Sunday, May 31, 2009

(NOT)LIVE FROM VINTAGE SPACE TOAST TOUR PASADENA: Uncut, uncensored and ungood videos from the cradle of roboplastic animation civilization-CONCLUSION

HELLO FANS OF OLD HISTORICAL TOY ROBOTS BUILDINGS FANS! We last left our hero outside of the automotive mechanic garage that 25 years ago was Wally Burr's southernmost recording studio on North Hollywood Way in Burbank, California. That building was where animation voice acting greats like Peter Cullen, Frank Welker and others recorded their lines for the original Transformers cartoon back in the mid 80s. In this video I walked a little down the street to stand in front of and talk about the other studio where those same voice actors worked under the direction of Wally Burr. The building that used to be Wally Burr North is the least changed of the two and still looks very much as it did when it was being used to record cartoon robot history. As a toy robots archeologist it was absolutely thrilling to stand in front of these places live and in person and get some pictures. Again I want to thank Rik Bakke and his Cybertron Chronicle for making all this information available in the first place and allowing me to have a really fun time during my stay in Pasadena during my Botcon vacation. Truly these still standing edifices are as close to Transformers cartoon Bethlehem as I'm ever going to have the honor of pilgrimaging to.

NOW I EAT THESE HALLOWED HAMBURGERS...A CONQUEROR!

While I couldn't exactly barge into the buildings where the Transformers voice actors used to work, I could follow in Rik Bakke's footsteps and eat where the G1 voice actor guys used to eat when they went to lunch. Here I am calling the Queen of Macrocrania and telling her how excited I am about getting ready to eat at the Sizzler across the street from Wally Burr North. I did this Saturday night while most of the other Botcon pre-registered attendees were having a party at Universal Studios. (I registered at the "Protoform" level which meant I couldn't get tickets to that party.) I did meet up with a couple of other Protoformers Thursday night who were looking for something to do Saturday night but I was so sure that nobody else in the world would find going to see these old buildings interesting that I never brought up what I planned to do. And then instead of searching out those other people when Botcon closed Saturday I just left by myself to go see the Wally Burr buildings and eat at that Sizzler. Now I wonder-was that a assholeish thing to do? While it was one of the highlights of my trip I think even die hard Botcon people may have just found standing in front of Sparky's Auto repair boring or stupid. I'm sure the others found something more interesting to do Saturday night and me not being there with them was no big roboplastic apocalypse. I'm still kind of wondering if maybe they would have liked to come with me, though. THE LOBSTER WAS REALLY THAT GOOD!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Haha that is fantastic. From some of the other reports it sounds like you might have had more fun. :)

Evil King Macrocranios said...

Yeah I had a blast even if the restaurant waiters thought I was crazy. When I went to eat at Millie's down the street from the old Marvel warehouse I asked if they had shirts or hats or any other Millie's souvenir apparel. The waiter just about died laughing as he asked me why on earth would anyone want anything to wear with the Millie's logo on it. I thought it was funny, too-funny that he had no idea of the history of the place he worked or who used to go there. If I ran Millie's I would put up cartoon memorabilia everywhere and hang framed autographed pictures of all those old cartoon writers and whatever Hasbro or Sunbow or Marvel employees ever visited there and make it the Hard Rock Cafe of toy robots cartoons.

Heavyarms said...

I woulda gone.

You know, if I went to Botcon.

Evil King Macrocranios said...

Don't be sad. The beautiful thing is that there's probably a Sizzlers near you.

Weasel said...

Oh man, the only cool kick ass dinner I attended was the gathering at Denny's.

And yes, everything you said about your experiences was amazing. You've traveled outside of the country man! I can barely get my tail out of the county. Talk about not having a life.

Evil King Macrocranios said...

Oh, come on now. The Saturday night thing was a dinner too, right? At least a buffet? No way that gets beat by Denny's.

Traveling is cool and all but there's a lot to be said about having stability. Moving every three years is getting to me. I would like normal friends and a normal house and a normal life now, please!

After a while Antarctica stories get boring. All I ever did was get paid to sit in a box and look at the sky. Of all the things we could have talked about at that table with those exact people I thought Antarctica would be the last thing we'd discuss. How is a bunch of ice anywhere near as interesting as that toaster robot Hasbro is doing?!

I thought it was funny how I went to Botcon hoping to talk Transformers and I ended up talking not Transformers to just about everyone everywhere (except Lewis). I don't know how that happened but I suspect it was me derailing myself. Maybe I need to find an Antarctica convention so I can stay on topic about toy robots!

Weasel said...

A convention in Antarctica would rule. I so would be there, freezing my skidplate off.

 

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Evil King Macrocranios was voted king by the evil peoples of the Kingdom of Macrocrania. They listen to Iron Maiden all day and try to take pictures of ghosts with their webcams.