Infinite thanks must be given to my good friend and former roommate Shelby for sending me the link to information about this show. I would have never known about it otherwise and I would have missed out on possibly the fangirliest experience of my life.
I have been an Animaniacs fan since the day it aired and I found out in retrospect that I've been a fan of Rob Paulsen since even before that. He's been voices in pretty much every cartoon ever, including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (he played Raphael, the turtle I had a crush on until I realized Donatello was the smart one. Recently they recorded a pilot for a Turtles reboot; Rob Paulsen played Donatello in that one. Funny, that).
On top of that, he's totally dreamy. So there's that.
The woman sitting across from me at the show was a friend of Rob Paulsen's and he came up and said hello to her beforehand. I sat and quietly stared and internally freaked the hell out. In a good way. Shelby laughed at me, a grand time was had by all.
About twenty minutes later, very close to my head but slightly behind me I hear a very familiar cartoon character say "Hello! I'm Yakko," as a hand lands on my shoulder. I turned to find Rob Paulsen, who was walking around greeting everybody and thanking them for coming (how unbelieveably nice is this guy!) and ... well, my reaction was the epitome of fangirlity. The gasp that escaped from my mouth would have sounded overtly theatrical if it hadn't been one hundred percent sincere. Yakko told me not to throw up and Rob Paulsen thanked us for missing the opening of the Olympics for his show. I told him that this was far more important.
Now, as for the show itself ... sweet holy everything, it was fantastic. Randy Rogel wrote pretty much all the best Animaniacs songs and they played pretty much everything I wanted to hear. They started with Variety Speak; they played A Quake, A Quake; Hello Nurse; Yakko's Universe; Lake Titicaca; a song called The Geologic Clock (I think?) that had never made it onto the show; they played The Invasion Song from Histeria; When You're Traveling (my absolute favorite Animaniacs song; I nearly overturned the table with joy when it began); Noel ... probably some others but I'm forgetting them. Yakko's World, obviously, but I'm a little tired of that song and Rob Paulsen is very tired of it (which was kind of awesome to hear).
They were funny, they were informative, their banter was genuine, the stories they told were interesting, some of the song lyrics got flubbed, Rob Paulsen bad-mouthed his I-Pad, it was fantastic. (I don't listen to podcasts but you can be certain that I will be downloading this one.)
The place was packed with cartoon royalty: Andrea Romano, Maurice LaMarche, Tom Ruegger who read a heartfelt rendition of Lake Titicaca to Sherri Stoner, who added commentary by Slappy Squirrel. I'm sure there are other people I'm forgetting. I was a bit overwhelmed at the time.
And that's what I'm really having a hard time capturing, that overwhelmedness. That feeling of absolute fangirl bliss. I was in a comedy club watching my favorite voice actor perform my favorite songs from one of my favorite cartoon shows, songs written by my favorite of that show's songwriters. I was there with one of my best friends, one of her biggest interests in life is animation. There's no one better I could have gone with and the event itself could not have been more perfect.
After the show Paulsen, Rogel, Stoner and Ruegger signed my notebook for me and I got a picture with Rob Paulsen. They could not possibly have been nicer and Shelby pointed out that the evening was far better than Comic Con.
It was pretty much perfect, really. Experiences like this come about very rarely and it's wonderful when you get to have an evening where everything is exactly right.
End of line.
-Sally
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