I had a Guest badge. Most of the people at the Fanfest had Guest badges. All the Guest badges had a picture of Comic Book Guy on them. One of the questions I am often asked is "What is the name of Comic Book Guy?" Well, he doesn't have a name. Several regular characters on the show have no names, including my favorite, the Pimple Faced Kid.
As we entered the Fanfest, there was a booth operated by www.thesimpsons.com selling stuff. Most of the items they were selling are on their web site with one big exception. They were selling production cels from the show at 40% off the retail (gallery) price. Cels that retail for almost $500 were selling for $240. Plus they were selling the limited edition cells for 40% off too. Ironically, I saw very few of them being sold. Instead, I saw a number of people buying "Simpsons" Weber barbecue grills, which seemed very foolish to me, as those people had to lug those things around with them all day - and in the rain too! Go figure that one out!
About noon, it started raining, not heavy, but light intermittent showers all afternoon. That was the biggest negative about this event, but then, even Rupert Murdoch can't control the weather - at least not yet! Fortunately, Fox gave out hundreds of hooded rain ponchos, which were much appreciated by all, including me. The next day, Monday, it was a beautiful sunny day. It is annoying when stuff like that happens.
There was a long aisle of "Simpsons" carnival games, including Otto's School Bus Driving School, and the Itchy & Scratchy game (not PETA approved.) There was free Duff beer at Moe's Bar. The food booths were all free and were the most interesting for me. I had a burger at Krusty Burger. It wasn't a great hamburger, but then, Krusty Burgers aren't supposed to be great burgers. If you want a great burger in L.A., visit either In 'N Out Burger or Hamburger Hamlet.
Other food booths included Jittery Joe's Coffee Shop, Stampy's peanut stands, Maggie's Playland "Sponsored by the Ayn Rand School For Tots (We use The Fountainhead Diet,)" Pretzel Wagons "Tasty Golden Life Preservers," Springfield (crossed out) Shelbyville Lemonade, Phineas Q. Butterfat's 5600 Flavors Ice Cream (they actually only had 5 flavors), Homer's BBQ (which was very good,) Homer's fried pork rinds (which I did not eat,) and Lisa' gazpacho, which was very good! I had never had gazpacho before that I liked, but I liked that stuff. I think they used tomato juice as a base, but I digress.
The real highlight was the stage shows. Alf Clausen directed "The Simpsons" Orchestra. This was followed by a panel discussion with the animators, followed by the Bart Bowl Finals and finally the voices--and the voices were all there.
If anything was surprising about the Fanfest, it was how ordinary the people who produce "The Simpsons" look, talk and act. You would never guess by looking at them that they are such an astonishing collection of incredibly talented people.
There was a lot of stuff packed into one day. My only regret, and it is a big one, is that this was a "by invitation only" event. While I can understand Fox's desire and need to control the crowd (especially at an event where they are giving away free food and beer,) it made me very sad to think of the many regular customers of mine who wanted to come to this event but could not. I almost felt disloyal to them by going. I have customers who own over 3,000 "Simpsons" items in their collections, customers who have moved to larger homes so they would have space for their collections, and they couldn't get into the FanFest. I thought about that quite a lot during the FanFest.
Like many other "Simpsons" fans, I hope that Fox will have an open- to-the public "Simpsons" convention one day, perhaps closer to the original plan for this event in Las Vegas. I am sure that tens of thousands of people would come.
