BotCon 2004 - Ben "Wonko" Yee

Saturday

It is actually early Sunday morning (California time) as I write this. A strange calm settles over me and I find myself straining through all the events of the past couple days and trying to compile them into some meaningful pile of text.

The general mood that I have perceived at this convention is a relative calm. Without the pressure and politicing that has plagued Transformers conventions the past couple years, fans are in a much more relaxed state. There's no tip toeing around or brimming anger. There is only a general sense of good will and happiness that I have perceived from my friends here new and old.

Saturday morning began with the pre-registrant breakfast. The line was quite short when I got on it, but I was surprised to find I was the first one among my friends to be on the line - usually I'm the last. Soon however I was joined by fellow fans Phil Zeman, Tim Finn, Andrew Frankel, Fumihiko Akiyama, Doug Dlin, Rik Bakke and more as we settled into munching on our breakfast, a cool buffet style consisting of scrambled eggs, bacon and more. I don't usually eat breakfast this good, so I always treasure times when I can, especially if I'm surrounded by friends.

Of particular interest to people was the "exclusive breakfast item" which was advertised as a "toy related item". What was it? An awesome custom of G2 Breakdown as an Action Master! Basically they took Action Master Sideswipe's body, sculpted a new head and gave it some awesome packaging and voila! G2 Breakdown. This exclusive was limited to 204, making it one of the lowest numbered exclusive Transformers convention items ever. You can check out pics of it in the Botcon 2004 gallery.

After breakfast, I was eager to get on line for the dealer's room. The night before I had already heard of a ton of items I wanted to get. Among them, huge knock offs of Mini-Cons that were roughly the size of a deluxe Transformer, the PVC KT figures (which would later become the subject of joke after joke after joke - but more on that later) and *gasp* - Shockblast, Cliffjumper and Mirage! However, before I knew it, I was drafted into helping finish the set up of a huge display showing virtually every Transformers main-line figure ever produced. Fellow fan Doug Dlin joined me in this endeavor, but time was short. You'd be amazed how fast time flies when you have to transform over fifty Transformers and arrange them in some chronological order by line. It was like an episode of Iron Chef! Doug and I were rapidly working as the announcer kept saying "And we will be opening the room in X minutes!!!" We came up with the catch phrase "Who's machine will reign supreme!" Don't worry, you pretty much have to see Iron Chef to get it.

Once the display was done, I did more dealer room shopping at this 'con than I have done in the past three combined. Whereas normally I would have to be mega-frugal, this time I had some extra cash on hand and I tore through the dealer's room. Sadly, by the time I got to the table that had Shockblast, he was gone. However, in a bit of irony, I did manage to finally purchase a G1 Shockwave! Thanks Rugby's Starbase! And here's a quick shout out to the two most adorable dealers in the room who sold me awesome KO's including a Sixbuilder that's over a foot tall!

So, the KT figures - what's the big deal? I'll of course be doing a review of them at some point, but the main one that drew the most attention was the TAI figure. The only non-G1 figure in the bunch has so many sexual overtones it's frightening. Basically imagine a nude TAI in a bath (but no naughty bits exposed) with Sky-Byte as her bath toy (spitting out liquid no less) and RID Optimus Prime leering over a rock at her. Yes, it's real. Yes, this is an official Takara licensed product. And yes, it led to many, many jokes, especially since the day before a bunch of us had eaten thai food for lunch. I'll let your imaginations fill in the blanks.

Time flies at these cons, and the next thing you know it was time for Dan Gilvezan's panel. Dan is the actor who brought to life many characters, but the one he is most known for is Bumblebee/Goldbug. Dan was extremely funny, and so animated. He talked about his past, his work in the animation and live action industry and he had just the right mix of humor, sarcasm, appreciation and wit to wind up being one of the best guests ever at a Transformers con. A transcript of the panel will be up at some point.

So what complements a panel? Autographs of course! The autograph line moved slowly, but to be frank, this was a good thing. Dan took the time with every single person on line to talk to them briefly, autograph what they had and take a picture with the person. That type of personal attention is not common at conventions, and it was worth the extra wait on line to get the opportunity to chat with him. I had my MOC Goldbug and MOC Bumblebee keychain signed, and I gave him a Bumblebee keychain too. To my surprise, it was the first item anyone had given him all day, which amazed the heck out of me. He was so appreciative and nice! I hung around after the autographs to see if I could score a quick interview, and thanks to the awesome Botcon staff, I did! I felt bad in a sense because he was doing an interview with Starlog magazine and that was supposed to be his last. But when it got to be my turn, he looked at me and said "Didn't we meet?" and I reminded him about the Keychain and his face just lit up and he was perfectly okay with doing the interview. That too shall be put up soon! At the end, I thanked him and his lovely wife. It was an amazing experience mostly because (as most fans know) Bumblebee was my favorite character from G1, and no matter what awesome characters they create down the road, he will always be my favorite. To me, he was the little guy, the underdog (something Dan himself mentioned in his panel), and that's how I often felt as a young kid. Bumblebee gave me a character to relate to and meeting the man who helped him bring that character to life was nothing short of a mind blowing experience.

And talk about mind blowing. While waiting online one of the several cosplay fans appeared! Dressed as TAI in a custom made outfit, fellow fan Emerald stunned folks with her excellent outfit (complete with sirens on her ears!) and her charming smile. She even got into character holding a Sky-Byte and doing the whole salute thing. Several of her friends would later be seen in very impressive costumes representing Binaltech Smokescreen, Rumble and Frenzy. This type of enthusiasm is one of the most pure forms of fan dedication. To spend the time and money to create such an amazing array of costumes and then lug them over to the 'con and wear them all over is something that requires fan dedication in spades.

After that, it was back to the dealer's room! This time, my quarry was much smaller - parts! I dug through two parts tables and bought up quite a pile to help complete some Transformers at home. But where, o where are all the Micromaster ramps?!!!

Somewhere in this running around, I managed to meet and take a picture with G1 voice director Wally Burr. This is the man who shepherded every single darn episode of G1. While we owe the voice actors a thanks for entertaining us with their voices, it was this man who directed them to perfection. To shake his hand and even talk to him was an honor.

Squished into all this was a G1 Hasbro panel, with two former members of the Hasbro team who were with the line at the very, very beginning and saw it through to roughly Generation 2. They talked about the ups and downs of the line and revealed some interesting facts, including just why after 1987 we no longer had new episodes. Basically, at the time, Hasbro gave up on the line, no longer providing the funding necessary to create an animated program. It was sad, and they admitted as much. I had the two sign my TRU reissue Tracks, and when they looked at it they were just taken aback. This was one of the toys they had worked to bring to the states in the 80's, and seeing it as commemorative reissue truly blew them away.

Fast forward to the evening, and it was time for the pre-reg only Peter Cullen panel. This consisted of the typical speech, q and a - but it was also going to feature a script reading with Peter Cullen, Michael McConnohie and two fans who had won a competition the night before to voice two characters in the script. Tim Finn voiced Atex, an Autobot exterminator and Emerald (still dressed as TAI) played Nightracer, a Botcon exclusive figure from waaaay back. The script was "The Return of Kremzeek" which was hilarious. The reading was done in a style that we would see in a studio, with Wally stopping the reading now and then to try to get a different or better performance out of each actor. Wally is known as a stern taskmaster, and it became the subject of jokes all evening long.

Peter Cullen himself was, in a word, overwhelmed. The last Transformers convention he was at was in 1997, which consisted of maybe one hundred to one hundred fifty or so people in the panel tops. This was several times that, and he thanked the audience several times for their support. When presented with a statue of Optimus from a fan, he was totally choked up. Fans hung on his every word, and when he did his known voices (Prime, Ironhide and yes, Eeyore!) fans went wild. He said "Transform and Roll Out!" at one point causing people to practically fall all over themselves. There was a sense of pure elation in the air that was unavoidable. I found myself grinning like a fool several times during the session when Peter was just talking. Just the fact that the man who helped bring Optimus Prime to life was sitting about thirty feet from me blew my mind, and we fans were fortunate to have this opportunity to meet him.

After the session, I suddenly felt the weight of less than two hours sleep and time differences creep on me. It was time to go get some rest...and look forward to the next day.

Sunday

Time messes with you when you cross three hours. I don't know how people from other countries who lose like, six to nine hours do it. I woke up around 6am, after having gone to bed at 2am for no good reason other than my messed up mind thought it was time to go to work. So I did some work on my Botcon images then, emptied my camera's memory slot etc. and then uploaded some files as I got ready. The morning had one simple mission: get Peter Cullen's autograph.

The day previous you had to buy tickets, $5 per autograph. For those who think this is insane, I had to pay $50 to get William Shatner's a couple years ago. I bought four tickets, with four items to be signed: Heroes of Cybertron Prime and Ironhide, 20th Anniversary Optimus Prime and to sort of celebrate Mr. Cullen's diversity - a toy of K.A.R.R. from Knight Rider (he voiced the evil vehicle in its first appearance in the classic 80's series). I also brought two Heroes of Cybertron Primes to give him, which of course led everyone to think I was getting six items signed!

The line had begun very early, around 8am or so. The autographs didn't actually begin til about after 9am. I floated back and forth from the dealer's room to the line, finally finding a bunch of folks to hang out with (Hi Doug, Tina, Phil, Erin, Steve!!! Thank you for helping to keep me sane!). Anyhow, this was a test of endurance. We were literally on line for two hours. The thing is I can't really say this was a Bad Thing(tm). The fact of the matter is, Mr. Cullen took time to sign autographs, chat a bit and take a photo with each fan. This led to the long delay, and by the time my small group and I got in, they closed the doors to give Mr. Cullen a break. For those curious, here's my photo with Mr. Cullen! He was such a soft spoken, gracious guy - something you would not necesarily expect from the man who has played forceful characters like Prime and Ironhide. He was touched when I gave him the HoC figures, something which really said a lot. I mean, I wasn't giving him a 20th Ann. Prime (mainly because someone already beat me to it) but still, he was really appreciative. I really got the sense that even then, after signing well over a hundred autographs, he was still amazed that we cared enough to see him, to want to chat with him that we would even get him gifts. I can truly say this was one of the highlights of my Transformers fan-life.

Unfortunately, due to the long time spent on the line for Mr. Cullen and running around because I forgot my tape recorder I missed a couple sessions including the G1 writers panel, which bit because I was really looking forward to it. But, what I did manage to do was score an interview with Wally Burr in the dealer's room! I'll transcribe the interview soon, but Mr. Burr was really an interesting person to talk to because he wasn't just a voice actor, he was the taskmaster that I had heard many other voice actors talk about. This was a man who shepherded hours upon hours of the cartoons that I grew up with. It was like meeting a legend, and having him be so willing to talk to me was a true honor.

Time flew horrifically fast. Before I knew it, I was buying up the last of what I could afford, making dinner plans with friends and psychologically trying to prepare myself for the next day when I would have to hit a 7am flight (which for my brain, was a 4am flight) home.

Side story: Earlier in the day I had asked for a Super Shuttle to come get me at the hotel in the morning and then take me to the airport. This would normally cost about $25 or so. But the guy tells me there were none, they were all booked until the next day in the afternoon. He said my only option was to take a cab that would cost me about $75!!! Fortunately, I ran into guys from another shuttle line (the red one) and they said they had tons of seats for the next morning, so I totally lucked out. Gotta love the drama.

Anyhow, dinner was at Tokyo Wako, a cool Japanese restaurant in the Paseo Colorado shopping center. Among the dinner folk gathered were fellow fans Tim Finn and Phil Zeman. Unfortunately, the time zone change and lack of sleep finally caught up with me and I literally nodded off a few times at dinner. It was time to go to sleep and go home and bask in the glow of an awesome, awesome convention experience.