JACO Bash Fallout

Overall I'd say my Saturday mini-panel at the meeting went as I expected for the most part. Most of the people in attendance would rather stay in the hallway than come inside and brave the horror of the near non-stop barrage of 50s educational films I was showing. And to think I didn't even go into the Educational Film Archives DVDs or the Prelinger Archives! Here's what I remember showing:

1967 Busch Advertising
My Japan--suddenly as if by magic, the entire room filled up for this and this alone; later on some people who arrived late asked me "hey, you got My Japan?" I didn't realize it was so highly viewed in the Prelinger Archives.
A Day Called X--this CLEARED THE ROOM. The best part of it all was my insisting to the few people left that it was "only 10-15 minutes long, guys!" I'd repeat that over and over throughout the night, though in every other instance I was indeed telling the truth.
Freedom and Power--General Electric's poorly animated and incredibly boring history of America
Freedom Comes High--Join the Navy and get killed, leaving behind a widow and an infant! This message brought to you by the US Navy!

In fact, I think I showed almost everything that was on the VCDs Dan and Bruce gave me at AWA a few years back. I didn't realize there was more stuff on those discs, so a lot of it I hadn't actually watched until then. Alas, I only ended up showing about two minutes of Tribulation 99. The specific people I wanted to inflict it upon weren't in the room. The time that would have been spent on that was instead spent on showing random CPF shorts (Flexible Metal Hose, Highly Moral Tale, Jar of Screaming Blood, Indiana Jones, Never Throw Up Your Lung, Canadian Mounties vs The Moon Men of Saturn, and Signs of a Gullible-Ass Public), the musical interlude from Thunderbirds 6, that old, OLD footage of Robert Tilton farting (it just never gets old), the Toon Makers Sailor Moon pilot that a couple people still had no idea existed, and some other carryovers.

Next time, I'll be SURE to bring "Duck and Cover" since a lot of people haven't actually seen it. Plus, it's imperative that I get some Sid Davis stuff in there since I didn't show a single thing by him. "The Terrible Truth" is easy enough to find, and hopefully I should be able to find "Boys Beware" and "VD / Damaged Goods" (I really need more educational films about VD since it'd make the Mad TV sketch funnier by comparison), but I can't find the perennial favorite, "Live and Learn," anywhere online. I'll have to get a tape of that one. I'll also try and hunt down The Story of Menstruation (don't think that's on the Educational Archives DVDs), since I hear that one's more infamous than It's Wonderful Being a Girl.

Overall, there was always about 2-4 people in the room at all times, but it was still a good enough metric as to what I could actually show parts of in real panels. Since I don't have the fake Weird Al / MST3K educational films that Dave likes to run at Hell, I think I'll add some of the fake educational films from Look Around You for my AWA repertoire. I don't think any of that stuff's ever been shown at Hell.

LABOR DAY WEEKEND! OtakuHELL at AnimeFEST! 

Bash your head against the wall 

OtakuHELL at AnimeFEST

Looks like it's a go for OtakuHELL at AnimeFEST. I've been told that we'll be scheduled for Sunday Nite, August 5th, as an alternative to the Cosplay Contest and something to fill the schedule before the Art Auction. This'll be the 4th HELL we've done at AnimeFEST and I'm hoping everything goes smoothly....

More details as I get 'em...

Back to School Bash [Your Head Against the Wall]

About a week ago, coming right off the heels of the AFO Panel OF DOOM, I got an IM from the vice-president of the Japanese Animation Club of Orlando (JACO) asking me if I wanted to run a sort of mini-panel at their upcoming Back to School Bash set for the 28th of this month. I accepted, but informed him flat-out that I didn't really have a whole lot of time to prepare given that not only was it two weeks notice, but I was mostly getting set for Anime Weekend Atlanta. As such, I told him that I'd be showing some particularly brutal clips, to the point where you'd have to be a drunken masochist to make it through the whole thing. He said "sure thing, no problem!" and here I am.

See, with me the problem of selecting footage isn't necessarily an issue of choosing clips I find entertaining. No, it's a matter of choosing clips that I think other people will find entertaining. Figuring that part out is what takes up most of my time when putting panels together, and while I don't hit the mark every time, I get it more often than not.

But this time, I'm throwing all that out the window and am gearing up to deliver some out-and-out punishment. So far, I know I'll be showing 1967 Busch Advertising in its entirety as well as the ultimate room-clearer, Tribulation 99. My Japan seems like a good choice, as does A Day Called X and one or two school-related offerings from the Educational Film Archives DVD set. The room will be empty long before it's over, but don't worry about me; I'll have reading I need to catch up on!

So what do YOU guys recommend for causing the room to empty in a hurry?

Found Footage Festival

"This one-of-a-kind event compiles footage from videos that were found at garage sales, estate sales, in warehouses and dumpsters throughout the country."

And we love Found Footage here at AnimeHELL! 

Anime Festival Orlando Report

AFO has come and gone, thus marking my first run of the Panel OF DOOM. Overall I'd say it was more successful than I thought it would be. Being that it was a first-time event, they put me inside one of the video rooms, and it was standing room only for most of the time. I was lucky since not only did they plug the panel at Opening Ceremonies and at some of the daytime panels, but they put me in the traditional Friday night Hell timeslot. Things went so well that I ran an extra hour, which was generous of the con considering that the panel required a staffer to man the volume controls on their high-falutin' A/V setup that's normally automated so that there's no need to have any volunteers do shifts in the video rooms. Most of the things went over quite well, particularly the Pranksters segment which elicited such a loud response that the guests over in Main Events were wondering what the heck was going on in the other room (course, they were told it was the hentai panel). The TV Carnage segments were a big hit, which is good because they comprised a significant chunk of the panel. I know at least one person in the crowd was convinced to buy the set.

Some things didn't go over quite as well as I'd hoped, such as the Sonny Chiba Street Fighter trailers (no reaction for "Terry Tsuguri: six foot six of half-breed fury!" or "Junjo--YES, JUNJO--returned from the dead for revenge!"), Jim Brown in Slaughter's Big Rip-Off, or George Takei's Daily Show appearance. I was let down by the Eagle's Nest audio clips I played prior to the panel starting. The problem wasn't that people didn't get it--as is standard practice, the anime con was sharing the hotel grounds with a Christian convention--so much as they couldn't hear a word that was being said. The clips sounded fine on my home TV, but came out so garbled on their system that you couldn't distinguish what was being said. Someday I'll learn how to use those EQ sliders for situations like that. I'd say the one segment that cleared the most people from the room was the William Shatner rendition of Rocketman, so for AWA I'm going to trim that one down.

I was offered the opportunity to do the panel at Metrocon, but when they mentioned that the chair of the con would have to deem it "non-offensive" since Metrocon is a family outing, I think I'm sunk. Especially since he refused "Anime That Sucks" on name alone, since he figured I'd show something that would make somebody REALLY fighting mad or something. It's not like I show anything worse than R-rated or TV-MA, but "non-offensive" is beyond my ability, which is why the con guide description was sure to state "for those not easily offended." I was told that a mother and daughter in the crowd apparently took some umbrage to "It's Wonderful Being a Girl," the educational film all about menstruation and how to rig up one of those sanitary napkin parachute things. Then someone else wasn't quite jiving with the assorted WW2 Nazi Germany shots spliced into the original Heino clip.

Next up: Anime Weekend Atlanta. Being that I'm up Saturday opposite the costume contest, I don't expect as large a turnout, and since it's in a whole other state I should be okay if I just rotate out the [known] Hell footage in favor of other stuff.

So, who wants copies?

AnimeHELL Banner!

Or we could use this one:


Edit:

Laughing Supermarionation HELL

THUNDERBIRD 6 has been a staple of AnimeHELL at AnimeFEST in Dallas, only because of the hellish visage of the laughing puppethead montage. Maybe someday I'll superimpose flames behind the grotesque nightmare fuel and loop it for maximum pain! With any luck I'll be showing it again at this year's AnimeFEST.
-danno!

UPDATE! We're now talking with Suzi Manuel, The Envents Coordinator for AnimeFEST 2004 about doing an OtakuHELL show at AnimeFest this year. More details as I get them!
-danno!