Svengoolie Meets Freddy Krueger at Flashback Weekend!

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Happy Labor Day!

Before delving into my experience at 2014’s Flashback Weekend featuring Svengoolie and his LIVE talk show with Robert Englund, Lance Henriksen, and a host of other cast members from A Nightmare on Elm Street films, I should probably explain just where the heck we Terror Daves have been this past summer. This time last year I think I’d covered about nine conventions as opposed to this year’s impressive…er…ONE but, rest assured, we’re both still alive.

We did formally discuss taking a step back earlier this year, though I surprised myself by actually following through on that. We both took the time to devote energy on our animal interests which, for me, involved volunteering more hours at Brookfield Zoo while focusing extra attention on my AAZK (American Association of Zookeepers) Chapter (the same group that hosted Svengoolie last March in a story David covered HERE). The funny part of the story is that our site’s traffic actually increased instead of decreased. I guess the previous four years of hard work had  paid off with older posts like my story on meeting Pam Grier, David’s 1980’s “Boglin” toy retrospective and the one he did on Asia Eriksen’s “Werepuppies”  becoming large draws. The revelation that the break didn’t end up harming the site was pretty fantastic but, what wasn’t so great, was missing out on a bunch of  Svengoolie’s summer appearances…

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The Costumes of G-FEST (Godzilla Festival) XXI!

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The costume contest of G-FEST (Godzilla Festival) has increased by leaps and bounds (it went from around three entrees in the beginning to over forty contestants this year) while serving as a finale of sorts to its participants.  G-FEST, however, is not content to just have their cosplay (who are often too bulky to move about during the weekend as traditional costumers can) dress as their favorite monster. They provide an opportunity for them to stomp around a miniature city while acting out in  their own kaiju movie.

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G-FEST XXI’s Monster Models!

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Day two of G-FEST XXI began with me snoozing soundly in the comfy hotel bed before getting the distinct impression I was being stared at. I cracked open an eyeball to see my ten year old son, Luke, looking at me intently. “Shouldn’t we be getting downstairs to the convention?” he asked. I checked my phone and it was 5:30am. “Um…go back to sleep!” But at that point it was too late…we were up. Thank God the room had a coffee machine.

We ate breakfast which I’d packed along and then I got ready (Luke was already dressed of course) and, by 9am, I’m pretty sure he’d asked me “is it time to go down yet?” somewhere in the double digits. Patience is definitely not his strong suit. Finally we headed downstairs so we could get him signed up for the Godzilla video game tournament before the big competition began later that morning. This gave me time to check out the Art room (which you saw in the last post) and then, my favorite G-FEST feature of them all, the model room!

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Thank God(zilla) for G-FEST!

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My ten year old son, Luke, and I arrived today for G-FEST XXI . In the ten years I’ve attended the Godzilla Festival, I’d never seen the registration line so long on a Friday. Last year I attended over ten conventions, most outside of my sweet home Chicago with poor G-FEST getting a quick stop-over on its final day. This year would be the opposite as I vowed to avoid virtually every other event and focus solely on one of my favorites.

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Celebrating Godzilla at G-FEST!

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IMG_3081Matt Harris’ amazing work debute at G-FEST XIX

Long before I became a “Terror Dave” or even knew what a “blog” was, there was only one fan event I attended regularly. It was exactly ten years ago that I experienced my first G-FEST (Godzilla Festival) and it would not only become something I’d look forward to every year after but one my kids would anticipate even more than Christmas itself.

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