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Botcon 2005: Outtsyder's Report Venue: Embassy Suites hotel, Dallas-Frisco Dates: 22nd - 25th September, 2005 Thursday, September 22 I'll condense the details regarding the latter part of my trip. The first half of the flight wasn't too bad, connecting in Salt Lake City. But then there was the four-hour layover before my Dallas flight was scheduled to take off. Making matters worse, a problem with the plane caused the flight to be delayed almost an hour. Once the plane finally took off, made its journey and landed, the next hurdle was getting a shuttle bus that would take me to the Embassy Hotel... preferably in time to meet the rest of my group with BW International, who were likely already waiting for me. As it happened, not only did several other people need to use that same shuttle bus, but I ended up being the third-to-last one in my shuttle to reach my destination, rendering me late to meet with the others by two hours (as planned). I finally made it there, exhausted, frustrated, and overheated from the Texas heat, even in the evening, and finally reached the table where we could pick up our BotCon packages. I ended up getting the 7-toy box set; I haven't really fiddled with the toys yet, but the box is made differently than other TF toy packages; it's made like a lid that you slide off from the top, you can remove the toys from the die-cut foam insert, put the toy back, and slide the lid back on, as if nothing happened. And because I was among the first 100 people to pre-register, I also got the special-exclusive Deathsaurus lapel pin, which is basically the head of BotCon Deathsaurus with the his name engraved on the bottom. After getting my stuff, I lurched about tiredly, trying to find any resemblance to people I may have known from before... preferably Sapphire, Hacker, Miss Special, Dragonsflayme, and Beastbot. I did meet up with a few other old TransFan acquaintances, including Phil (SkyJammer) Zeman, Doug Dlin, and a few other people I remembered from the past voice-acting tryouts. Finally, as I was scoping around a corner were several convention-exclusive souvenirs were being sold (more on that a little later), who should spot me from a line-up near that corner... but Sapphire! As soon as she saw me (and I her), she rushed me for a glomp... and I hoisted her off her feet and spun her around! (No, Sapphire and I are NOT a couple.) Sapph led me back to her spot in the line-up, where Miss Special was saving her spot, and got to meet her, too. Finally, some minutes later, we finally met with Beastbot, and later, Hacker and Dragonflayme made their arrivals. With us altogether as planned, I told them that I still needed to get to the nearby Holiday Inn to check in my reserved room for myself and Hacker (I didn't have time to get there yet, at the time). Once that was done (and having dropped off our stuff), we eventually made it back to the Embassy - with very little food in our stomachs - and went to the first major event of the show: the MSTF show. We showed up about 20 minutes early (and there was no line-up), so we sat on the floor together and while waiting for the doors to open, we listened to something that I brought with me... my audiotaping of the infamous Scott McNeil interview I conducted with him last June! All of us laughed so hard at the audio transcript; not surprisingly, Sapphire especially loved the parts when Rattrap got mentioned. The doors for the MSTF show finally opened, and it finally got underway. Despite some... unusual moments that I didn't particularly care for, the show was still generally pretty good, mocking the four episodes "Prime Target", "Auto-Bop", "The Killing Jar" and "Only Human". We were pretty disappointed that it was all G1 and they didn't MST any BW episodes (especially Sapph, Haxx and Spesh, given they're primarily BW fans), but it was still a pretty good show. I even prepped Haxx and Sapph for Optimus Prime's infamous line in "Prime Target"; despite not knowing much about G1, they LOVED that line! (Incidentally, Prime's infamous line in that episode was, "Amazing... a booby trap that actually catches boobies.") Other bits enhanced the show further, such as the "bumpers" between each of the MSTF "episodes", making jokes on completely speculatively fictitious actors to be cast in the new TF movie. Mentions included Sean Connery as Optimus Prime, Gilbert Godffried (sp?) as Megatron (I was like, "What?!?!"), Gary Coleman as Wheelie, and Adam Sandler as Skywarp (describing both, paraphrasingly, as "unfunny pranksters who show up everywhere all the time"). The one that got the most cheers was "Pat Lee... as Swindle." (For those of you who don't know, Pat Lee was the owner and president of the defunct comic company Dreamwave... and at the time of the company's folding, a lot of their employees are STILL owed money today.) Among the mostly sleepless day (for almost all of us in the group), it was still quite a lot of fun hanging out with friends who live far away, and meeting them for the first time, or in some cases a couple other times before. There was also a small display of the additional exclusive souvenir toys also sold at BotCon; as expected, a 2-pack included the expected Ratchet, the white repaint of Energon Tow-Line. This 2-pack also included one of the already-expected repaint of the Energon Arcee toy, an Autobot Femme named Flare-Up. Also, the eighth toy was was given to fans who ordered the Primus Package was another repainted Arcee; a Tripredacus Agent named Flamewar. And another exclusive 2-pack featured repainted Buzzclaws, as "Virulent Clone" Insecticons. We returned to the Embassy's main desk to have a shuttle transport us back to the Holiday Inn, but completely unexpectedly arrived more people to the Embassy's lobby... voice actors Michael, Brian and Paul Dobson! As soon as I saw them, I called out the first one I could see (who was Brian, whom I met at Anime Evolution), and he and Michael started chatting it up with me (Paul was somewhere else at that time). And while I was talking with Michael and Brian, I introduced them to Haxx, Sapph, Dragonsflayme, Special and Beastbot, telling the Dobsons they were with BW Int. Then came the hilarious part. Because I was talking with the Dobsons so casually, Sapphire must have thought they were members of another TF fanboard, and asked them which communitythey go to. I slickly cut in, going, "Psssst... Sapph... they're voice actors!" That initial shock out of the way, we talked for a little while longer before we had to split up, and get back to our rooms... but not without someone in our group asking me, "How many voice actors do you KNOW?!" We finally got back to the Holiday Inn and crashed, hoping to have some semblance of energy for the following day.
Friday, September 23
The next panel was the first (of two scheduled appearances) by IDW Comics, but most of us in our group needed a break, both for food and for Sapph and Spesh to head to the nearby Kinko's to pick up some shiny new BW Int business cards. Beastbot stuck around to check out the IDW panel, and this would be my only break before the first round of the Voice Acting Tryouts began at 1pm. The main judges were BotCon staff members Alvarez along with Peter Sinclair, and 30-year voice director Wally Burr! Somehow, not too many people tried out this year, but with me basically "defending my title" from last year, I just HAD to. And as a joke... I brought with me a hand-made replica of the old then-WWF World Title belt, to symbolize me making my "title defense". I went second out of the auditioning people, completely improvising, starting off with Dinobot (borrowing Dinobot's lines in the first BW episode, I voiced Dinobot criticizing Megatron for "bringing us to the wrong convention", and refusing to "stop and ask for directions like I demanded?!"). Next, I did Rattrap and Waspinator arguing, borrowing from Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck's exchange of "would you like to shoot me now, or wait till ya get home?". I added in a discussion between the characters Maxwell Smart and Siegfried from the classic '60s spy parody series "Get Smart", and finished it off with Gollum (again). After more people tried out (including Sapphire, as I first suggested to her before), we would have to wait until a little over an hour, before the names of the finalists would be announced in the Dealer Room (which was about to open for the first time at 2pm). We eventually got to the Dealer Room, marvelling at the giant G1 Optimus Prime statue at the entrance, checking out the wares of the tables, and in my case, meeting up with some more old acquaintances, including Cory K from online store Decepticon-Matrix.com. I also got to talk with Benson Yee for the first time, and Sapphire was getting a LOT of tips from Ben in TF toy buying, with this being her first BotCon ever. Also, there's a likely chance that BW Int will be getting plugged over at BWTF.com, too! Sapph made out like a bandit, picking up Transmetal and Dragon Megatron (both boxed, though previously opened), an autographed print of Tarantulas signed by voice-actor Alec Willows, and an original Rattrap. So far, I've only bought a "Me Grimlock Kick Butt" T-shirt, but I might decide to buy a BotCon 2002 Cyclonus later this weekend. Also in the Dealer Room were the Dobsons, Burr, and Michael Chain, the VA for Hoist, Powerglide, Skids and Red Alert in G1. While getting my G1 Season 1 Part 2 DVD set signed by Chain , he told me that he already had the S1 Part 1 set, and while he didn't have any copies of his CDs with him, he told me that he's also busy working on a fourth CD at the moment. I also got autographs from the Dobsons, and introducing Hacker to Paul (who played the adult Enzo Matrix in ReBoot, Season 3 onward), and we talked about how I got Haxx into the show. This prompted Paul to say in Matrix's voice, "This is not Mainframe. This will never be Mainframe. And what IS it with you and bikes?!" And I also snuck in a photo snap, which Haxx took... of myself and the Dobsons all fighting for my "coveted belt", as Brian had dubbed it! They eventually got around to announcing the 10 finalists (5 male, 5 female) for the Saturday morning audition for the script-reading show Saturday night. And imagine my delight that both myself *and* Sapph made the Finals! There may be some other bits in here that I forgot (for now), but right now, we need to go get some dinner (somehow), and head off to the Casino Night tonight. Once more stuff comes up, I'll try to update it however way I can. [pauses, then unpauses...]
We went off to TGI Friday's for dinner after most of the Friday panels were done (most of the afternoon was devoted to the Dealer Room's Private Preview (basically an "early bird" for Primus Package holders and Mini-Con Package holders into the Dealer Room) and autograph sessions with the present voice actors. While engaging in some silliness and some Beast Wars discussions during our dinner, we went back to the Embassy to check out the Casino Night & Charity Auction. We showed up fairly late; the Casino Night started at 7pm and we showed up around 8:30. We got our Gaming Credit vouchers to get our gambling chips (one thousand imaginary credit dollars worth), and we were set. Well, except for just one thing... none of us ever gambled before. Okay, make that two things... none of us knew how to play any of the gambling games, either. We did bump into Ben Yee several times, and he was able to help us out with what to do with the gaming credits, and we saw the only thing that any of us would have any knowledge how to play.... the one-armed bandits. So we got our tokens and started playing, some of us with better luck than others. While we were playing, we bumped into Brian Dobson, who hung out with us for a LOT longer than I expected him to; I'm guessing it may be partly because he knew who I was. Brian started chatting it up with all of us, including Sapphire; I didn't get too many details of their discussion (with all the bustle buzzing around), but I'm sure Sapphire's report may give more details about it than I could. (After all, she was there. ) While we were all still talking, we all exchanged e-mail addresses with Brian, and gave him a business card for BWInt, and even had a few photo shots with all of us together. And in the midst of that, Brian and I broke into a two-man rendition of Michael Jackson's "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'". Don't ask. It was hysterical. Well, after our attempts at the one-armed bandits, the four of us were about to cash in; together, the four of us had a grand total of $3000 (imaginary) left, down from the total of $4000 we collectively started with. Not a good sign. Whatever credits we had would be used for bidding on items for the Charity auction. But with a total of $3000 among us, there were very few items that would be within our reach. We did take a peek at what they had up for bidding, and the one major item that got my Bwint buddies attention was an unopened Transmetal Rhinox, which would be the BWInt toy mascot if we could win it. We took our seats when it was about time to start, and waited for the bidding to begin. While we were waiting, we saw the other guests were milling about, on their way out of the room, and I fired off a wave to Brian and Paul Dobson (I think Michael, too). But when Paul detected us, I saw him trying to tell us "I'll be back" as he was stepping. He came back a few minutes later, and to my first surprise, he came by me and Haxx (the five of us, including Beastbot, had met some other fans who also hung with us during the convention from time to time, and Haxx and I were the nearest to him). He came to me and Haxx, and he asked, "You guys havin' a good time?" We were like, "Oh, yeah!" He also asked us how much we won, and I told him our poor luck story. Paul then handed me his auction card with the number of credits he gained from his playing the gambling tables. Then tapped my shoulder. Then said, "Happy birthday" (even though it wasn't really my birthday). I gawked at the number of imaginary dollars on the card, and I choked, sounding like Gollum again. $68,000. Let me repeat that number one more time. $68,000. Oh, yeah. The BWInt-&-Hangar Alliance was in business. With my card alone, our group was able to snag the blue version of the BinalTech Prowl (which I *think* Beastbot seemed to want just a *little* bit ), and still won the Transmetal Rhinox, with $1000 of credits left on the card. With not much left that we really wanted (and also being quite tired), we finally got back to the Holiday Inn to crash for the night. It was especially important for me and Sapphire, because we both had to audition in the Finals of the voice acting tryouts Saturday morning, and we could NOT be late. -------------------------------------- Saturday, September 24: Far more awake this time than the last, we got up early enough for me and Sapph to get in one or two last-minute preps for our tryout; I would be trying out for Ricochet, and Sapph would audition for Flamewar. We got a shuttle to get us to the Embassy with about 15 minutes to spare; audition finals would start at 9am. We got a copy of the script to have a look-over, and the judges would pair us up into random pairs of the opposite sex, since some part of the show would include a scene with Ricochet interrogating Flamewar. I was hoping to get partnered with Sapphire (I'd love to work with her if it were possible), but no such luck. We finally all got through, and when we were all called up, it turned out that Sapph and I... didn't win. I think I visibly muttered a "damn" when my name wasn't announced (just about everybody was good; the male winner was the other guy who won in 2003), but eh... I did what I could despite losing the title this year. But be warned, everyone; if I can afford to go to BotCon next year... "I will be... avenged...!" With the tryouts done, we checked around the dealer room a bit more, looking for more stuff, and further promoting the BWInt board with Sapph & Spesh's business cards. I also saw a complete G1 Megatron at one of the dealer tables while we were scoping around... and I just couldn't resist it. I "borrowed" the G1 Megatron from the dealer (yes, I asked), and got a shot each of Haxx and Sapph posing with the gun-mode Megatron! I also gave Haxx some G1 and pre-G1 education (things like the Headmaster era, the Diaclone ancestors to the TFs, and the old marketing rivalry between Hasbro and Tonka pitting Transformers and GoBots. Next up was the Hasbro Product panel, which we just HAD to see. And it's looking more diverse than we expected. More Cybertron toys are coming up, including some repaints, and the line is expected to continue until winter of 2006. The toys for the Giant Planet are due out next year, and three vehicles have been announced and revealed so far. Metroplex you already know about. Two others will include Quickmix (a cement truck) and Menasor (I forget, but I *think* he was a digger truck. I'll probably correct myself later). Each of them will have Minicon ports to attach new Minicons, just like Armada, and more new Minicons are on the way, too. Some of the cooler repaints include Galvatron. As usual, he's a repaint of Megatron... but this repaint is so damn cool, I just might go ahead and buy him. He's almost entirely silver and black. Another repaint was a black-&-grey redeco of Leobreaker, named Nemesis Breaker, as well as a redeco (and slight remold) of Crumplezone to "look more stealthy". They also showed the new Soundwave, and he looks even cooler in person than from pics. His bird-drone partner will in fact be called Laserbeak, though I didn't get to ask about the objects to be stored inside his chest compartment (I think they said they were some kinds of weapons before). Also notable in the Cybertron line is that, despite the destruction of Unicron, Hasbro rep Aaron Archer noted that "you can't have good without evil," meaning that Unicron is planned to make a comeback... in compact form. VERY compact form. He'll be reduced in size to a Deluxe-sized flat-bodied tank with front-end pincers. Don't be too afraid; the picture of the prototype still makes him look good.
They also revealed that it's official: There WILL be Star Wars Transformers. And get this... they don't suck. Hasbro announced that these toys aren't part of either of the Star Wars or Transformers continuities, but it's more of a play-value thing from the concepts that some of the more memorable Star Wars vehicles could transform into a "robot" resembling its famous pilot. The slide show presentation showcased an X-Wing transforming into Luke Skywalker, and the Slave-1 transforming into Boba Fett (yes, Boba-Former actually looks pretty good!). They showed more models in the Hasbro display booth in the Dealer Room later, which included Darth Vader and - believe it or not - General Grevious! Hasbro also announced the future release of TF Attacktix figurines (just like the Star Wars ones), and the way they're designed, they can interact with the SW Attacktix figures, meaning that you can even try mock battles between Optimus Prime and Darth Vader! They also revealed some small die-cast non-transforming limited-poseability figurines (I think it was from a company called Titanium?); among the first ones revealed were Unicron, Starscream, and War Within Optimus Prime! Now came the one that a bunch of us were waiting for. YES, Virginia. There WILL be a Beast Wars 10th Anniversary toy line. They've announced the assortment of the first two waves, three Deluxes in each, and all of them will be repainted to more accurately resemble their animated designs. The first wave will feature Rhinox, Cheetor and Waspinator. Wave 2 will include Tarantulas, Dinobot, and Transmetal Rattrap. Each of the six will include a piece of another figure, and when you get all six, the result of piecing together everything will be... (drum roll) TRANSMUTATE. They've also announced that two more figures (one Ultra, one Deluxe) are scheduled for release, not as repaints, but as completely new molds. The Deluxe one will be a new Optimus Primal, looking amazingly detailed. And the Ultra-Sized one is a completely new and freakishly monstrous re-designed body of... the Predacons' T-Rex himself. Yeeessssss.
We got to break for lunch at the nearby Stonebriar Mall's food court, and spent a little time checking out the stores. Sapph & Spesh decided to briefly split with me and Haxx, and we FINALLY began our search for the Milk Carton. At current time, we still have yet to find one. We made it back to the Embassy to catch the last few minutes of the TF Collector Club Panel. Beastbot was there already along with Dragonsflayme, and we found out that next year's BotCon will most likely happen in mid-October. (Hooo, boy....) Right after was the panel of "The Making Of The TF Animated Movie", where they showed a lot of tidbits involving storyboards, the changes between the original screenplay and the final cut. One example was the new Autobot cassettes; the reason the original screenplay had listed Blaster's cassettes as Cubbie (a lion), Stripes (a tiger), Stinger (a scorpion) and Bolts (a robot) was that they were placeholders. The Autobot cassettes were not finalized at that time. They also talked about the the design evolution of the Autobot Matrix, from a plain old green crystal (it can be seen in the Marvel Comics adaptation of the movie's original script) to a metal casing with handles and no openings, to the design we all know today. They also brought up the thing about Snarl's disappearances and re-appearances in the movie, and an early test-footage clip showing Ultra Magnus in his Diaclone colors, a completely more gun-loaded Autobot City with more platforms and cannons, and an "animatic" using storyboards of the Ultra Magnus-Galvatron-Sweeps scene on Junkion with the soundtrack of the movie, showing how the original plan - Ultra Magnus being quartered instead of shot - would have worked. The y showed several video clips including the rarely-seen music video "The Touch"; it's okay despite the exaggerated potshots some fans take at it. Basically, it's various scenes of TF:TM collaged together, with occasional appearances by Stan Bush on guitar disappearing and re-appearing every so often. Nothing really to write home about, but nowhere near as bad as some would say. A little bit more wandering about the dealer room, and we eventually returned to our Holiday Inn rooms, preparing for the Awards Dinner that night. I was still a little disappointed that Sapph and I wouldn't be performing that night, but eh, maybe we'll get a better chance next year. We finally got together again and returned to the Embassy; we saw the line-up waiting outside the door and thought, "Hooo, boy, this is gonna suck." Fear not, however, as Dragonsflayme was already in the line, and called us over to join her, much closer to the front! The doors finally opened, and Haxx, Sapph, Spesh, Dragonsflayme, her dad, Beastbot, his dad, and myself seated ourselves as the crowd filed in; another couple sat with us in the last two spots at our table. In the middle of our table was a gift-wrapped box in red paper and purple ribbon (natch). It was about the size of an Alternators box, so I figured that was the most likely candidate. Dinner was served, and better than expected; it started with a salad, followed by the main course of beef, rice and veggies (one of the people who also tried out for the script reading had said he heard the menu would include "salad and a beef product"). This led to me telling stories about the Mr. Bean sketch where he orders a Steak Tartare in a fancy restaurant, or how a store brand version of Cool Whip in my area (since they can't use "Cool Whip" due to trademark issues) was referred to as an "edible oil product". o_O We also had strawberry cheesecake for dessert. Our drinks were already on the table, a glass of ice water and a glass of unsweetened iced tea... which I sweetened with about 10 packets of sugar. And one slice of lemon.
One more "commercial" later - for Maccaddam's Oil House - and the last act was a performance of "Transformers: The Movie - Rebooted". Basically, it was a retold version of the major battle scene, starting with "Fish are jumpin' today, huh, Dan-o?" and ending before Optimus Prime even got a chance to appear. The various actors (and tryout winners) seemed to be all over the place, though mostly still sounding pretty good... but the funniest parts were when some of the Dobsons seemed to lose their place in the show, and their improvised cover jobs made it even funnier! They finally wrapped up the show with a vocal performance by "Three Dobson Night" (a take-off on the old classic rock group Three Dog Night). Accompanied by a keyboardist (not Vince DiCola, dangit), they sang - I slag you not - "Knockin' On Primus' Door"! And one last improvised bit was the Dobsons singing a parody of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", with the first verse going.... "In the planet, the Jungle Planet; The Beasties Sleep Toniiiiiight..." It finally ended when Paul chuckled dryly, and trailed off, "Heh-heh-heeeeeeeehIneedadrink...." After the show was over and the awards were given out for the art and costume contests, we got a chance to meet with the voice actors and Ben Yee for some more talks and photo-ops - Brian and I reprised our "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" duet for Paul - and eventually made our way back to the Holiday Inn. Some more stuff was going to happen Sunday, even though we had gotten through most of the good stuff in the previous days. There's just one problem on my part... I still haven't bought anything from the dealer room yet! O_O ------------------------ Sunday, September 25
We gradually got our stuff packed up and checked out of the Holiday Inn, and got to mooch off of Dragonsflayme's room at the Embassy to store our stuff before BotCon closed in the afternoon. We then scattered out a bit in pairs, checking things out as we felt on the convention premises. Haxx and I finally shipped home our BotCon exclusive sets through the Mailboxes, Etc. service provided there, and continued to check out the dealer room, hoping to actually BUY something for myself while telling Haxx some of the history of the Transformers as we looked around (from their Diaclone-&-Microman ancestry to the rivalry with Tonka's GoBots, and so on and so forth). I had found a large set of Japanese BW trading cards which Haxx bought pretty promptly (why not; they were pretty damn cool), and around this same table, something funny came up. A BotCon goer whom I remembered from past BotCons - his real name is Frank, and he's tried out in the BotCon/OTFCC VA auditions before without winning, despite being really good - was (I'm guessing) a part-time helper for this dealer table, and a sign they had put up on their table was reading something like, "Tell Off Frank For A Buck." Yes, he was in on it; he offered me a chance, as a matter of fact! He even offered me a "reduced price" or either 25 cents for 30 seconds, or 50 cents for a full minute, just to rant or bitch or jabber on about whatever at ol' Frank. Well, I've never had anything bad to say about Frank... but I just couldn't resist playing this game. I lent Haxx my watch to time me, and brought out two quarters. I dropped the first quarter into Frank's hand, and said, "The moment I drop the second quarter, my time starts." I released the second quarter. The second quarter fell. The second quarter landed on Frank's hand. The time immediately began. "Ashka boonya mah danyalla laheyshki zulashki dansh kresholo mopecky zeta orinshak reft yulee seemanu feskhkerili trundorfrex ko yattazull manoskree!" Or something to that effect. Picture me going on like that, completely randomly, for a full minute. The dealer even caught me on camera, and I got into it so much, that I didn't notice a BotCon security guard was coming around to see just what the slag was going on! I kept on ranting in this nonsensical language, and every so often, Frank would go, "uh-huh... Yep... I agree, mm-hm... oh, yeah... oh, definitely", or something like that. I finally wrapped it up by making my voice growl a bit more, close to BW Dinobot, and finished it off in Dinobot's voice with "Till All Are Onnnnnnne...." After a few seconds to breathe, I followed up with, "The rough English translation would be, "Ya put de lime in de coconut, 'n' drink it all down." In the remaining hours of the late morning and early afternoon, we were able to pick up a few items before the start of the 2-hour Hasbro panel at noon; I had finally snagged a BotCon 2002 exclusive Cyclonus (the repaint of Ultra-sized BMac Jetstorm; ohhh, yeeeeessssss ). This next panel at noon would focus on Hasbro's designing aspect of the TF toys and developing of a story for each series that comes out. The Powerpoint presentation discussed the differences among terminology like "redeco", "retool", "new tool", etc. The show even included a scan of the very piece of processed tree carcass, on which were written the first ink-stroked notes that started the idea for Transformers Cybertron... literally, they were scribbles on a Taco Bell napkin. The presentation also revealed that some early designs get reworked many, many times before reaching a satisfactory finish, while a few others retain their basic selves throughout their development. Some ideas may even be trimmed back or cut short, depending on what feels right. Initially, the themes for the planets meant to be featured in TF Cybertron were Cybertron, Earth, the Speed Planet, the Jungle Planet, the forthcoming Giant Planet, Planet X (the origins of Sideways and Soundwave), and an Apocalypse Planet; this last planet would feature all-military Transformers, but the idea was finally dropped to avoid excess. I had asked a question if there were any chance that Hasbro might consider licensing or commissioning an animated special for Beast Wars' 10th Anniversary next year. There were no plans in the works, although they said it would be a nice idea. Even if Hasbro could give the okay right now, though, the TV networks are not even thinking about the 2006 TV schedules (at least for kid-oriented programming) at the moment. The rest of the remaining second hours was mostly an open Q&A, so Haxx and I headed out to the Dealer room again, ended up crossing paths with Sapph, Spesh, Dragonsflayme and Beastbot at various times. Dragonsflayme got a chance to scribble up some art for the last scheduled autograph session with the Dobsons; one of them wanted to keep it and frame it at his home. While the atmosphere of the place was still running well, there was a problem; some jerk (I don't know who) had stolen Brian's camera. Amazing how such a ridiculous act can mess up someone's first BotCon appearance. However, we were able to come up with a way to make up for it, even if it didn't bring the camera back; once we all got settled after BotCon, we were going to try to e-mail Brian some of our BotCon pics, so he won't be forced to rely on just his personal memories to recall the event! Later on, I got to pick up a few REALLY little things (I got a "Chro", the blue repaint of the Beast Machines Deployer named Rav; and finally, Finally, FINALLY got Predaking's missing fist!), and then Haxx and I made our way to the panel room for the final panel of the convention, which was Wally Burr and Michael Chain. But before we went in, Beastbot caught up with us, and let us know that Hasbro is planning a brief filler toy series between the end of Cybertron (winter 2006) and the new movie launch (summer 2007), though it's not close to set in stone. The plan would incorporate the realism of Alternators and the playability of Cybertron. I never got to see the pics, but the two that they mentioned were Starscream - still an F-15, but highly detailed - and Megatron... which will be a gun. The description was the weapon from the movie "Judge Dredd", with a fat scope on top. The crowd was pretty small this time (they probably had more in their first scheduled time block on Saturday), and someone's attempted to ask the "drive-thru TF voices" thing again didn't get much of a reaction from the scattered audience. But it was still a good panel, getting more information on voice acting and studio work in general, and hearing a small number of stories from the G1 studios. They also noted that, not only in just voice acting, but acting in general, it's VERY likely that an actor cast as a certain ethnicity may not even be of that ancestry (happens in pro wrestling a lot). I got to ask Michael Chain to choose any of his characters' voices, and remaining in character, answering the question, "You have a hammer, a ferret and a roulette wheel. What are your plans for the evening?" I forget what Chain said for the hammer and the roulette wheel, but he did say this about the ferret: "As long as there are no cameras around...!" The show was about to close off soon, with the drawing of the two Grand Prize winners for a free almost-all-expense-paid trip for next year's BotCon (the travel fare is only valid within the 48 states), and I got to bump into Ben Yee again and got some interesting pointers. Yee said that he did want to get Scott McNeil this year, but he definitely wants to try to get David Kaye, Garry Chalk and Scott McNeil all for next year. He also told me he's been wanting to get some other names like Richard (Rhinox) Newman and Pauline (Airrazor) Newstone. But it's not always easy to get a complete and certain commitment from the actors to do it, especially if they're constantly having gigs, and they need to make sure their schedules are open at that time, lest they want to lose their jobs. And I am NOT kidding about this; Yee even said that one VA he really wanted to bring out this year was in fact... Venus Terzo. Finally, when the convention was closing up, we all headed to Dragonsflayme's room to gather our stuff and make sure we had a ride ready to get most of us to the airport in time. With a large timeslot available between the moment we called our ride and the time we all had to leave, something had come to my mind. Throughout the whole time at BotCon, we never got the chance to start that infamous Scott McNeil Milk Carton project. But I had a plan that could still sort of involve Scotty at the convention, even if he couldn't be there in person. All it took was borrowing Dragonsflayme's cell phone... and getting out my pre-paid calling card... and eventually punching in the number. You're reading that right. I called Scott McNeil right at the end of BotCon. I prompted him a little bit that I was in Texas, and some other fans were with me, so I passed the phone around to everyone there, giving all of us a chance to talk to Scott. I think it went over pretty darn well. Unfortunately, such incredible moments can't last forever, even if it runs for a few days, so we got word that our ride had arrived, so we scrambled back downstairs and - after a short panic about losing my camera, but we found it just around the time the convention was unpacking - we said our tearful goodbyes, and made our ways home. Now if only I could find a way to make it next year, too....
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