play as him.
Dan Amrich wrote:Game companies regularly send out "tchotchkes"--little trinkets to promote new releases. JVC produced a Sega CD game called Keio Flying Squadron that starred a girl who wore a Playboy bunny-style outfit and rode around on a dragon, smiting evil. I got the ears in the mail and commented on them to my rep at the company, who said she wanted a photo of me in them, because she was collecting pictures of all the game writers wearing the ears. So I actually sent one--and nobody else did. Then one of the online publications I was writing for asked me for a personal photo, requesting that it not be serious or pretentious. I had that shot handy and it certainly fit their criteria. So now everyone who read my writing knew about the ears.
When Mark and Sal invited me to be in Hangtime, I immediately told my wife, who said, "Great! Are you going to wear the bunny ears?" I was absolutely appalled--this was, after all, a geek's dream, and I was not going to screw it up with some stupid inside joke! But the next person I told said the same thing--"Cool! You're gonna wear the ears, right?" And it started to make sense--without the ears, my wife said, I'd just be an unknown geek with glasses that nobody would remember. So I called Midway and asked permission. They said absolutely, because it was something they'd have in their game that Acclaim (who was developing the competing coin-op NBA Jam Extreme at the time) would not--something fun for players to see only in Hangtime. Plus, my choice was tame compared to theirs--aliens, chickens, cows, wizards, and all those wild Halloween masks. So the bunny ears started as an in-joke and grew into...well, maybe not a legend, but at least a suspicious fable.