BotCon 2004 Report...or Rather, What Princess Artemis Did in Pasadena

A caveat: my memory isn’t as good as it could be, so some details may be in the wrong spots. But everything I said happened happened. It’s probably just all in the wrong order :)

Since I live only an hour and a half away from Pasadena without traffic, my mother and I drove up to BotCon on Saturday morning. We arrived at roughly 10:30, and since I had an entry for the art contest, I took it there first, after playing a little cell phone tag with Rusty, Kevona, and Atom Bomb. While my mom paid for her two day pass, I noticed a guy dressed as Alternator Smokescreen trying to get down the stairs, and he asked if we knew where any elevators were. Unfortunately, I didn’t at the time know the best way to get around. Once I get my photos developed, I’ll post a picture of my art contest entry, but here’s a short description: Skydive, Perceptor, and Jazz are sitting on a beach, with Skydive happily talking, Perceptor lounging and feeding a teeny loaf of bread to a bunch of birds that had taken up residence on him, and Jazz, resplendent in the second largest Aloha shirt in the world and a large lei, is leaning against a Maui palm tree with an energon Mai Tai (complete with full-sized umbrella and a whole pineapple wedged on the side). The title is "Pearl Harbor is much better than Myna birds and Mai Tais!"

That done, it was time to attend Dan Gilvezan’s panel. He’s the VA for Bumblebee. He was wearing a Bumblebee T-shirt. Atom Bomb sat with my mom and me to listen to him. He’s quite funny and entertaining, but his sense of humor is definitely on the slightly cruder side. His preface before he started talking was to warn people asking questions not to ask him what heppened in episode 2.somethingorother, because he wouldn't be able to answer. He had a lot of stories to tell about grueling VA sessions for Transformers, about how he got the job VAing Spider-Man and the attendant confusion when he thought he lost the job only to find he still had it. He mentioned that he would like Alternator Bumblebee to be a Mini, since Volkswagen won’t release the rights to the new Beetle. He also said that he would love to VA in the live action movie and he thought that everyone still around would probably feel the same. He answered lots of questions in an entertaining fashion, and he invited a die-hard Bumblebee fan up to the stage area with him when she asked a question, giving her a hug. He said that he did feel slighted with how the characters who started the show started getting pushed back in favor of new characters, but if I recall, he understood why. He said once he had been dipped in gold, it was all over for him. He was asked about Wheelie and how his role was similar to Bumblebee’s, since he had previously mentioned that Spike was mainly there to be a link to us and that Bumblebee provided the next link to the much larger Autobots. Dan said that whenever Wheelie was on, to turn off the TV or press the mute button. I got the impression that might have been because he felt like it was his job as Bumblebee to be the link to the kids and didn’t like that Wheelie had taken his job. I might be wrong about that, but he didn’t seem all that impressed with the rhyming minibot. He reiterated for fans that already knew this (I wasn’t one of them) that Michael Bell was difficult to work with because he was spending so much time making everyone laugh. He also told us how the VA for Seaspray got his voice to do what it did—by talking while flapping his lips with his finger! I don’t know how true that was, but it was funny.

Dan had nothing but nice things to say about Chris Latta and Scatman Crothers, although he did mention that Chris sweated a lot and it was kinda hard to act in the same room with him (they had a very small booth to do their voice acting in) because Chris gestured a lot. He told us that Scatman Crothers would often play his guitar and scat at the studio and Dan thought it was great working with him because he felt like he should have to pay to work with such people. He said the same about Frank Welker, just because of Welker’s sheer talent.

Generally my mom was good humored about it since she had no idea about anything Transformers, and she mentioned a few times that she felt like she was the wrong generation for this. I refrained from asking her if she was G2, since that would have just confused her more.

After Dan’s panel, we went out to the dealer’s room to get tickets for autographs. They were $5 a pop, but in the end, they were well worth it. (On a side note, I think they mixed up the colors for the tickets: Dan’s were blue while Michael McConnohie’s were yellow—I thought that should be the other way around.) Smokescreen and Frenzy (of the FIRRIB train of thought) were posing for pictures in the room, so I took a few. I spotted a Blackarachnia every now and again, but I didn’t get any pictures of her. There was also a lady dressed in what I hear was RiD TAI; both my mom and myself thought she looked like a pink Officer Jenny from Pokémon. But hoooy, she was wearing some deadly looking heels!

Since I had to be in a wheelchair for BotCon, I got to slip in near the front of the autograph line. I had Dan sign my BotCon program, and he personalized it with "For Sara—Best Wishes". My mom took a picture. After that, I believe that’s when I met up with Kevona. I kinda knew it was her because she clearly knew it was me (probably because I told people to look for the girl with the wheels). We talked for a bit while Atom Bomb went and got an autograph from Dan. After a bit more phone-tag, I met up with Rusty and Dragonchickie, and after hanging out with them and a guy named Fort Max and another named Thor (they had met Kev and company the day before from what I gather, because Kevona introduced me to Fort Max because they had discussed favorite fanfic authors and he mentioned me and "Why The Ark Has No Doors"). After a bit of gabbing and meeting T.L. Arens and Jayd Hunter (who is a wonderful artist), I told them that I was on a mission to acquire Predaking. T.L. Arens informed me I was required to buy a T-shirt that wasn’t the BotCon shirt (the shirt and program had a drawing of a giant femme which they had dubbed Unicronia; mother was extremely confused as to what mechs and femmes were, but we explained it enough that I think she understands now). Dragonchickie showed me the way to several Predakings in the dealer room. One guy wanted $300 for an almost complete Predaking, but he was missing two hands and a foot...and he was talking about how much the hands and feet would cost, so I told him I’d have to think about it and proceeded to hunt down more Predakings. I ended up finding one that was complete except for two swords. The dealer was asking $300, but was willing to sell for $285. Sold to PA! Then I went and bought Reprolabels for all five Predacons, because I noticed that several needed some work on their stickers.

Lunch was had with Atom Bomb and Dragonchickie at a sushi restaurant. It must be noted that it took my mom and myself several mad dashes around the convention center and hotel to find the best way to get from Point A to Point B, with each successive trip being shorter until Sunday when we found handicapped parking right outside the part of the center where the art room, panel room, and autograph room were located. Lunch was good and I enjoyed spending time talking to Dragonchickie and Atom Bomb.

We went back to the convention center to get Michael McConnohie’s autograph. Atom Bomb slipped in with us as I used my secret disabled person powers to cut into the line again. Wally Burr and Michael were signing at the same time, and my mom missed getting pictures. However, I managed to get Wally’s autograph without paying for it because I wasn’t entirely sure which guy was which and accidentally handed my program to Wally first. Both personalized the autographs; Wally wrote "To Sara" and Michael wrote "Sara—All my best" after joking a bit about the quality of the picture in the program.

After that, more gabbing with Cellmates and Hangerites and various other persons ensued; I met a guy named Fred...I don’t know if he’s online or not, but he was a nice guy.

We went back to our hotel room for a bit after making sure my mom could come in with me to the preregistrant-only Peter Cullen panel (since she’s my wheelchair driver). BotCon organizers assured us it would be fine.

Everyone met up in the temporary Cell property commandeered near the panel room at about 5:30 so we could get good seats for Peter Cullen’s panel. Then we were let in; most of the Cellmates went to one side of the room while Atom Bomb, my mom, and me stayed on the easy access to outside side, just in case I needed a quick escape.

When Peter Cullen arrived, he got a decently long standing ovation from all the fans. He looked genuinely blown away at his reception; I got the impression that he had no idea how many people liked him! Dan Gilvezan had mentioned that Cullen was short, but it didn’t really look like it until someone stood next to him. Yes, the voice of Optimus Prime comes from a pretty short, mild looking guy! He thanked all of us for the welcome, and told us quite a few anecdotes and stories about himself and his work. He was entertaining and funny too, but his humor was less sharp and off-color than Dan’s. I wish I could remember more of what he said. He told us about working with Chris Latta, backing up Dan’s point that he sweated a lot. He also told us that sometimes he had throat trouble and spit up blood on occasion. Apparently Wally Burr is quite the perfectionist and it resulted in tired voices all around, especially for those who had to deepen their voices for their characters. Peter told us he would sometimes purposefully give other employers heart attacks by coming to work talking in a very strained, worn out voice, mentioning that he’d had a hard session on Transformers the day before. He drew out the strained voice deal, until he revealed that the right side of his throat was really sore, in a strained voice, but in a perfectly strong voice said that the left side was fine! He told us about a discussion he had with Wally Burr after learning about Optimus Prime and he decided that Optimus Prime would never yell. He was quite adamant about the point, and Burr agreed with him. Peter thought a good leader should be in control of themselves, be strong and iron willed, but also compassionate at the same time. He said he based a lot of Optimus Prime on leaders he respected, Marines and such. He based Ironhide on a friend of his who was really skinny. He also said that he developed voices for the characters based on the way they looked; he felt that Ironhide looked like a stocky, no-nonsense, kick-butt kinda guy, so that’s how he played him. He added the Southern drawl partly because it fit and partly because no one else had a Southern accent in the show. Peter mentioned that he only remembered a few of the characters he had played over the years, and that Optimus Prime, Ironhide, and Eeyore were the most memorable, with the Transformers being memorable because they were based on ideas and people close to him. When asked what Ironhide would say if he were at BotCon, Peter slipped into Ironhide and said, "Hey, Prahm, why don’t we go down to the bar and get some drinks."

Many people asked him to say some of Prime or Ironhide’s famous lines, and he got many wild cheers when he did that. Some of the lines he said were, "One shall stand, one shall fall", "’Till all are one", and "Autobots, transform and roll out!"

One thing that impressed me mightily about Peter I discovered when he was asked about how so many Canadian actors were getting VA jobs for TV shows that were developed for American audiences. He asked if he could answer that question in a foreign language, then proceeded to spout what I assume was gibberish with much fist banging on the table (but with a smile on his face). Then he answered honestly by saying that he tried not to say anything negative about things, but that he never liked a brain-drain and wished more VA jobs stayed in America. It impressed me that he was trying hard to say nice things whenever he could. It showed also when some people asked him questions that he honestly couldn’t answer or were somewhat silly. When he couldn’t answer, he said he was sorry, but hoped what little he could give was helpful, while with a silly question, such as if he had forgiven Hot Rod for getting him killed in the movie, he reported that they had gone out for beers and were still friends.

Peter reiterated what Dan had said about Frank Welker, that he is one of the most talented male VAs in America. He also said that Michael Bell could be impossible to work with, because some days he would get on such a comedy streak that all it took was a funny look from Michael and Peter couldn’t say his lines. He also told us about how he grew up; it seems like he was destined to be a VA since he was always imitating sounds and did silly things as a child like pretend to be a Nazi commanding a cow army on a farm...whenever a cow mooed, he told it to be quiet in a German accent. He used to do in front of the camera work, but when he had a family, he decided that was too much to do all at once, so he moved somewhere nice in California to raise his kids and commuted to LA to do VA work and he’s done that ever since. As I recall, he was the one who made a joke about voice actors and "face" actors...how some "face" actors looked down on VAs, but Peter joked that VAs would shoot back, "Who gets paid more?" It's possible that was Dan, though. He also was involved in radio shows back in the day, and agreed with Michael Bell (I think that was the Michael in question) that those were the golden years and that VA work has become pretty impersonal. He said he wished there were still more opportunities to do radio shows. He also told a humorous story about how on Transformers, one of the VAs had been smoking in the recording booth and tossed the butt in the trash...but it wasn’t quite out. So a fire started in the booth, but no one noticed, including the actors, until everyone was coughing from the smoke and someone happened to look in on them! He also deftly deflected a potential religious question when an attendee asked what he hoped, if he believed in that, Saint Peter would say when he got to the Pearly Gates. In answer, Peter said, "You don't belong here!" then went on to say a better one was what a friend would say at his funeral: "He moved!"

Someone asked him if he had ever heard someone else's Optimus Prime (Gary Chalk, I believe), and who would win if there were a VA fight, Peter said no, and then after thinking about it for a while, he said in his Prime voice, "I'm not sure, but I think I stand a pretty good chance." He also told us he hadn't ever played Optimus Prime outside of Transformers cartoons or the movie, except for recent Toonami spots...which he felt were strange, because for once, Optimus Prime had to be a wise guy. When asked what he might have ended up doing if he hadn’t been able to VA, Peter said something like, "Hum. I don’t know. Mmm...I don't know. Well...I don't know. I’d probably have to work!" He also said he would like to do the live action movie, but that if he were doing it, he would be the absolute last to know about it! He also said that Wally Burr was more responsible for how Optimus Prime turned out than he was, because the director and the writers were the ones to define the characters, and that Burr always knew exactly what he wanted from the actors.

A few people gave him gifts, and he looked quite touched by them. He said he had an original Optimus Prime (which was worse for the wear due to young family members playing with it) and a Masterpiece Prime. Now he has an Optimus Prime statue that a dealer gave him and a little Matrix necklace or pin or something of that nature, as well as a drawing T.L. Arens made. All in all, he gave me the impression of a pretty humble guy that was touched to the heart by all his fans, and he thanked us many times

There was quite a bit more he said, as he spoke for an hour and a half before the voice contest winners skit was performed. I wish I could remember it all.

The skit was called "The Return of Kremzeek", and Peter Cullen, Michael McConnohie, two winners from the contest, a guy I’m not sure what his name was but who was introduced as the handshake guy, and Wally Burr performed. Wally Burr played the voice of Kremzeek in "Kremzeek!", so naturally he did for the skit as well. It was pretty funny how it went, and I was impressed with how Michael could switch from Tracks to Cosmos at the drop of a hat. The premise was that Optimus Prime was setting up a special never before done teleconference from BotCon to Tokyo. Tracks was wishing he were in Tokyo because a particularly spiffy car had caught his eye and he was hoping someone could ship him one. So with the help of Cosmos, the Autobots set up the conference, and the guy in Tokyo (I forget the name of his character) said everything was set up on his end. Pleasantries were exchanged, and the Tokyo guy mentioned that Kremzeek was safely put away in a special cage. At this point, the guy playing the Japanese character lost his accent and Wally Burr asked him what sort of accent he was trying to do, and the guy countered, "Would you like me to do Scottish instead?" in a Scottish accent. Then he went back to the Japanese accent, but Optimus Prime complimented the Japanese character on his kilt anyway. The Japanese character brought the cage Kremzeek was being kept in too close to the conference beam and Kremzeek escaped and attacked Tracks. Tracks said several lines, then complained that Wally Burr kept missing his cue; Burr complained that this was just revenge for the acting sessions of long ago. An audience member mentioned that Dan had said that they had twelve-hour sessions, and Wally said he was starting to resent that...and that they never had a twelve-hour session. Sixteen hours was the longest they’d ever done. Tracks continued saying his lines, and when Wally was supposed to say "Kremzeek!", Michael would say "Insert line here". Eventually they got it right, and poor Tracks fell to the power of Kremzeek, and he ended up singing "Singing in the rain"...with a line about "rusting again!". As I recall, shortly thereafter, Optimus Prime was singing in the rain as well, just as a joke. Optimus Prime called on their exterminator named Atax (or something like it) when Kremzeek started stealing the power out of BotCon and making the lights go out. Atax claimed he needed some time to set up his Kremzeek trap. Meanwhile, a Decepticon femme (she had a name but I forgot it) came in and said some things...amongst them that Megatron was at BotCon. She got a communication from Megatron and assured him that such and such a price was not too much to pay for a Starscream bobble-head. Optimus Prime urged Atax on, because it looked like Megatron was almost done shopping. With a distraction provided by the convention goers, Kremzeek was trapped and Megatron’s plans foiled again, leaving BotCon safe from attack.

I know I missed a lot of good stuff in that, but I honestly was too busy laughing to remember everything.

After that, Dragonchickie invited several of us over to her hotel room to watch Transformers DVDs. I rested in my hotel room for a little while, because while the convention was small and not too loud for me, I was still getting over-loaded. I did eventually make my way down to her room, where many a Cellmate and other people had gathered to play with their loot and chat. Kevona, Atom Bomb, T.L. Arens, Jayd Hunter (I think), and Dragonchickie were there, as well as Fred and a few other people who I introduced myself to but their names escape me (I have been since reminded one was Curt, who also goes by Motor Master; he was the one most responsible for laying us all out laughing until our sides hurt). We talked for a bit and everyone looked through their loot and played with their new toys a bit (interesting note: Binaltech Streak has a wheel on the ‘wrong’ side, while Alternators Silverstreak has his steering wheel on the correct side). Dragonchickie had a Binaltech Hound—he was really well done and even had tires that said "Cybertronian Radials".

We watched The Golden Lagoon, The God Gambit, Make Tracks, Child’s Play, Quest for Survival, and Countdown to Extinction. We MSTed them, and there were far too many snarky comments flying fast and furious for me to remember even a tenth of them. My throat hurt for laughing so hard. I had to leave before Countdown to Extinction was over, and Kevona walked me back to my room to be sure I was OK. She invited me to a post-BotCon pizza party, but I knew I couldn’t make that, so we decided we’d make other plans.

Then I tried to sleep in a hotel room. It was a nice soft bed with nice covers and nice soft pillows, but I never can sleep in hotel rooms.

Sunday arrived, and we first went to move my mom’s car to a better spot...and we found the PERFECT spot, with doors that opened right up to the convention center. We went and got something to snack on for breakfast, then went to the line for Peter Cullen’s autograph. Again, utilizing my super line-cutting talents, I got to be near the front of the line when he arrived. I was having a hard time that morning; probably all of Saturday had caught up with me. He was wearing a cowboy hat. Anyway, the first person in the autograph line asked Peter if he would do a favor for him, which was to talk to his brother who couldn’t make it on his cell phone. Peter was very nice and did that, introducing himself to brother as Optimus Prime in his Optimus Prime voice. He was very friendly with everyone--really, how many famous or even relatively well known actors would take the time to talk to a stranger on the phone like that? When my turn came, I wished him a happy Father’s Day and good luck with his hand (since I know the poor guy was going to be signing his arm off). He thanked me, then signed my program...and without asking my name, he wrote "Sara—I love ya Darlin!" He must have read my nametag or something! He was nice enough to pose for a picture with me, and then he gave me a big hug and a kiss on the cheek!

Meeting, observing, and hearing Peter Cullen was well worth the price of admission. And a giant shout-out to Pete Sinclair for being extremely friendly and acommodating! I talked to him for a bit while waiting for my autograph. He's one of the BotCon staff, and he was very friendly.

He stayed for another hour and a half longer than he’d scheduled, changing his appointments or something around so that he could give everyone their autographs.

After getting my autograph, we went back to the dealer’s room for a while. We talked to Wally Burr for a bit at the BotCon table. He had a hat on that said "Wally Burr Director Dictator" with Director crossed out. I asked him about it and he said he got the idea from a voice actor he had directed a while back. Then I met Liana and we talked for a bit. She gave me a Wheeljack T-shirt. I also met Raksha, but didn’t really get a chance to talk to her much.

A bit later, I mentioned to Dragonchickie about Kevona’s invitation to the pizza party, but I knew I couldn’t make it. She told me that we could discuss other arrangements when everyone gathered at the unofficial Cell property when everyone was done getting autographs. After that, I wandered around the dealer’s room again, played some more phone tag, and arranged to meet up with Kev and the others for lunch. I followed T.L. Arens’ advice and got myself two T-shirts, one of Kickback standing on a big Decepticon sigil, and another of just the Autobot sigil. Some more wanderings about the dealer room brought me to a World’s Smallest Soundwave, and I had to have that! He’s so cool—he even has a tiny removable back to put his cannons in like batteries and Ravage fits in his chest!

We went back to the part of the convention center where everyone was meeting, and I hooked up with Atom Bomb there. After a while, more people trickled in, and it was agreed that Kevona, SwitchPoint, Dragonchickie, and Atom Bomb would eat lunch with us. We made a last browse through of the dealer’s room, took some more pictures (this time my poor mom had to juggle three cameras). Rusty, Atom Bomb, Dragonchickie, and Kevona were in these pics, with Kevona and me joking about all gathering around the Princess' throne! We had Chinese for lunch. (I thought my mom took a pic or two with the lunch crew, but it looks like she didn't--a pity, now I'm out pics of SwitchPoint!)

Back at the convention, we sat around and shot the breeze with many people again.

Then we met up again with several people at the gathering spot, waiting for the end of the convention. Thor, a person the others had met earlier, gathered all the women around and took a picture of us so he had photographic evidence of the existence of female Transfans. Frenzy happened to walk by then, so we got pictures of him.

The last call was to find out who won the art contest. I didn’t expect I would win, but I had to find out. Before I went into the panel room, I hugged everyone goodbye because I was going to be leaving pretty quickly after that. I was right about not winning, and so we left the panel then. I got a few extra goodbye hugs and then it was over.

All told, I had a great time, and I really hope I get to meet everyone again, Cellmates, Hangerites, and new acquaintances alike; I had a lot of fun at it...and maybe if another ‘con comes through California, I’ll get to go.

Again, sorry if I got all the time-lines mixed up. If the tale told by this idiot is much different in substance from that told by Dragonchickie, Kevona, Rusty, or Atom Bomb, it would probably be a good idea to believe them first :) I’ll add more details as I remember them...maybe.

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