Red Fraggle, Karen Prell At San Diego Comic-Con 2008 (Clip 1)

Anita grabbed a little footage of Red's visit with her still camera. These are just tiny Fraggle-ments of Red and Karen's appearance, but I thought you might enjoy them anyhow. Savor the Red-ness!

Red Fraggle, Karen Prell At San Diego Comic-Con 2008 (Clip 2)

Here's another clip, shot very soon after the first. Red get increasingly baffled by how much we know about Fraggle Rock! Well, nothing a sing-along can't fix. So cute!

Comic-Con Diary 7: Saturday

Michelle and I let Anita sleep in on Saturday morning while we went over to sell swag. Sales were decent - they topped Wednesday, but Thursday and Friday had been significantly better. Foot traffic in the dealers' room was brisk, but it wasn't turning into sales. Generally, the weekend is spent by many of the guests in panels and pursuing celebrity appearances, so I wasn't surprised.

Since we got over to the convention center earlier, I took another crack at the toy exclusives. This time, things went swimmingly - the Mattel ticket table (in the autograph area) was almost completely deserted, so I snagged my allotment (the ticket lasts for two hours - mine went from 9-11AM) and headed downstairs. I think I was only in the line for a half hour or so. I happily discovered that once you were at the counter with your ticket, you could get all of the exclusives if you wanted them (rather than having to get a ticket for each toy). I snagged a Justice League Unlimited Giganta figure set and one of the Cars Lightning Storm McQueens.

Anita was able to savor a hotel waffle, joining us later on - I had my sandwich for lunch, and was preparing for another run through the dealers' room when who should appear but John Landis! I'd met him a few years ago at a San Francisco screening of An American Werewolf in London and invited him to visit the studio. He gave such a good talk that it set a new benchmark for visiting lecturers - he's still mentioned as one of the best!

He's a Comic-Con regular, but he had an extra-special reason to attend this time - his wife Deborah was presenting her new book, Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design. We exchanged hellos, and he 'berated' me for not having seen his latest film, Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project. D'oh! He took his leave after a couple of geeky pictures, and I began another round of shopping and picture-taking. My camera was still battery-bereft, so I borrowed Anita's here and there. I did pick up some more toys, but the specifics have slipped my mind.

Anita went to watch Karen rehearse for Red Fraggle's Sunday appearance, and I wandered up to the Acme Archives Ltd. booth, promptly running into David Silverman and Mike Anderson, long-time buddies from my way-back stint on The Simpsons (season two)! Who needs celebrity panels?

Unfortunately, Mike had to bolt, so David and I caught each other up on our recent mischief. Acme's Lisa McLain and Chris Jackson had been chatting with David earlier - so we all began talking, and Chris mentioned he was a fan of my work, and would I be interested in contributing to Acme's line of custom, limited-edition Lucasfilm-inspired art? Well, yes!

Leaving David, I floated over to pick up Michelle and meet Anita over at McCormick & Schmick's for dinner. We were gathering there to celebrate Karen Prell's birthday, which we did in grand style! The Skellys joined us, as well as several more of Karen's puppetry friends. Mr. Silverman was going to join us, but sadly missed our group and wound up fêting elsewhere. The food was great and the conversation was lively - I was going a little hoarse from the week's relentless gab, but it was lots of fun!

I was so tired from the demands of the convention (and the previous late nights of blogging) that I collapsed without writing anything. More tomorrow about three days ago!

Comic-Con Hosts Red Fraggle!

It's official! Red Fraggle herself will be at San Diego Comic-Con on Sunday, July 27th! Come and watch Red dance her cares away right in front of you!

Red's going to be there (along with the always amazing puppeteer, Karen Prell) to beat the drum for the Fraggle Rock DVDs (especially the upcoming season four box - the last set of the series!):

2:45-4:15 Fraggle Rock— Help celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Fraggle Rock and learn more about this fall's newest DVD release! Join Red—making a personal appearance—as she sneak peeks the DVD special features and some other DVD surprises! Room 6B

See you at the 'Con!

Toy OTD: Sababa Fraggle Rock Plushes: Wembley, Red, Boober, Gobo (2004)

It's hard to believe that these toys are four years old already! These plushes were released a little before (or alongside) DVD collections of the show that have now culminated in the full-season box sets we enjoy today. They're affordable, accessible versions of the characters, and as such, they work quite well. The toys are good likenesses of the characters, and the colors and clothing are pretty accurate.

The biggest minus here is the pom-pom antennae the some of the characters sport. There's no internal support for them, and the fluffy tips seem too limp most of the time (I worked hard to get them to look right in this photo). I'm sure it's for safety reasons, but Red suffers the most from these choices, and it's the one aspect where you might wish there was a version made for older fans.

The next minus is that a couple of primary characters are missing - Mokey and Traveling Matt. I'm sure that there's fans who want an even bigger line, but not producing all the main characters is disappointing (especially since I think Matt is one of the neater looking Fraggles). Hopefully that'll change if the DVDs continue to sell, but the gap between this toy line's release and now is pretty big at this point.

You can get all four toys - Wembley, Red, Boober & Gobo - at toysrus.com easily. Don't ask me why, but Wembley and Boober are $11.99 + shipping (each), and Gobo and Red are $12.99 + shipping (each).

Muppet Junkie? You've Got A Whopping Fix Coming

Season Three of Fraggle Rock will be released on Sept. 11th for $34.27 + shipping, and Sesame Street: Old School Vol. 2 is coming out Nov. 6th for $24.71 + shipping. Sweet! Hopefully we can get more skits with discarded characters like Roosevelt Franklin...

Thanks to Muppet Central for the news!