Wish You Were Here!
CONTINUED
By Tim Peterson
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August 31, 2008
Friday, August 15, 2008
DAY 2
Friday was a day of hanging out with fans.
I was expecting to have trouble waking up at 8 with my alarm, but my body
decided that 7 was a better time to arise, so I did. When I went down for
breakfast, some of the actors were also to be seen before they headed over
to Focus. While waiting for the others to get ready, I got on Facebook and
posted the first pictures of the weekend. I also got in contact with
Jonathan and Hope, who had driven in late last night. They went to Focus
first thing in the morning, while Frank, Catspaw, and I walked over around
10. Unfortunately, Focus was closed for their monthly chapel until 12:30.
With the Mecca of AIO unavailable, we
called Jerry and went to the next best place: The mall. The five of us
explored the pet shop and the bookstore before finally rendezvousing with
Jonathan and Hope. We had lunch at the food court, and played cards until we
found out from Sarah and Chris that we would be welcome to hang out with the
actors at 2. That didn't work out, so after walking around Focus a bit (and
getting a glimpse of the chapelteria, site of tomorrow's show), we settled
down in the J&J Antiques room for -- what else? -- more card-playing, this
time playing PIG (like Spoons, only without the spoons).
 Eventually
word reached our ears that Connie and Eugene, live and in person, were
serving ice cream behind the counter at Whit's End. Katie, Will, and Dave
did a lot of greeting of fans, while Catspaw and others got in line for the
famed WodFamChocSod or raspberry ripple.
The actors' next stop was the KYDS radio
studio. Normally it works like this: Two people read their lines from a
script while a third performs live foley effects, in a short Odyssey-type
show featuring the pre-recorded voices of Whit, Connie, and Chris. The
result is burned onto a CD for the budding actors to take home. Normally
fans can reserve time in the studio to do this, but late Friday afternoon
the actual AIO actors had a chance to do some recording for fun. Found in
the studio were Chris, Katie, Will, Jess, and Aria Curzon (Mandy), as well
as Katie's fiance Vinny. Given the surplus of talent present, they had the
engineer dispense with the prerecorded voice tracks so they could do all the
characters themselves. It was a rather crazy recording session. The actors
traded off on characters, and also switched voices. We heard Will Ryan with
the voice of Harlow Doyle, and in the lack of the actual Whit's voice, Jess
Harnell substituted as Mr. Woottaker.
While they were recording, Sarah rounded us
fans up outside the KYDS studio. We watched and listened to the actors
recording, and when they were done, Dave Griffin, who wasn't in the previous
recording, convinced those in charge to let him take the fans inside for
their own session, despite it being closing time. We did a shorter
ten-minute story than the actors had done. Four guys and four girls took
turns playing each of the two characters, while three more did foley. It was
a silly little detective story about Whit's happy clown lamp getting broken.
With that complete, we lurked in the
hallway waiting for our CDs to be ready. We thanked the engineer for taking
the time to stay late for us, and he said that it was a rare privilege to
record the actual AIO actors rather than just playing their voices back.
It was getting late in the afternoon. We
relocated to the bookstore, where I purchased my own copy of the complete
guide and the AIO birthday T-shirt. We met Aria Curzon and her dad in the
store, and got a group picture with her. Then we all made our way back to
Homewood, which was the designated gathering place for our much-anticipated
event, the ToO pizza party/game night.
 Six o'clock finally came. A few ToOers we hadn't seen yet showed up at the
lobby, and then we all piled into cars to go back to Focus. It was now after
closing time, so we were pretty much the only group in the administration
building. The Ogden Lounge was nicely furnished for our purposes, with a
bunch of couches, tables, and chairs. Nathan Hoobler, AIO fan turned AIO
writer, gave us an official welcome to the premises. Felicity Blackgaard
brought home-made nametags for everyone, so we could match usernames to
faces if we hadn't already figured it out. Chris and his cohorts soon
acquired a copious amount of pizza from the Pizza Hut down the road, and we
dug in.
Dave and Darcie stayed at the party the
whole time. Don and Genni Long (Lucy and Jack) also graced our presence for
several hours. All three actors made themselves available to sign Official
Guides and take pictures. Dave in particular wanted to take care of all our
autographs in one session so he could rest his writing hand for the public
autograph sessions the next day.
After we'd had our fill of eating, Nathan
called us together in front of the TV, and told us the following. Focus has
a chapel service for the employees once a month, and one month last summer
they showed a slide that said, "Coming next month: Adventures in Odyssey
chapel." The AIO folks were looking forward to this event and wondering what
it would be... but then they found out that it was their responsibility to
make it happen. It seems somebody expected them to put on the whole chapel
and do an Odyssey script and such. Unable to do that on such short notice,
they instead put together a short video, which Nathan proceeded to play for
us.
 It
begins with Marshal Younger introducing us to "my favorite game show, 'Are
Focus Employees Smarter Than a 5th Grader?'" He then proceeds to pose AIO
trivia questions to a sequence of kids and adults, showing a scoreboard
across the bottom of the screen for the kids and the employees. A sampling
of the questions:
Marshal:
Who is the editor of the Odyssey Times?
Boy: Dale Jacobs.
*ding*
Marshal: That is correct.
Marshal:
What is Dylan's dog's name?
Boy: Um, I forgot.
Marshal: Starts with an S... shh...
Boy: Ship... Shipper...
Marshal: Shippering, yes, that's right!
*ding*
Marshal:
Do you think that Whit can dance?
Boy: Yeah.
Marshal: Show us how Whit would dance.
[music starts, and boy bounces back and forth]
Marshal: That's pretty funky for Whit.
Marshal:
Do you think that Whit can dance?
Paul Herlinger: Absolutely.
[cut to shot of Paul with arm outstretched doing an elegant dance
with an imaginary partner.]
Marshal:
I'm gonna give you the answer to a question, you have to give me the
question. Here's the answer: Pokenberry Falls.
Woman: Where did George and Mary Barclay move from Odyssey?
*buzz*
Marshal: I'm sorry, that answer is incorrect. The correct
question is, "What happens after Pokenberry trips?"
[both laugh/groan]
Marshal:
Would you rather listen to Odyssey or watch VeggieTales?
Boy: I would rather watch VeggieTales. Definitely.
*buzz*
Marshal: You'd rather watch VeggieTales.
[boy nods vigorously]
*buzz* *buzz* *buzz*
Marshal: Let's go to the next question, okay? Have your "parents"
always been so lax in their media choices?
Marshal:
Give me the episode, the episode number, and the table number that
Eugene and Katrina sat at when they were at the hotel restaurant and
they listened to the lounge lizard.
Nathan Hoobler: Well, the question actually isn't valid because
we don't find out the table number in the episode with the lounge
lizard, which is 363: The Right Choice. The episode where we find out
the table number is actually 321...
[fade to later part of the monologue, as Marshal starts looking
bored]
Nathan: ...but Eugene says the table number in episode 327 when
he's talking to Connie.
Marshal: You don't get any more questions.
[Marshal walks away]
Paul Herlinger:
I'd say that there's probably never been a radio program that has been
so worthwhile to listen to and has had such a good record, and such a
long run.
Woman:
Happy 20th birthday to Odyssey!
Earl Boen
(the Blackgaards): And let's celebrate the 40th and the 50th -- if I'm
still alive.
Man:
Congratulations, it's a great program.
*buzz*
Marshal: I'm sorry, that answer is incorrect. The correct answer
is, Odyssey has made me into the leader I am today. [groan]
The final score was: Kids - 7, Employees -
4. The employees got a lot more questions, too. It's a shame even Focus
employees don't know Eugene's mother's maiden name.
Following the video, we turned our
attention to games. The first game we played was called I've Never. Everyone
starts holding ten fingers in the air, and each person goes around saying
something true about themselves, for example, "I've never owned a car."
Everyone who has, in fact, driven a car, has to put a finger down, and the
last befingered person wins. It came down to me and Monday's brother
(Friday?). Unfortunately, he took a good look at me and said, "I've never
had a beard," which naturally put me out of the game, so he won.
For our next game, everyone was divided
into groups and handed a script from Felicity Blackgaard, with Boswell
emceeing. Everyone had 15 minutes to rehearse their scenes, each taken from
a well-known AIO episode. Each scene was performed, and then judged by Dave
and Don. We were treated to these scenes:
- Eugene watching the video of his chess
game with Bernard, with Connie and Whit intervening, from
Poor Loser.
- Colby, Wooton, and Bart discussing
Wooton's yard decorations from
The Popsicle Kid.
- Connie teaching Eugene to start a car
in A License to Drive.
- Connie and Wooton bidding against
Victoria in Wooing Wooton.
(This one was performed as a musical, on the whim of the performers.)
- Connie and Eugene falling in love in
I Slap Floor.
Shadowpaw and Serenity performed I Slap
Floor and won first prize, copies of album 50 signed by Dave, Don, and Genni.
For our final game, we played Four On A
Couch, also known as Couch Of Power. There is a couch with four seats, and
the goal is to get either all girls or all guys on the couch. Everyone holds
a slip of paper with a player's name on it, and that name is the one each
person responds to. There is always an empty seat, and on each turn the
player next to the hole calls someone's name. The person holding that name
(usually not the one actually named such) then moves to the hole and
switches names with the caller. The problem is in remembering which person
has which name, in order to get the opposite gender removed from the couch
and the proper people installed in their stead. The first round went fairly
quickly, but the second round took forever, and had to be called off when it
approached midnight.
When I first met Dave Griffin, I was
wearing a shirt from the RIT Juggling Club, of which I am a member. He saw
it and mentioned that he juggles too. He said we'd have to juggle together
at some point, and with the party winding down, I figured it was now or
never. I brought out my balls and clubs and started juggling, and Dave soon
joined in. I took some photos and video, and the others had fun watching and
commenting. Finally, we departed after midnight to our respective lodgings,
and got some sleep in preparation for Saturday.
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