[JPAG Week] “My Memoirs As A Dinosaur”: voice actor Bob Ball & Joystiq LIVE at PAX East 2011

I’m Bob Ball, and I’m a voice actor.  I’ve got a hit podcast, ‘PopQuizzical‘.  But I want to take you back a few months – to a dinosaur costume.

A dinosaur costume?

Yes.  It’s a green and yellow carpeted outer garment but that’s not important right now.

Boston: Friday, March 11th, 7:30pm.  It was so hot.  Desperately hot.  Every time I faced away from the crowd, it was to press my face against the mesh of the costume to taste just a little of the sweet, fresh air – just two seconds worth, and then back to the crowd.  A voice actor/dinosaur’s work is never done.

Let’s go back to how this all started.  I had been doing email reads for the Joystiq Podcast for a while, and PAX East was about 2 months away.  I emailed Justin McElroy an idea: instead of having me simply be in the crowd and read an email live, why not surprise the crowd?  I emailed him a picture of a costume that vaguely resembled something you would see at a Flaming Lips Concert.  The email reply was a resounding affirmative.  My evil plan was in motion.

Fast forward to March 10th, the night before the Joystiq Live show.  My airplane touched down and I was off like the proverbial bullet.  Racing across town in taxis to get to the hotel, check in, unpack a few things then back across town in taxi #2 to get to Boston Costume shop before closing to try on my monkey suit.  Or dinosaur suit.  Whichever.  After trying on and approving the costume, I decided to slow down a bit and  carry the costume to the train station.  Have you ever tried to carry two garbage bags filled with 30 pounds of dinosaur costume 7 blocks to a train station?  Me neither.  Four blocks later and I was hailing taxi #3.

Back at the hotel I fully tried on the costume with the appropriate clothing.  Dread was starting to set in as I realized that this monster suit I donned was indeed a monster in itself.  The feet were easily 3 times the size of my own foot, and all of the dance moves I had been practicing were going to be nearly impossible.  And that was before I tried on the dino-feet.  But I was still excited.

The following day saw the opening of PAX East 2011 and for me the morning was a blur of shaking developer hands and saying hi to Joystiq listeners.  The afternoon came with a Joystiq planning meeting for the show that night.  I edited videos together as they mapped out the rest of the show.  In the final minutes in the hotel room before leaving for the convention center, I suited up in the dino costume.  You would have thought I just walked into a comedy club with the amount of riotous laughter that met me as I walked out of the bathroom.  Everyone was pleased with the costume.

I rode in a taxi van with Griffin McElroy and Andrew Yoon (who is now at ShackNews.com).  Griffin took some taxi confessional video, questioning me to how I arrived at this obvious low point in my life.  I believe my joking reply was “poor decision making skills”.

The two of them helped me out of the taxi and through the crowds to the Wyvern Theater.  We were stopped several times for photos and hugs – you’d be surprised how many people want a picture with a random dinosaur.  I guess that doesn’t surprise me.  I mean really, how many dinosaurs do I see on a daily basis?

We made our way up to outside the Wyvern Theater, and the line was already pretty long.  With no one in line knowing who I was, I mingled about and made a general nuisance of myself.  This was an opportunity to do some improv acting as a humanistic dinosaur, which is not something that I envisioned doing as a voice actor, but still sounded super fun.

There was one girl who became an unfortunate victim of my whimsy.  She was merely walking by the Joystiq Live! line.  She was sporting a Yoshi backpack, and I decided to treat that backpack as if it were my baby dinosaur.  I followed and stopped her, and proceeded to pet and hug the backpack.  I let the backpack go a couple of different times, but then I just started following her all over again.  Oddly, it’s like she didn’t know where she was going because she doubled back through that packed hallway a couple more times, which only added to my character’s want to chase this baby dinosaur backpack.  I can only hope that someday she feels comfortable enough to wear that backpack in public again.  I cannot promise that a costumed dinosaur won’t do that to her again.  Wink.

When the doors opened, I walked in with the rest of the Joystiq team.  Here’s the set up: almost everyone with Joystiq was at the pre-planning meeting.  Meaning: not everyone with Joystiq knows I’m the one in the dinosaur suit.  Will hilarity ensue?  Perhaps… 

The show starts, and I begin to do some general milling about through the crowd.  I knocked off hats, played with pony tails, picked up the phone and held it to head (which was at the end of an improbably long neck), and in general did whatever an entertaining dinosaur would have done.

The one thing that no one at the costume store tells you about?  Heat.  The inside of that dinosaur suit must have reached about 120 degrees Fahrenheit (about 49 degrees Celsius).  With very little airflow in that suit, every time I faced away from the crowd was a chance to press my face against the mesh built into the neck of the dinosaur and grab a couple of quick puffs of cool, sweet air – then turn back to entertain the crowd.

After running through just about all of the things I could do and not disrupt the show entirely, I decided to help myself to some water.  I found the water cooler at the corner of the room and filled up a cup with water.  I was going to be reading an email later on anyway, so I sat the cup up on the stage at the table where I would eventually be seated.  It got a couple of chuckles, and that’s al it took.  I was filling up multiple water cups and putting them on the stage for myself, garnering more and more laughter each time.  My intent was to build a pyramid of water filled cups, but I wanted to drink this water later – not just have it spill everywhere.  Practicality won out over comedy.  So, three cups of water on the table later I was desperate to have them for myself.  But I would have to wait a bit longer.

Soon after that, People came up to microphones to ask questions, and I milled about some more.  I couldn’t hear very well inside the suit (I know, shocking, right?) but I did hear one comment that was derogatorily directed at the dinosaur.  I heard lots of “oooohs” as if people were looking for some sort of dino-smackdown to occur.  Look, I’m a pacifist.  But the actor in me realized that this dinosaur is a carnivore, so I began to go towards the microphone the little cretin was asking questions from.  Little problem – there are large 40 inch monitors between me and the cretin.  I tried to squeeze through the small path beside the monitor, but if you’ve seen the dino costume you realize that I was not very nimble inside of it.  The monitor began to TIP OVER.  I, along with several other helpful people, righted it so it never really fell over.  However the Joystiq writer in charge of security had decided that this dinosaur had caused enough trouble.  Security would have to get involved.

It is, at this time, I refer you to earlier in our story when I said that almost everyone had been at the planning meeting.  The security director?  Not at that meeting.  And didn’t know that I was in the suit.  He just thought I was some weird cosplayer that had wandered in and wasn’t causing too much trouble so I was left alone to entertain.  Disregard the fact that I had been on the stage, behind the curtain, throwing merchandise into the air, trying to steal the sound guy’s wallet, knocking off people’s hats and in general being the personification of a little slice of chaos.  Now I had tipped over a monitor and electronics violence would not be tolerated.  Not even from a fuzzy dinosaur.

It was at this time that someone finally leaned over to him and said, “Hey, it’s ok.  It’s Bob in the suit.”  Whoever whispered those words saved the rest of the show.  Can you picture a dinosaur being carted off in cuffs while the Chris, Justin and Ludwig looked on in horror?  I can hear it in my head now in a quaint South African accent, “Umm, sirs, don’t arrest our dinosaur.  He’s just about to read our email.”

Eventually there was a big reveal, I drank a lot of water (those cups of water I poured came in very handy) and read an email.  After that I was tasked to give out swag to the audience, and I proceeded to chuck a plush toy into the rafters at the convention center.  What can I say?  I’ve got a strong arm.  I nearly played college ball – at least that’s what my PR department keeps telling people.

I got a chance to meet several of you after the event, either while I was in costume or throughout the weekend after I showered and smelled much, much better.  I had a fantastic time that weekend, and I still thrilled to know that such a big hearted group invited me in as one of their own.  I’ll always be glad to be a member of the JPAG.

Happy new year, and hey, have you listened to my new podcast ‘PopQuizzical‘?

It’s available on iTunes or surf on over to PopQuizzical.com.

Wanna see the whole ‘Joystiq LIVE!’ show?  Go here:

http://bit.ly/joystiqlive2011

—

Bob Ball is a Seattle based voice actor and host of the internet darling quiz show, PopQuizzical, available on iTunes and online at PopQuizzical.com.