All posts by Wil

Author, actor, producer. On a good day, I am charming as fuck.

we are all of us living in the shadow of manhattan

Um. Wow.


Even if you’re not counting down the minutes until Watchmen comes out, if you are of a certain age, this is pretty much a perfect recreation of the time it’s supposed to be, well, recreating. My nostalgia centers are currently well above the flood stage, and it’s not just because of the production quality. I’m not 100% sure, but I believe the dialog is taken almost directly from the book I loved and read over and over as a teenager, but I don’t have time to take mine out and fact check at the moment.

Still. Wow.

the best mashup of van halen and asteroids you’ll see today

One of my colleagues at LA Weekly, who clearly doesn’t want me to get my column turned in on time today, sent me the best mashup of Van Halen and Asteroids that I’ve ever seen. Check it out, before some jerk with no sense of humor gets it sent to the land of wind and ghosts. Sammy Hagar, I’m looking in your direction. And will never buy your lousy records again. Again. Never again. Never again…

it doesn’t make a difference if we look cool or not…

After playing Rock Band 2 for 2 straight hours and struggling though some songs I've never played before, I was worried that when the videos started making their way online, I'd look like an asshole who didn't know how to play fake instruments, and that everyone would laugh at me. But when I watch this video of us doing Livin' on a Prayer, all I see is the evening distilled to its essence: a lot of geeks having a lot of fun pretending to be rock stars on a real stage playing for a real audience, which is exactly what I hoped for when I planned it. I mean, we were up there playing 80s anthems, and there were people dancing in front of the stage. When I sang to a girl in the front row, she screamed like we were at an actual concert. For reals! It was so awesome, it was hard not to get caught up in the fantasy of the thing, and I don't think any of us who played the game spent more than 10 seconds fighting it.

In fact, this was so much fun, I think I may need to figure out a way to make it part of every con I go to … you know, like going on tour. \m/

hit robots, make fall down

I'm writing this on Wednesday afternoon, before I start packing for the Phoenix Comicon, where I'll be when this post magically appears on my blog, so please forgive me if there's some timely current event I should be talking about; I can't really travel through time, you know.

If I've done everything correctly, my episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold has just finished airing on Cartoon Network in the Eastern time zone, and even though I'm at a con and can't participate for another 24 or 48 hours, I'd love to hear what you thought of the show, and my performance as Ted Kord.

I'd avoid the comments on this post until you've seen the show, so anyone who wants to be the captain of the SS Spoiler can take a turn at the helm without upsetting anyone else.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the episode, and that all the build up this week paid off.

one last fistful of Ted Kord interviews

Part deux of my interview with Trekmovie.com is online, so you don’t have to avoid spoilers any more:

TrekMovie.com: The first season can be be brutal.

Wil Wheaton: Yeah. That is why the first season is kind of fun. Some of the episodes are really really bad and a few of the episodes are extremely good, even if you are not grading on a curve. For the most part — we are awkward — we are trying to figure out what our show is about. And you can see how we had so many different writers and creative power struggles while we figured out what we were going to be. We were really lucky we got a chance to do more than one season. If it wasn’t for the incredible cast and writers like Sandy Fries and Tracy Torme, we probably would not have gone past the second season.

TrekMovie.com: I am in the camp that thinks that Michael Piller, and writers like Ron Moore, really saved the show in the third season.

Wil Wheaton: They absolutely did.

TrekMovie.com: I know some don’t like to hear that Gene [Roddenberry] didn’t save the show. I love Gene Roddenberry, but for TNG I think the Michael was the best thing for the show.

Wil Wheaton: Gene had the presence of mind to know he was getting old and he knew that someone who loved Star Trek as much as he did could step in to take the reins. He hand picked Michael. He begged Michael at the end of season three to come back. Michael didn’t want to at first, but Gene said to him “I need you to make this show great, I can’t do it without you” and Michael agreed. And Michael had the open submissions policy, which is how Ron [Moore] came on, with “The Bonding.” I don’t think it is inaccurate or unfair to give Michael a great deal of credit for making Next Generation great, but at the same time I think it is also fair and accurate to acknowledge that it was Gene Roddenberry who had the vision and presence of mind and the foresight to keep Michael Piller on and put him in a position to do what he did.

I also talked to buzz focus about playing Ted Kord, and that’s online, too:

So…. Brave and Bold Batman vs Frank Miller Batman – who would win?

W. Wheaton: (laugh) I don’t know that’s like asking which fruit will taste better an apple or an orange.

Are you also a fan of 70s/80s cartoons?

W. Wheaton: I remember getting up really early on Saturday mornings to watch the old Super Friends cartoons. It was really Challenge of the Super Friends and those old battles of the Legion of Doom that I loved. And I’m exactly the right age for GI Joe, Transformers, Thundercats and He-Man.

Thundarr the Barbarian is my favorite cartoon in history. That was before they were allowed to do marketing and merchandising in cartoons. So these guys were like, “let’s tell some cool stories.” And, they did.

You’re involved in so many things, what’s your passion these days?

W. Wheaton: Honestly, it’s spending as much time as I can with my family. My boys are getting older. My oldest son is in college, his brother is a senior in high school and is going to college next year. I am keenly aware how 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week isn’t that much time. More important than anything else is providing for them financially and emotionally.

Finally, I talked to Media Blvd., and got to deliver what ended up being my favorite one-liner of the whole series of interviews (unplanned). See if you can spot it:

Shaun> That’s cool, I grew up on Challenge of the Superfriends. Don’t start me going down that memory lane.

Wil> Are you a Wendy and Marvin kind of guy, or are you a Zan and Jana kind of guy. Wendy and Marvin were lame.

Shaun> I was glad though when Zan and Jana took off, and that damn monkey Gleek, that was always screwing things up.

Wil> I was the right age for Zan and Jana, so I thought that was really funny. They always turned into something. They could have defeated their adversaries, like they were way overpowered for what they actually did with their superpowers. I was exactly the right age, I was born in ’72, so I was like 8 when I was watching that. I thought it was awesome, then I grew up a little bit and there was Wendy and Marvin and Wonderdog. I thought, “They’re dumbing this down!” I was like 11, “They’re dumbing this down for the audience, and they’re insulting my 11 year old intelligence. This is awful, worst episode ever!”

Shaun> I hated the way the Superfriends treated Batman. The only thing they’d show of Batman is the car stopping and picking up Wendy and Marvin, but the dog doesn’t make it into the Batmobile.

Wil> I know, like you’re going to make Batman the chauffeur? Are you serious? I can promise you that that does not happen in Batman: The Brave & The Bold. In Batman: The Brave & The Bold, Batman is awesome, and he is not a ridiculous chauffeur. Batman is nobody’s bitch in Batman: The Brave & The Bold.

Maybe I could have said “Batman: The Brave & The Bold” a few more times in that last answer. I think I really dropped the ball there.

So … I thought there were more, but I’ve either closed the tabs, or I was hopped up on old Foreigner albums and had double vision. I know that three isn’t really a fistful, but I have small fists. So there.

And with that, my friends, I am off to Phoenix for the Phoenix Comicon. I don’t know what kind of internets I’ll have while I’m there, my friends, but if history is any indicator, I’ll be Twittering the hell out of everything, my friends.

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