SDCC, Day the Third, pt. 1
Saturday was similar to the other days (lots of panels, lots of running around the convention center), but different in the sense that I woke up later and managed to get a little extra sleep. Since I didn’t wake up when I wanted to, I missed my panel on directing. Instead I caught the Attack of the Show panel in the Indigo Ballroom.
I would say the Attack of the Show panel was interesting, but really it had the opposite effect on me. I’ve never been a huge fan of Attack of the Show, at least not since… I believe 2006 when they had an excellent foil for Kevin Pereira on the show. They were show host magic. She left and the show wasn’t all that good anymore. It felt like it was missing that special something… that counterpart that made the show more watchable. There will be more information on this and more in an upcoming post.
Since Kevin Pereira left in May, the show has been without a host, except for the two girls and the guy who does “Gadget pr0n”, Matt Mira.
Black Cat surrounded. Picture by Jennifer Bevan
So, their way of opening the panel was that they would hold a contest for a new co-host. They chose 3 people who were in the panel. They chose the first 3 people who tweeted #iamafurry. They got sent through a “gauntlet”. Out of the three people they chose, not one of them talked to Sara Underwood about being a Playboy playmate. I have no idea how the 2 frat boys that were up there didn’t even mention it, however both of them were hitting on her. <insert snarky feminist comment here> The guy who won was co-host for a whole minute.
After that was done, it was time for questions and a moderated panel. There were a lot of people who were more interested in the chicks. One person actually asked about Matt Mira taking up co-host duties… something he heavily hinted at the entire panel. Like he hinted at it so heavily that I was waiting for the clue-by-four to come out.
The one bright thing to the entire panel was a comedy duo band. They were actually amusing and at the same time perpetrated age-old stereotypes where women don’t know how to communicate and so on. Regardless, it was done well for comedic effect.
After the AOTS panel came Geek & Sundry, a panel that I really wanted to see. The panel kicked off with a sneak peek of a show named “Written by Kids”. The first episode was called “Scary Smash”. The URL is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef2wnLL1s00&list=PL94269DA08231042B&index=2&feature=plcp. The child who told the story, Brett was there with his SQUAT team. After the preview the entire Geek & Sundry crew came out for some Q&A. Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day (of course) were there, as was the whole Guild cast.
Felicia Day and Wil Wheaton at Geek and Sundry panel. Picture by Jennifer Bevan
There was excellent interaction between everyone on the panel. It reminded me a lot of the Community panel. It seemed like it was a lot like a family atmosphere. All the actors seem to get along well together. There were a lot of amusing anecdotes including Felicia Day talking about getting to meet Matt Smith (the current Doctor Who) at an after party at the Hilton. Felicia and Wil talked about the possibility of their being a home-brewing show being added to the Geek & Sundry line-up. Only time will tell if the show ever manifests.
As some of you out there may know, the last season of the Guild was supposed to be at a convention. It was an homage to all the conventions that some of them may or may not have been to. They were asked about some of their convention moments, including the ones that they’ve been going to since the Guild has a good amount of notoriety.
Geek and Sundry: http://geekandsundry.com/
YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/geekandsundry
(Part two will be posted tomorrow.)