I worked at JPL at the time, and the mission was a pretty big deal there too. TV trucks in the parking lot for days. A long line outside to get your Hot Wheels toy rover. (I guess that would've gone under the employee merchandise link on this page, which is broken now.)
The Hot Wheels collection was one of my prized posessions... I remember I was disappointed by the difference in scales between the rover, lander and capsule, so I built my own lander and capsule for the rover out of cardboard :)
