Registration is now open for WonderCon, which is being held at the Anaheim Convention Center — a hoot and a holler from Disneyland — from March 16, 2012 through March 18 of the same year. I've been to an awful lot of WonderCons and always had a good time. I expect the trend to continue.
WonderCon was founded in 1987 and held in Oakland, California until 2003 when it relocated to the Moscone Center in the heart of San Francisco. The migration coincided with the acquisition from the convention by the same non-profit organization that runs the annual Comic-Con International in San Diego. It and A.P.E. (the annual Alternative Press Expo) are what the staff there does when they're not working on Comic-Con. Traditionally the last few years, WonderCon has had somewhere around a fourth the attendance of Comic-Con (still a helluva lot o' people) and it's a bit more oriented towards comic books than to Hollywood and videogaming...though there is plenty for those interested in those areas.
The con is always well-run and enjoyable, and I love the location. I'd much rather it be there than in Anaheim but due to renovation work, the Moscone Center was not available for '12. I gather that the current thinking is to go back to S.F. in 2013, assuming the venue is available...but who knows? Maybe Anaheim will be such a smashing success that they won't want to go back. We shall see, we shall see.
I will be a guest at WonderCon and you may be surprised to learn I'll be hosting a mess of panels there. More guests have been announced and you can read what's up and register to attend over at the WonderCon website.
On his second album, Allan Sherman had a number called "No One's Perfect" performed by an elegant choir of voices. Here's a recent rendition of the piece as presented by the Combined Choirs of Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania...
Several folks have alerted me that GSN (formerly Game Show Network) has reruns of What's My Line? and I've Got A Secret back in their late night lineup next week and at least the week after. These come and go from time to time and I'm curious as to the thinking here...
Are they contractually obligated to run these X weeks per year or lose the package? It would not be unprecedented for a TV network to keep paying for a show they no longer want to broadcast. Stations do that all the time, especially with a show that like these old Goodson-Todman programs, probably cost them little more than pocket change. For years, one Los Angeles TV station kept paying for (but not airing) the Roach Laurel & Hardy features. An assistant to the Station Manager told me they had no plans to run them — they didn't fit into current programming concepts — but "You never know when we might change our thinking and wish we had them." A more likely thought process was that they didn't want some other station to get the library and maybe figure out how to schedule and promote it into a success.
Or does GSN have some advertiser who wants them on, figuring it's the perfect demographic to sell scooters to seniors or some other such sales campaign? For the right sponsor, it might be cheaper and more effective than paying to run infomercials.
Or did someone at GSN just say, "Hey, let's give those another shot. They're so damned cheap that if we can get nineteen people to tune in, we can make money"?
I don't know why they're back...nor do I know where GSN is starting in the run or how long they'll leave them on this time. All I know is I have my TiVo set so I can watch whatever they put on for as long as they leave them on this time.
There will be a proper obit up here later on Jerry Robinson, who passed away last night at the age of 89. Right now, I'm deluged with calls from reporters and others who are writing about him...and he had a long career and a staggering number of credits to talk about. I'll try to write something worthy of the man when the phone stops ringing. Jeez, that guy did a lot.
December 7, 2011
