Comic-Con 2006 Day 2

Day 2 of the Comic-Con started out hectic because I wanted to park at the convention center and I tried a new way to drive there. It seemed like a good plan, plus I left my house early enough. However, traffic control around the convention center is really bad. I ended up driving past a line of cars that was not moving and at the light there were two left turn lanes, so I entered the right-left lane, without cutting anyone off. Then the light turned green and I would have gotten through the intersection had the car in front of me not stopped to let every one else who did not have the right-of-way through. So the light turn red and I'm still in the intersection blocking all the cars on Harbor Drive. Honking the horn never helps but eventually the person in front of me moved and I got into the parking garage.

Once in the convention, I walked around a bit before heading up to the Family Guy panel. It was actually combined with American Dad, since they share writers and directors. Seth MacFarlane, the creator of the show only made an appearance by cell phone, but he did do the voices of Stewie and Quagmire, enough to satisfy the audience. The eight or so guests talked and answered questions for one hour, plus they showed a short preview of upcoming episodes of both shows.

The next event I attended was Battlestar Galactica. Four of the main actors made it this year, including Edward James Olmos, who claimed that this was his first convention. He did pretty well considering the large, rowdy crowd he was speaking to. The cast, which also included Lucy Lawless, seemed to be having as much fun as the audience. There was a montage of clips from the upcoming season but no specific scene was shown. They said that season three will be the "darkest" season yet.

Right after that was the Bones panel which consisted of just David Boroanaz and a producer. It would have been better with the star, Emily Deschanel, but David Boroanaz was still entertaining, for at least a while.

More time on the floor and somewhere in there I ate lunch and then dinner, with a couple of beers each time. Hoping for a second wind, I stayed for the SNL: Saturday TV Funhouse with Robert Smigel. This panel stated out different with Robert Smigle in the audience with his dog puppet, making fun of people and SNL. Then he ran out the door to attack the Klingons in the room next door, but they had already left. That was really funny and unexpected. The camera stopped working as he left but the audio was still on. Once he made it to the stage he showed a bunch of clips from DVDs of his works, including some that were banned from TV. He also showed a clip that included Jesus Christ watching Linus give his speech about Christmas on the Peanut's Christmas show (which was actually very serious and touching scene), and after the short cartoon was over, Robert Smigle pointed out that Jean Schulz, widow of Charles Schulz, was in the audience. She stood up and everyone clapped.

I thought about staying for the Spike and Mike Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation, but I was getting tired (thanks to the beer) and called it a day. After all, Saturday is the biggest and busiest day of all.