BotCon '97 - Malin Huffman

Introduction

I approached BotCon 97 with excitement, but a fair bit of skepticism. Not towards meeting Simon Furman, or Bob Forward, et al, but I wondered if the show could match its hype, or overcome the mudslinging that's plagued this year of TF fandom, both surrounding the conventions, towards Hasbro, and amidst ATT. And I was concerned about the price. The highest pre-admission price yet, plus the promise of additional costs, just to get the 'convention exclusive' merchandise, plus several planned guests being shelved made the total price point a bit high in my opinion.

Wednesday

I bored through an 11 hour drive to Indianapolis, to meet up with Ken and Kevin, and see Operation Condor free on Wednesday night. The trip was flawless except for an unplanned stop in St. Louis due to a collision with a cooler. That's right, a slagging COOLER. It was on the highway, I was boxed in and going 70 mph... There was no way out. The damn thing wrapped itself around my undercarriage and wouldn't let go.. Plus it was bouncing against the ground as I drove. I managed to get into an exit after about 10 minutes and borrow a broom from McDonalds to pry it off. As a result, I was later to Indy than planned. Thus when I arrived at Ken's apartment, I found a sign awaiting me: "Couldn't wait any longer, left for movie at 6:45." I checked my watch. It was 6:48. Slag!

Fortunately, Indy was spared my wrath as Ken had spotted me turning the corner, and they came back to get me.

We proceeded to gear up for the con, myself with box of UK toys (Stormtroopers still available!) and Super Deformed Beast Wars mural, which was finally completed by Saturday morning but I left mounting gear in Indy so I decided not to bother entering it in the contest... I know, I should have entered it anyway but I was a little ticked by that point and ready to just enjoy the convention. I'll have it up on my webpage pretty soon.

Thursday

Ken and I drove down to Bloomington so I could scout Indiana University (for grad school) We cooked out with Ken's sister and wandered around. I was impressed, yesss. Thursday night... I worked more on BW mural and uh, Ken and I got dinner.

Friday

Friday at 4 am came way too soon. We had to pick up a rental car at about 5 am. The 11 hour drive to Rochester is best left forgotten... The great state of Pennsylvania (how many construction areas can we cram into one roadway?) and the icy sneeze of God caused serious delays. Only the Tao of Crammer kept us going (Who's Crammer, you ask? DON'T!) Crammer would provide many more hours of entertainment throughout the week. We got into Rochester, checked into the hotel, and wandered a bit. We were staying at the Hyatt; most of the attendees were in the other hotel, but some of the guests were with us While Ken went to find Megabee and friends, I continued unloading the car. By the time I returned, Ken had rounded up a posse in our room and I finally got to meet Mark and Marci. We decided to go find some dinner.

At this point we discovered some great things about Rochester *sarcasm*. At least in the downtown area, there is virtually nowhere to eat open after 6 PM on a Friday night (or Saturday!) After Marci and Jameel attempted to negotiate with an Italian restaurant owner, who wanted to try to drive us all to some other open restaurant (?!?) we settled on a Chinese place a few blocks away that, what do you know, was actually open. Ordering took forever- you haven't lived until you've tried to eat with people you know online- it's exactly like conversations online! Everyone jumps in, constantly changes topic, flits back and forth- not that this doesn't happen with non-online friends, but it always seems worse somehow. My particular order took about 10 minutes longer than the others. Paying was obnoxious as expected, and I guarantee that waiter regrets trying to act clever when talking to us.... We went back to the hotels, really tired at that point. The Beast Wars LARP, planned for the evening, was canned in favor of some downtime. I worked on the BW Mural some more, and eventually drifted downstairs with Kevin to see if the convention dinner was over yet. We encountered Billy, Jason, Tony Preto, and a few other familiar faces... Andrew Frankel materialized out of the mist! After not telling any of us if he'd actually show up to the con.... The "Dinner Decoys (TM)" were unveiled. We also heard that some of the guests had been delayed and not at the dinner, and Peter Cullen hadn't attended because he wasn't feeling well. We eventually returned to the Hyatt and rambled for a while, again entertained by the wisdom of Crammer (keep reading) and Andrew's stories of L.A. Final turn in: circa 2 AM.

Saturday

As I always do for some reason on trips, I woke up first and got ready with plenty of time for the registration. When I got downstairs before 8, there was already a huge lineup waiting for the 'opening ceremonies'. Fortunately, I slipped in just behind Mark and Marci and some other familiar faces.. The line promptly exploded behind me. Ken arrived a bit later, with Andrew "I woke up 5 minutes ago!". We finally paraded into the ceremony area and I met a few more people. Picture taking commenced. Music from the convention CD was played in the background as we waited. However, I didn't actually see the opening ceremony, because we saw a NEW line starting, for registration, and decided getting in that early was probably more important. We eventually heard down the line that the ceremony had included an unsolicited tape from Frank Welker (G1 Megatron), with a rather blatent slam on Men in Black. Laughter erupted across the line.

We FINALLY got through registration and proceeded into the dealer room sometime after 9. We wandered around, checking if the rumors of poor Japanese supplies were true... For the most part, they were. There were none of the HUGE caches of Japanese stuff available at 94 and 95 (I was in England at the time of BC96). The only Japanese set I was interested in, Raiden, represented by one set for sale... But my interest waned at the $400 price tag. I also restrained a chuckle- ok, No, I didn't- at Soundblaster and Twincast for $275 each. (Sitting on my shelf for $40 and $65 respectively) We all greeted Matt (Rgbystrbse) Warsocki, with his HUGE and well-organized set of tables. At the end of his area, I chuckled at the 'row of Tryptica'- an entire shelf of Trypticons marching in step.

One of my friends mentioned in passing that there was a SECOND dealer room setting up... I hurried down the hall and found Fumihiko pulling out items from BotCon Japan... And a couple big TVs being set up- more on that later. I bought BotCon Japan Galvatron (a giant ActionMaster! I hope they make more of these...), a computer art poster, and ordered a book of TF manga that's being translated to English and sent by mail order.

By that time, it was almost 10 and time for the Peter Cullen panel. I took my purchases up to the room and brought down my box of UK toys for sale. I got in a bit further back than I wanted, but it was OK. Cullen arrived and the festivities began. I won't bother parroting the panel here (Read the transcript on my webpage plug!) but he was very warm and entertaining. Cullen's most memorable comments were on his surprise that so many people remembered his work on Optimus Prime, and his comments on the character as a valuable role model.

2 hours were scheduled for the Q & A, but the questions ended fairly quickly and the autograph session started. Things erupted into chaos when the autograph line began. The whole room spilled into a several-rank deep line that extended out the door. I had to wait at least half an hour, but finally emerged with a picture and program.

It was time to find some lunch. Just as the night before, we debated and wandered and picked up people before setting out for Burger King in a mall down the street... Ken, Eric, and Cris had wisely just LEFT for BK instead of waiting, but I wanted to leave my stuff, so I left it in ScottFrenzy's room. I COULDN'T miss the Bob Forward panel at 12:30... We finally got to BK about 12. We sat down to eat... more discussion of the mightiness of Crammer.... It was 12:10, then 12:15. I was going to be late for the panel, and had to go up to Scott's when we returned for my recorder and stuff, so I couldn't just leave alone. Scott kept saying 'We'll be fine!' Guess what? I sat down at Bob Forward's panel at about 12:35.. Fortunately Bob, Eric, and Jameel had saved me a place fairly close to the front. Again I won't do panel details here. Bob F. was very nice, he didn't give away much new story information but talked mainly about the show's characters. He also brought a tape splicing 'soundbites' and memorable scenes of Beast Wars- it had the audience rolling, especially the Megatron part - "Yesss" "Yesss" Excellent, yesss"..... This panel had the reverse problem of the Cullen panel- it was scheduled for only an hour, and EVERYONE had questions since it was current information. Thus the Q & A was cut short with many hands in the air. The autograph line proceeded better for this one, but the quiz show was closely enough scheduled in the same room that the autographs moved out to the lobby. There I met up with M Sipher and Diana Calder (who gave me a stern lashing for not having finished my fanfic Quantum State yet- don't give up hope, Diana, there's 2 new chapters written on my hard drive!) I was happy to see Bob knew who I was once he read my user ID tag "Great! You post information to the AOL boards so I hardly ever have to!" Peter Cullen was also standing around chatting with fans. At that point I decided to skip the quiz show to wander around a bit before the Brits, Simon Furman and Andy Wildman panel at 2:30 (which I would have gone to the convention for if NONE of the other guests had been there!) I looked over the art room, watched a few minutes of Beast Wars in big screen surround sound, guessed the Headmasters episodes I'd contributed would be shown the next day, and headed back into Dealer Room 2, where I'd heard the Playstation BW game was being demoed... Wow! It was an early version with some bugs, but still very neat, especially for someone who plays as FEW games as me, to cruise along blowing things up as Inferno or Rattrap. The multi-player/ Internet play features should be interesting to see. Definitely the neatest TF based game ever made, even at this point. Not sure I'd buy a Playstation just for this game unless I just had a couple hundred $ to blow, but I may put away a W95 copy for the day someday when I have a multi-platform Mac to replace my 4 year old trooper....

I strolled back to the panel room, the quiz show now over and one round DOMINATED by Eric (Ratbat? Shogun Warriors? What kind of questions were those?) with plenty of time for the Furman panel. This time I got NICE and close. Furman and Wildman were not what I had pictured... not that I was disappointed. Those two guys were the coolest throughout the whole weekend, wandering around the dealer room, the hotel, etc. (I only wish someone had told me they were selling original art pages on Sunday!!!! Agh!) Again, watch for the transcript... I decided not to ask any of the really obscure questions I COULD have asked Furman, and instead went for a general question about the end of the G2 series... which seemingly, no one heard the answer to, as the same general question was asked about THREE MORE TIMES!!! Sorry, but.. those people wasted my time AND Furman's! I could have asked about the clone Megatron during that time.... grrr.... Autograph time came again, and this one was a bit of a scramble. Fortunately I was close enough to get an excellent place in line, even way ahead of most of my friends, and I caught up with Doug Dlin and Rob Jung, and met Ben "Wonko" at last! Most people were clutching Furman/Wildman G1 comics for them to sign. People's eyes generally bugged for a moment when I showed my item, UK #187 with a cool Furman story and a great Wildman cover (one of his first, actually) When Wildman looked at it, he just burst out laughing.... But I got to talk to them, take pictures, and got the cover signed Then I waited for some of my other friends to get through, so I could take pictures for them (Good thing I took Marci's, because the picture on Ken's camera... Well, he didn't have any film in it!!) At the end of this panel, the only question left was 'Why is Simon Furman's weakness Gillian Anderson?' Oh well, I'll ask them next year....

After drooling over the exclusive merchandise in others' hands, I finally made my way to the room to buy... Again, I choked a little over the costs (Though I don't feel as bad about that now- read the closing ceremony report) but the stuff was so neat there was never really a choice. I picked up 2 sets of toys (one for a friend at home, you can offer $ for it until he pays me), a CD set (which I only really heard after returning home... wow), and a shirt (I wish they'd been selling posters with the Wildman image...) I couldn't wait to open that box and see the first Furman TF comic in several years.... Meanwhile, Stan Bush, Furman, and Wildman were all milling around the exclusive room....

I took the stuff back to the room. By this time it was 5:30 and we were ready for another wild goose- er, dinner. We followed like lemmings (or hamsters... but I'm not going to mention Crammer again) around town for at least half an hour without finding a SINGLE place to eat. 6 PM on a Saturday night???? What kind of city is this, especially with a couple of colleges located within the downtown area? We ended up back at the hotel restaurant, fortunately the prices were not too outrageous, and had a pretty good time of it. While we were there, Furman and Wildman wandered over to the bar, and we decided buying them drinks would gain us Furmanite points (see the exclusive comic) Charles offered to pay for them, which should have gained Naomiite points A few other conventioners wandered in as we were about to leave, and Marci had to have ONE more picture with Furman and Wildman... Oh well, I'm not judging, they were cool- they even went to the concert later on!

Chaos was beginning to build around the hotel, and I finally discovered that some *ahem* musical group called Wu Tang or To Wing or something was giving a concert, and security and the police were NERVOUS.... By coincidence, Stan Bush and Vince Dicola's concert was pretty much the same time....

The concert came- and it was good. Another thing I had been slightly skeptical about.. After all, what could Stan Bush deliver for that long? But I was pleasantly surprised. The WT concert couldn't be heard through the walls at all, amazingly enough, and the concert room was packed. Jameel, Eric, Cris and I engaged in usual antics... as did plenty of others. My favorite gags were the giant foam hands in the front during The Touch and Jameel's lighter.... Jameel's cheer for one certain song was pretty amusing too... The sound level was PERFECT- I have rarely been at a concert that well mixed- usually I'll go to see a group I like, and I'll leave deaf, not sure if I heard my favorite song or not amid the ringing. Not so at Concert BotCon. It was loud without being irritating, and both performers did admirable jobs. Dicola turned out some amazing finger action on one solo number, and Bush, for all the flipping of music and few words between songs, delivered. I dare anyone who was at the concert to say they went away unhappy or disappointed...

After the concert, chaos in the hotel was high, at the end of the WT concert. Security was on edge, and I didn't feel like playing with them. The con hotel security almost wouldn't let us back in from the Hyatt... I guess they don't know what WT fans look like. Unfortunately, this anality cut into plans for the rescheduled Beast Wars LARP (Live Action Role Playing), and we had to rethink what areas of the hotel we could use and keep relatively quiet. I sadly gave up playing Waspinator to judge and be random objects (Falling Rocks (TM)!) because I was WIPED OUT at that point, and security had dampened my enthusiasm. (I volunteered for Starscream's Spark ,but it wasn't in the prepared plot Crammer was also still available.. Oh, I said I wouldn't mention him again, didn't I?....) Nonetheless it was fun to follow the LARP around... Until about 1 AM, when my body reminded me it hadn't slept much at all since Tuesday and I called it quits for the night. Next time, we need at least TWO LARP sessions- one for a 'orientation' and one to really get into it.

Sunday

Sunday came WAY too soon, but there was no way I was missing the David Kaye/ Venus Terzo panel at 9. I actually felt much more awake than I had on Saturday, probably because of the drive. I staggered out into the elevator with my gear, noting a tall, quiet guy in convention attire who looked very tired and a bit nervous, but didn't get a look at his tag... He went into the Hyatt gift shop and I didn't see him again until David Kaye sat down behind the table at the panel!! I shared the elevator with Megatron, yesss...

I got a good seat again, next to Bob, and waited for the fun to begin... and this panel was FUN! Working together regularly, David and Venus really delivered a great team-panel. (No transcript from this one, but a lot of their comments will be written up in the same place.) You know the panel's going to be good when the first words are from David: "Isn't Blackarachnia hot?" And Venus was a very beautiful lady....

David and Venus really got into the heads of their characters and answered questions about their other voice work. They did their characters, of course, and David impersonated about everyone else on Beast Wars! Rattrap, Tarantulas, Inferno....

We went through the autograph line, and David mentioned his web site where he runs a voice management service.. and most importantly, has email! Pictures were flying aplenty at this one.

Ken, Kevin (still asleep), and I had to be checked out by noon, so I reluctantly skipped the Bush/Dicola panel to pack, after watching one of my Headmasters episodes on the nice, big video system.. ah... Being a musician, I had some questions for those guys, but I didn't have much choice... and as it turned out, things were better that way! While loading the car, Venus and David and the Hasbro guys were standing in the hotel lobby, waiting for a taxi. Fans were talking to them, taking pictures, etc. During the course of things, one of them invited the 10 or so fans hanging around to go to brunch with them... The answer was, of course YES!!!!!

However, disaster almost struck. We took the last load to the car, and when we returned, they had left! (Terrorsaur-like scream!) Fortunately Ken had heard where they were going, the 'Radisson', and I was not about to give up. It turned out the Plaza Hotel, where the restaurant was, was only about 5 minutes' walk away, so we made it. As soon as we walked in I knew it was going to be good... and costly. There was Venus, David, Jerry and George from Hasbro, Susan, Mike, Ivy, Ben, Melissa, Andrew, Jason, Ken, and I, milling about an ENORMOUS buffet... there was a chef who made custom omelets, a huge desert bar, salads, all sorts of meat/rice/potato combinations... and free champagne was included! We had a great time, and became even more impressed with Venus and David- the two actors chatted openly with us about all kinds of stuff and their work. We had to get back to the con for the Hasbro presentation, but... the presentation was with us! So that wasn't really a problem.

Now the cost... Ken had checked, and as I expected the cost per person was about $20- a fact that most of the conners had not even thought about... it was worth it for the novelty, as far as I was concerned. While in line at the buffet, I heard Venus say to one of the Hasbro folks: "It's amazing, these people have no money, but they still just want to be with us..."

Well-

I guess I count it as payback for all the years of service I've given them Or perhaps for the heavy defense campaign I mounted months back when the company bashing reached a high. All I can say is, anyone messes with Hasbro, they mess with me! Spirits were now at a high for the weekend and pro-Hasbro sentiment was high as we prepared to head back to BotCon. We talked still more with Venus and David, who were heading out to find a guitar shop but were coming back to the convention later.

We still had plenty of time to get 3rd row seats for the Hasbro presentation... and now Ken and I had something to really taunt the others with, who were eating some sort of fast food... "Oh, Jameel- guess where we had lunch?" Lunching with the actors got enough of a rise, but the rest of the story... Bob shouted "Hasbro paid for lunch?!?" and Ken smacked him Pretty hard, I think... after all, we didn't want to get killed by the rest of the room. Mark and Marci arrived, and there was more taunting to be done, yesss...

Already prejudiced in favor of Hasbro, the presentation proceeded smoothly. The reps had brought a huge stack of concept art for various G1 projects that had never been made, many of which provoked 'oohs' from the crowd. And despite AS STERN WARNINGS AS YOU CAN GIVE, some slagwit STILL took a picture. *Whap* What's wrong with people? This isn't a speed limit sign in Montana, folks, this is serious- when they say 'Any cameras, and for legal reasons they'll have to pack up and leave,' they're not kidding around- we're lucky they chose to ignore that one or two times.

I'll summarize the designs elsewhere. There was also a Beast Wars table showing the already announced but still unreleased figures for the rest of the year, including Snarl, Retrax, and K-9. This new assortment looks great.

The Hasbro reps performed pretty well with questions, and answered things about reusing old names, tech spec writing, etc., but were pretty tight lipped about the future, other than that there IS a future already planned for the line through 99. There was talk of "Malin exclusives" though They were GOING to talk about the Fuzors, but a chorus of 'We know about the Fuzors' from the crowd (which we DON'T, ball-bearing brains!) made George and Jerry mad enough to not say ANYTHING. There will be some larger, more expensive figures coming out. They revealed a new segment of BW shipping at the end of 97 called 'Transmetals', described as 'turning Beast Wars inside out'. The gasps from the crowd when they showed the fold out display of Transmetal Cheetor bode well for this segment of the line- as does the fact that we had to say "Transmetals...." every 5 minutes on the drive back to Indianapolis...

We filed through the line to look at the concept art (much too quickly, it should have been on 'private display' in the art room or something under guard) and shake hands with Hasbroguys... which some of us at that point were even MORE eager to do after lunch I also finally met Helgi in that line

After that, everyone was REALLY getting tired. I watched a bit more Beast Wars, then wandered into the 3rd round and the final round of the Quiz Show to cheer on Eric... The 3rd round was a joke- one of the non-winning contestants didn't answer a single question. Next time there definitely needs to be some sort of qualifying process, or at least different skill levels. E took second in the final round but took the best (IMO) prize, a set of BW Megas. We wandered out and ran into Bob Forward, who let slip a few details about... Well, I'll get to that later.

We headed upstairs to hang out a bit in Scott's room, eventually a few folks went down to check out the charity autographed toy auction, and I finally went to join them. I arrived just as it was over to see Hex with a pile of prizes! Prices were actually pretty reasonable for the winners, I thought. I ran into Andrew and we decided to hang out for the art contest results and the closing ceremonies. Raksha presented the art contest winners, and I must say there were some great entries, like the 3D Black Arachnia entry. Whew! Kudos also to Sanjay from Hasbro Interactive for arranging the special Beast Wars category- wish I'd known about it for my mural It would be nice if Hasbro proper would take that sort of interest and it would really allay some of the company-fan tensions, I think.

Then came the closing ceremonies, which no one knew anything about... As it turned out it was really interesting. Furman and Wildman sat on the panel again, with a very tired looking Glen, Karl, and Jon, and they answered questions about the convention itself. VERY interesting, especially hearing about the hoops they navigated for the exclusive stuff and the costs of the convention (If you don't read my other posts, know this: They're taking a $ pounding for putting together such a busy convention... If you want to buy exclusive merchandise, PLEASE email them. I don't know how many (but a few) toys were left and CDs and shirts and videos, but contact them before you turn to the scalper aftermarket -you could really help them out this way) And appropriately enough, Furman fielded the final question and put the con to rest.

All that was left were a lot of goodbyes and the LONNNG drive back. Some people were staying in the hotel until the next morning, but we had to have the rental car back in Indy before 6 AM. We staggered up to Scott's room and managed to find most of the friends still around, then headed back down and talked to the convention organizers for a little bit. Go back to sleep, guys!

A slightly shorter drive back ensued... Aided about 8:30 PM with a stop at Mighty Taco! Everything at Mighty Taco was indeed mighty, from the bags to the burritos. Kevin ran back in to get more burritos to take back for the next morning. By 9:40 PM they were GONE. Crammer (dammit, mentioned him again!) made several (dozen) more conversation appearances on the way back, and I stayed awake by trying to explain Furman continuity.

We got back to Indy about 5- the others took the car back to the rental, and I crashed until 9. I headed out of Indy about 10, not stopping except in Kansas City to gamble briefly and go to dinner with a friend there. I got back home, DEAD tired, about 1 AM... And proceeded to suddenly wake up (Why couldn't I have done that on the road at about 12 AM???) I checked in and to my astonishment several of the folks I had just left were already online, posting con reports and hanging out MUSHside. Oh well, I was checking my mail, too Finally crashed about 3 AM. The next day was spent doing laundry and sorting through all the stuff I'd brought back. This concludes the story portion of BotCon. The Maximize/Terrorize and News postings will be up soon, and check out the webpage for the Cullen transcript, pictures, and more as I get it done.