[4] In 2008, a girlfriend named Gabby was introduced to the Pennsylvania Lottery commercials, and the two were shown visiting the Pocono Mountains every Valentine's Day, as a nod to the importance of romantic tourism to that region's economy.

Gus required five puppeteers (Rick Lazzarini, Stephen R. Blandino, Debra Smith, Bob Mano, and Kacey Scappa) to operate.

Due to Gus's small size, many of the servos needed to provide his animatronic functions are mounted externally, with the cables running through spring housings on their way up to his head.

[7] However, Gus's heralded "return" was in an updated computer digital image (CGI) with the conversion costing $68,700 in addition to an almost $400,000 advertising campaign.

[8] The decision to convert the popular character to pure CGI was initially somewhat controversial, prompting petitions and social media pages to be created to save Gus from transforming from a real-life creation to one some believed would have no real interplay with the other on-camera actors.