This year I had headed to San Diego a day early, so I was able to spend the morning of Wednesday’s Preview Night walking around getting a preview of all of the various activations that were being constructed, and the hotel wraps that were going up. I was quickly reminded of the massive number of things available to do outside of the panels going on inside the convention center itself. Someone who struck out of the badge lottery could still easily find a weekend’s worth of activities in the Gaslamp!
After my annual blogger/press friends meetup at Bub’s At The Ballpark, I headed over to the convention center to pick up my WB bags and lanyard—I received the Sabrina bag with a Aquaman pin— and immediately headed to get in line early for the Preview Night access to the convention floor.
When we were let into the convention center, I made a mad dash towards the Twentieth Century Fox booth to grab a poster tube, and then went around the corner hoping to take advantage of the annual The Walking Dead photo opportunity. However, the booth was different this year, with no elaborate scene recreation, just a row of phones to check out some sort of app. So I bypassed that and headed for the ABC booth. ABC had also forgone their usual big structure, and had opted for a shop instead, selling throwback merchandise for past ABC shows. I picked up an exclusive Mr. Cluck’s shirt for myself as well as another plus some exclusive Dharma pins for a Lost podcasting friend.
I wandered around the rest of the show floor, swinging by the WB booth where they handed me a stack of the 4 EW issues/covers, along with a Tom & Jerry luggage tag. Then I noticed a booth for the new Netflix animated series Disenchanted, which comes from The Simpsons creator Matt Groening. The booth was where the Outlander booth has been the last few years, and sort of fit with the same theme. People dressed in medieval garb and donning “British” accents talked about the show, and playfully interacted with the guests. There were various interactive elements as you walked through, pressing on the wall in different locations would activate sounds or clips from the series. Once you made your way to the end, you spun a large wheel to see what prize you got—the prizes ranged between posters, pins, temporary tattoos, and t-shirts.
As I wandered some more, I found the TBS booth, which this year was set up to promote the animated series Final Space. At the entrance to the booth there was a wall of Mooncakes—you could take your photo either in front of it, or peeping your face through the wall. (I opted for the former.) Once in the booth, you put on a VR headset and watched a 5 minute, 360 degree scene with the characters from the show. I wish the experience had been a little more interactive, but it was still fun to watch. As you exited the shop, there was a place where you could purchase all kinds of exclusive/non-exclusive show merchandise.
Next, I swung by the Titan booth to pick up a couple 13th Doctor Titans for a friend. Then, I decided to look for the Bongo Comics booth, to see if there was some kind of new Futurama comic available. The series went digital-only a while back, and I always hope that some sort of printed edition of the digital issues will pop up at Comic-Con. To my delight, I saw “Futurama Comics Annual #1” on the counter. As I waiting to pay, I saw a very recognizable face in the booth—for some reason former The Walking Dead EP Scott M. Gimple was there chatting with the guy who was running the booth. While I doubt it was what was being discussed, but how cool would it be to have a Matt Groening-style Walking Dead comic?!
I was running out of time to explore the show floor, but I decided to head back to the FOX booth to see if they were giving anything away. On my way there, I passed a very odd sight—it was Deadpool singing Dolly Parton along with the animatronic characters from the Country Bear Jamboree! The things you see at Comic-Con!
When I got to the FOX booth, they were handing out Family Guy fanny packs, so I hopped into the end of the line and grabbed one. I wanted to pick up a 13th Doctor Funko at the BBC America booth, but the line was way too long, so I decided to call it a night, and headed off to my hotel to drop off my stuff.
I had been invited to the press preview night for the The Good Place activation in the Gaslamp, which NBC has set up as part of its annual takeover of the Tin Fish restaurant. I checked in, and was instructed to enter some basic information about myself on a tablet. I was given an RFID wristband, and then headed into the line. While waiting to enter the experience, you line up along these hedges with screens embedded in them. Janet pops on at various times with trivia questions, statements, or just montages of soothing “good things”. There was was another group before mine already in the experience, and we could just hear all kinds of cheering and screaming, wondering what the fork was going on in there!
Once we were let in, we walked through a doorway into a small, stark white room with two flower pots on either side of a blank wall. Then a video of Michael and Janet appeared on the screen, welcoming us to The Good Place, which, in this incarnation was tailored for Comic-Con. Bad Janet popped in at one point stating that the Bad Place also has a Comic-Con, which is pretty much the same as the Earthly one, just with 20% longer lines. After this finished, the back door of the room opened up and we walked into a small neighborhood with a carnival-like atmosphere. There were actors in character welcoming us to The Good Place. They’d scan our bracelets, and then ask us questions. All of the information they had about our names, etc seemed to be wrong, but I just went with it…I didn’t want them to realize I didn’t belong!
Almost immediately, one woman walked up to me and told me she was my soulmate. However, when she introduced me as such to another character, she was told that she had to stop doing this, and that I wasn’t really her soulmate. After she walked way sad, I heard her telling someone else that they were her soulmate! As I walked around some more, I went to a station where they had one of those children’s spinning horse rides you see outside of stores or in shopping malls. However, on this ride, the horses were all shrimp! As I mounted one of the shrimp I was handed a big foam shrimp as a souvenir.
After I stepped off the exhilarating ride, I grabbed a drink from the bowl of La Croix cans and Coke bottles, and walked to the next station. A Chidi-like man was standing in front of a blackboard. After introducing himself, he proceeded to take me and a few other guests through The Trolley Problem, proposing various, increasingly difficult moral scenarios. The crux of the problem was that a train was headed towards a person or persons and if we pulled a lever to divert the train, it would save them, but kill a different person/persons. This guy did a great job of staying in character and reacting to our answers. While he was talking to us, a loud-mouthed guy broke in, screaming about his love for Puddle of Mud, and telling us that we didn’t belong here—that we belonged in The Bad Place with him. We and our instructor tried to ignore him, but he didn’t give up.
As I left this morality lesson, I grabbed some free popcorn and wandered around some more. A woman approached me looking worried. She whispered that she didn’t belong here, but if she could take a really good picture of me, maybe they’d let her stay. She tried to use her camera but it wasn’t working, and she looked increasingly frustrated, banging the camera to try to get it to work. She asked if she could borrow my phone to take the picture. As I posed, she looked pleased with her photography skills, and happily handed the camera back to me, smiling and saying “I got a great picture”. But when I looked at the phone, I saw she had reversed the camera and had taken a selfie instead!
Suddenly, there was a lot of commotion and there was a voice yelling for us to leave and escape. Things started to go nuts. The Bad Place guy was yelling again. One of the characters ripped off his shirt and started asking a woman to hop on his shoulders for a ride, and when she refused, he starting doing push-ups. There was lot of commotion and the screaming continued as we were rushed out the exit. As we left we were handed Bad Place thumbs-down pins…or were they Good Place thumbs-up pins?
That marked the end of my first official day at Comic-Con 2018! The show floor was a little disappointing compared to past years, but The Good Place was really fun. I look forward to seeing what Day 1 brings.
