BotCon '98 - Ben "Wonko" Yee

Let's see, a long winded intro or just get into it? Hmmmm...

Friday: The Arrival

I have one great piece of advice for those who travel a lot, keep that cardiovascular system working well! Botcon 1998 began for me as an early morning flight out to Los Angeles from New York City. I woke up at 5am and got my gear together and headed out. After many flights of stairs and trains later, I arrived at the airport around 8am. My flight was leaving at 10am so there wasn't much time to call my fiancee, make sure my ticket was valid and actually find the darn plane I was supposed to be on. I did, and by 10am, the plane was lifting off on schedule.

The ride was okay. It was beautiful to look down at the Grand Canyon from such a height and the food on the plane was great (yes, great). However, I was very relieved once we touched down. I was going to Botcon, yay!

But first, I had to get to my motel. Hmmm...how to do that? I asked a guy at an information booth who calmly said "You see that bus over there that's leaving?" I nodded dumbly. "That's the one you should have been on." he said.

I had to wait a half hour for another.

Once I arrived at the motel, I found that my room was rather nice and would not involve any combat with insects and thanked the Matrix for small favors. My room was rather nice and I plopped down and finally got around to begin relaxing. After a bit o'rest ('bout five minutes worth), I joined Vulcana for a quick trip to help Raksha out with some art contest stuff. Along the way we run into Doug Dlin whose had a cart full of stuff to drag along. So we all went to get into the dealer's room to begin setting stuff up. I wandered over to the table Doug, Tengu and I were sharing and plopped down a pile of BW FAQ's I had printed out and finally got to look around. After poking at one table after another annoying dealers, I wandered onto the stage where the entire year's worth of Beast Wars Transformers toys and some Japanese Beast Wars II toys on display in package (mostly from the Botcon Organizer's own collections with the unreleased stuff by Hasbro). The rest of the area was cleared for Tony Preto's collection which had yet to appear.

Sometime around this point with catching up with fans and chatting, a fan mistook me for Simon Furman (don't ask *how* that happened) and for the rest of the weekend, I must have heard myself referred to as Simon Furman at least another five times. Oddly enough, it was funny each time.

Soon, the time had come to head back to my room and prepare for hanging out with some writers of some Transformers series that appears to be popular right now.

Afterwards, it was time to head off to the kick off party and boy the room was HUGE! It was amazing to see the guests actually mingle with the fans this year unlike last year's party where the fans were all at their assigned tables and the guests were at their own table. Scott McNeil was mobbed, getting to Susan Blu was next to impossible. Controlled chaos ensued.

Boy was it fun!

There was Jon and Karl Hartman. Hey look, Gary Chalk! HooksX by Bob Forward (and hey, HooksX does have a strong grip too). There's Sue Blu, *still* being mobbed! Fans popped up to say hi and it was very much appreciated. Everyone was nice, warm and kind. Then, the Hartmans and Glenn Hallit announced it was time to give out all the pre-registrants their Botcon exclusives. "Oooh...aaaahhh...yayyy!!!" was heard over and over as people received their Vice Grip's and Antaogony's with pleasure. Me, I waited until the hooplah died down since I was pining for autographs and chatting with everyone I could get my hands on. 'course, by the time I realized I was thirsty, they were kicking us out and all the punch had run out (and whatever was in the other container was NOT Iced Tea, yuck!).

More chatting continued the night. Larry DiTillio stood talking to fans into the night. Voice actors dispursed but were each surrounded by their own groupies. Me, I was tired. It was time to go back to the room, call Tabby and dream about the next day. Zzzzzzzzz....

Saturday: WOW!

The day started off fairly early for me. I was totally jet lagged and my body wasn't quite sure what time it was despite staring at my watch constantly. The watch would say 6am, but my mind and body kept insisting it was 9am. The two finally agreed to just get my butt out of bed and go get some breakfast and just stop arguing already.

I got to the dealer's room as people were setting up. Fumihiko Akiyama's table was getting set up and in between the chaos that was his set up, we managed to chat a bit and he showed me some incredible Japanese BW TF drawings. After closing my mouth and wiping off the drool, I wandered away to bug some other dealers. After thoroughly annoying everyone I could, Karl Hartman and I agreed that I should go wait in line outside. I cheerfully left, knowing that when the doors opened a half hour later, the fun would begin.

The line was growing and I managed to snag a place towards the front. Rob Jung and his lovely wife Jade showed up after a while and I motioned them over. We chatted endlessly about one topic or another that made one's TF I.Q. do flip flops. Along the way discussions about beaches and allergic reactions occurred, but soon the line began to move (yay!).

Twenty minutes later I had spent about $400. Oops. Good thing I had some more money, otherwise it was going to be a rough weekend. Realizing I had waaaaayyyyy too much stuff, I shuffled back to my room, deposited everything and ran back to the center just in time for the Bob Forward and Larry DiTillio panel.

Larry and Bob basically set two rules:

1. Everything is a rumor.
2. We are confirming all rumors.

'course, that means that Larry DiTillio is actually dating Michael Jackson *and* Barbara Streisand at once. Scandal!

Seriously, they read off the list of working titles for season three (which were made as ambiguous as possible to avoid wild fan speculation about plotlines) and basically confirmed that Depth Charge would be on the show. They cheerfully answered questions about the production process and Larry DiTillio publicly denounced Quintessons with an err... colorful metaphor. Because of last year's script leaks, they were hesitant to give up too much this year. However, they still answered plenty o' questions and made fans yuck it up.

The nest hour or so was a blur, although I'm almost completely certain I spent some more money and probably ate something. Was that ambiguous enough?

1pm hit and it was time for the Hasbro Presentation by Hasbro neato folk Andy Espenshade and Jennifer Donahoe. Both were supremely nice and managed to take every question from "When are the *real* Transformers coming back?" to "How long does it take to create a Transformer toy?". Their patience was next to inhuman as fans pelted them for the entire hour, mostly with repeat questions.

Yes it's true folks, Animorphs will be marketed as Transformers, but the TF aspect will be downplayed and is merely being used to get TF's more shelf space in sores (something toy companies fight over aggressively). They also hope the appeal of Animorphs will aid in making TF's as much of a brand name as "Xerox" is to copiers with transforming toys. Specifically, their hope is to broaden the TF line itself if possible, *meaning* more TF's set in the TF universe we have come to know and love.

They also mentioned an initiative to launch a collector's web site

featuring seven of their most prominent toy lines including Star Wars and Transformers. Special offers will be made through this site (which will also be available in magazines such as Toyfare). It is slated to open in October. Overall, my feeling from the Hasbro folks is that they are really recognizing the fans as an entity now, one that goes beyond just acting like the stereotypical "Evil Corporate Empire (tm)" and actually listening to fans and addressing their concerns. We've come far in the past few years as a fan community, I hope to see this relationship grow.

With barely enough time to say "Hi!" to the Hasbro reps and yap with the individual who wrote some of the Beast Wars tech specs (yes, he/she was there), the voice actor panel began. There they were, Gary Chalk, Sue Blu, Scott McNeil, Doug Parker and David Kaye lined up. For the next two hours or so, they blew fans away with one of the most incredible panels I have ever seen at *any* convention.

At most conventions, actors do their darndest to distance themselves from their characters. Here, the voice actors jumped in and out of character with the slightest provocation. Hearing Waspinator's voice being done in person has to be one of the most incredible high lights of my TF fandom life. Hearing that the voice actor crew loves fart jokes on set was hilarious (immature, but hilarious). Fans had almost every question from the inevitable "What happens in season 3?" questions to questions about the episode creation process and how to get into voice acting. The voice actors entertained, but they offered some genuine thoughts and advice which I'm sure many fans took away with them feeling great!

Soon however, the panel turned into a request-a-thon with someone asking Scott McNeil to do an argument between his 4 characters (Waspinator, Dinobot, Silverbolt and Rattrap) and Gary Chalk singing as Optimus Primal. When it broke, fans were not eager to let the voice actors go and many were kind enough to hang around and chat with fans.

There was time to eat, shower and change before the script reading at 9pm. Music was to be provided by Vince DiCola (darooollll...), sound effects were provided by Mainframe (pant, pant...) and the voice actors would all be reading an original script by Bob Forward (yippie!). 'course, Bob Forward had told me an ominous thing before the script reading. "Ben, tonight you're going to be shot." it amounted to. This wasn't like a President Lincoln thing tho, nope, this shooting was going to be fun!

The script reading began with a readoff of the first page of a fan script involving the Beast Wars characters in a game of poker. It was hilarious and deserves mucho kudos.

The greatest thing I found about the script was that although there was a story couched in it, it was mostly a humorous piece with references to fandom (Brawn is DEAD!) and collecting terms (pegwarmer) and used all the Beast Wars Botcon exclusive characters including this year's Antagony and Vice Grip. Onyx Primal, oddly enough, was now a Maximal. No one cared though, the script was fun!

Ah yes, the shooting. Well, Megatron found me out. Yes, I was really Wonko the Sane and had leaked information about his whereabouts to Antagony via my web site. For that, I was blown away. David Kaye would mention later on that I was on cue. I thanked the gods for that, I thought he was going to say "Ben, you were waaaayyy off cue! What happened?!".

As would happen for the rest of the weekend, the guests were mobbed. I left with Andrew Frankel, Msipher and Tengu thinking the night was over.

It wasn't, not by a long shot.

Hanging out in the lobby of the Marriott, we found a lot of guests were in the lobby hotel hanging out. We went in and grabbed ourselves a table. Soon we were joined by the Hartmans, Scott McNeil and Doug Parker. The chatting was fun and believe me, Waspinator's voice sounds ten times funnier when it's being done right next to you and you've had a couple drinks. It was neat hearing about something other than just BW though. Scott was particularly concerned about taking out the garbage for his wife once the weekend ended. Ah, life.

Soon both Scott McNeil and Doug Parker decided to take off. The Hartmans were tired and the rest of us were on our way out. Along the way, I wound up alone in the lobby, about to leave when David Kaye came running into the lobby with Glen Hallit, chatting about Disney World. Half my brain said "Ben, you're tired, go back to the room." The other half of me said "Ben, you're a fanboy, go chat with them."

Ten seconds later, I was sitting with Vince DiCola, Andrew Wildman, Simon Furman, Glen Hallit, David Kaye, Rob Tokar and Gary Chalk. We saw a replay of the script reading that Andrew Wildman had taped with his nifty camcorder. I bought David Kaye some chow and Glen a nice big ol' chocolate milk and settled back to chat about PC's versus Macintosh and other such thorny issues. That lasted a while and eventually everyone was *really* tired and went home. Kudos to everyone at the tables who were nice enough to put up with my constant chatting. These folks aren't fake people, they are some of the nicest and real folks you'll get to chat with in your life. They've got families and concerns just like the rest of us and that was somehow comforting for a fanboy to learn.

Yes, I actually went to sleep that night. Around 3am that is.

Sunday: Wind Down

Sunday was the day to come down from the high of the previous two days. Sue Blu had left early in the morning but the other voice actors were around to chat with and hang with. Scott McNeil had a brigade with him and I managed to catch up with him briefly enough to find out he thinks Waspinator being a Transmetal and a jet is a pretty neat idea.

The TF:TM MST3K showing was at 10am and they needed a "Rear room lights" person and I was recruited. Happily, there were many people there for it and Rob Jung and company did a fantastic job. Despite the lack of microphones, they were funny and made one think of the two robots and dude that they based their skits on often. Two thumbs up guys, it was great!

I'm afraid I missed the panels as I spent a lot of the day chatting with fans and hanging out with people I hadn't managed to spend much time with previously. 'course, I *still* didn't get to spend as much time with others as I had hoped. Next year, I've gotta arrange my time better. Apologies to all those who I didn't catch up to.

It was good Sunday was such a "wind down" day 'cause I was exhausted.

Soon enough, I realized I was purchasing souveneirs to take home and the day was pretty much over. Sleep good. Must sleep.

The experience was over. The one word I use now to describe it was "whirlwind". I barely feel like I got to experience a fraction of what I was intending to, whereas at the same time I felt like I had experienced plenty I had not expected.

Kudos to the organizers of this year's con. Thanks to all the friendly fans who I got to chat with. $$ thanks to those dealers who cut me deals. It was a blast and I can barely wait for next year!