RON & FEZ Noon to Three

Some out there know that my trip to NYCC had great aspirations. You see, I had been in contact with Black Earl Douglas, producer of the Ron & Fez show, about escorting Fez Marie Whatley through the comic convention.

OK. Fez has been talking about going to the NY Comic Convention. I have friends that can hook it up so that I can introduce Fez to a number of people that work on DC Comics (Fez's favorite company) and ask questions. I can probably even record a video of it with my laptop that you can pull audio from for the show. One of the contacts works on (deleted), which I think is one of Fez's favorites.

Also, I have contacts with a few artists there. I might be able to get someone to sketch MAN-MAN or GAY MAN for the show.

This was an offer I made to Earl because he was getting disrespected on the show, again. I figured I could help him get a win by hooking Fez up nicely. If I wasn't worried about trying to help out Earl, I would have just called into the show, made the offer directly, and probably would have a better go of things. That still would have allowed me the chance to help Fez have a great experience at the con, which was the most important thing. I just figured I could get Earl some credit at the same time.

Hey Kev,

Fez wants to go the NY Comic Con on Saturday, April 19^th. Please let me know who from DC will be there and what time.

Thanks for setting this up. Take care.

Earl

Now, Earl shortening my name down to Kev didn't register as any kind of flag for me, but maybe it should have. More on that later.

But, on the surface, this e-mail seems to be accepting the offers I've put out there to hook him up with interviews. Based on that, I reached out to a DC contact about scheduling some interviews. I was told that, given the hectic nature, it would just be best for me to bring Fez by the booth and they'd dole out whoever they could based on creator availability and Fez's time at the convention.

Earl,

Just to follow up, everything is pretty well set up. DC Comics is going to set us up with whoever they can Saturday, depending on the schedule at the time. Some of the biggest creators at DC will be attending the convention and possibly available, like Grant Morrison (Batman, All Star Superman), Geoff Johns (Action Comics (Superman), JSA, Green Lantern), Gail Simone (Wonder Woman, Birds of Prey), etc. They can't give us a definite schedule for us until we show up, because the convention is a hectic thing. I'm trying to coordinate with a few professionals directly, though. Dennis Calero (the Marvel artist who called in and spoke with Ronnie about Man-Man) definitely wants us to swing by his booth as well, too.

I'd like to come by the studio one day this week, if at all possible. I think that Fez would probably be more comfortable on Saturday if it isn't the first time we meet.

Thanks,
Kevin

It was around here that things started to fall apart. I sent an e-mail directly to Ron & Fez. While they didn't respond, I saw a shift in Earl's responses. They all became shorter and made the situation look considerably more bleak. The focus was just on how could Fez get a press pass or could I leave a VIP badge at the press office for him to pick up. The weekend was going to be so hectic for Fez that he couldn't be sure when he'd show up and Earl would just have Fez call me if he wanted to get hooked up for meetings. Very deflating.

In a phone conversation on Friday, Black Earl was confused when I brought up again that, if Fez took me up on the DC creator meetings, I'd be able to videotape it. It was in my original e-mail to him. But, hey, all was well...Earl was a good guy trying to help out and things just didn't go great.

Not exactly.

Apparently, the stuff that many of the personalities on the show say about Earl is closer to truth than I previously believed.

Let's start it out with the revelation I heard on Monday's show: Earl thought I was Big Kev, from Big Kev's Geek Stuff. From what else was said on the show, I think Fez was pretty clear early on that he just wanted to go hang out with his friends at the convention. Oh, somehow Earl miscommunicated the videotaping idea, too...because Fez said on the show that I was expecting to be provided with equipment to record it, when I had a Panasonic MiniDV cam ready to record it.

So...now I've been dubbed "the New Big Kev" by Ron and that's...ok. I did get to meet Fez briefly at the convention on Saturday. He was as gracious and polite as could be. He wanted to thank me for all the offers of helping set things up, even if he wasn't able to take me up on them. I noticed he had a weekend pass badge (probably from the old Big Kev), which pointed out that all the back and forth about press credentials with Earl was unnecessary. I apologized to my DC contact for the false alarm about the interviews, but said I'd hopefully be able to get his information to the show so that they could possibly arrange phoners later. He was happy with that, because the booth had been ridiculously hectic and phone or studio interviews outside of a con weekend would be much easier to set up.

I had a shirt made for Saturday that had the site banner on the front and FEZ DETAIL on the back. Of course, I didn't get to use it. But I went up to the studios on Monday afternoon to drop it off. Unfortunately, they weren't doing a show...but I was lucky enough to be standing there trying to call into the office when Black Earl came out to use the restroom. This was before I knew how much things got miscommunicated, so it was a sincerely uncomplicated talk with him and he said he'd make sure Fez got the shirt. I hope Fez likes getting t-shirts.


So...it wasn't a complete loss. But I know I'll be less prone to think East Side Dave, Lily, or Pepper Hicks are exaggerating when they tee off on Earl. Bronx Johnny stays out of that mix most of the time. He's a be easy kind of guy...and ya gotta love that. He's why I have a Ron & Fez mousepad next to me and a Ron & Fez t-shirt in my dresser drawer. Happy Easy, Johnny...Happy Easy.