Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Our typical Comic-Con coverage is a panel by panel accounting of the geekiness on display in San Diego this crazy-insane weekend, but we had a crazy day with our forces scattered. Capone and Beaks were panel-hopping and interviewing tons of people while I spent a goodly amount of time either on stage in Hall H or behind it.
Tomorrow youll be seeing more traditional coverage starting with Steven Spielbergs first live Con appearance to show off Tintin, but Im just going to run down my day 1. I know Beaks and Capone will have their own stories from today, so keep an eye out for those!
Quints big adventure began, appropriately enough, with Pee-Wee Herman. I was asked quite last minute if Id be interested in moderating a panel with Paul Reubens, which wasnt so much of a targeted promotion as it was a celebration of all things Pee-Wee.
Naturally, I said yes and found myself up in Rm 28, the big greenroom, nervously going over my notes and written intro as all the Twilight people filed in from their panel, Kristen Stewart and R-Patz gathering at the cookie table to load up. This signaled a 30 minute warning, essentially, as the Pee-Wee panel was stacked on top of the Aardman animation presentation that immediately followed the big Twilight panel.
When Pee-Wee came up I was taken over and introduced to him. He was in full attire, red bowtie and all and very down to Earth and kind of low key. Funnily enough, I actually didnt meet Pee-Wee Herman until he came out on stage. Off stage it was Paul Reubens.
You know how in the movies when someone goes on stage you get that feeling of jumping from tense chaos to the simplicity of the stage? Thats kind of how the journey downstairs felt. Make-up people were touching up Pee-Wee, the Con staff were running around getting things set up and I was told my cue to go up on stage was the end of a bit of footage from the opening of the Pee-Wee Broadway Show. It wasnt three minutes later that the footage ran and I found myself walking out onto the Hall H stage in front of some 6500 people.
Now, I had a beautifully written four paragraph introduction, if I dont say so myself
it was full of nostalgia, honest emotion about what the Playhouse meant to me as a child and how happy I am that Pee-Wee is still out there doing Gods work, but I didnt want to be one of those guys that goes out on stage and just looks down at his piece of paper like hes been asked to read a book report.
I probably should have. Winging it would have been great (and worked out very well on the next panel, actually), but I found myself conscious of how long the intro was taking and kind of rambled it to a close with a I could go on, but you guys dont want to hear from me
Ladies and gentlemen, Pee-Wee Herman! The sooner I got him on the stage the better and that was absolutely the right call.
The audience went nuts, which is something to experience, I gotta say. Even though absolutely none of it was directed in my direction I got the ego equivalent of a contact high off of it. The surreality of the moment was complete when Pee-Wee Herman took his seat next to me and began a conversation.
My attitude on panels is to open them up to audience Q&A rather quickly. I hate it when moderators eat up all the time with their own BS, so I asked a few questions (including if he knew Large Marge would scar a while generation of children, to which he replied that he know idea) and then opened up to the audience.
Comic-Con staple Bob Stencil asked the first question, which was atypically serious. I found out later that I inadvertently took the wind out of his sails by bringing up Large Marge, which was the focus of his initial question. Sorry, Bob. Youre still king of Comic-Con.
Over the course of the half-hour panel, Pee-Wee cracked wise and had the audience was eating out of his hand. He talked about having Judd Apatow producing his upcoming movie being a boon to him, that hed talk to people about developing a movie and theyd go Oh, thats nice, and then hed say that Judd Apatow is producing and theyd immediately take him seriously.
The new Pee-Wee movie script, co-written by Paul Rust, is currently in Exec hands at that very minute, and the next big step for the project. He confirmed its a road movie, something Apatow insisted upon because he wants it to retain some of the feel of Pee-Wees Big Adventure.
It was interesting watching Pee-Wee field some Paul Reubens questions (like working on Blow and with Cheech and Chong) and how he seemed to find a way to retain some of the Pee-Wee character while talking about how amazing Ted Demme was and how tragic it was that he died so young.
The panel flew by and at the end of it all, Reubens warmly thanked me for moderating and even wanted to keep in touch (how awesome would an Alamo Drafthouse appearance be?). He also tweeted this pic of us taken right before the panel:
See how happy I am? Neeeerrrdddd.
I had to get right back on the horse for the big FilmDistrict panel, which was not more than 15 minutes after the Pee-Wee panel, but Ill be back tomorrow to detail that since I need to get my 3 hours of sleep before Steven Spielberg turns Comic-Con into an even bigger circus!
-Quint
Seriously?lol.That sounds ridiculously hilarious.
