I now have decided that the director for the upcoming DS film should be - wait for it! - Adam Shankman, the director of HAIRSPRAY, currently playing at your local cinema complex. John Travolta - in drag once again! - could play Elizabeth Stoddard...Christopher Walken as Barnabas...Queen Latifah as Dr. Julia Hoffman...and that adorable Zac Efron as David Collins! Plus John Waters does a cameo as Diabolos, Prince of Darkness!

Why the DS film could even begin with "Welcome to the 60's", HAIRSPRAY's opening number! Can't you just picture the good people of Collinsport pouring out of the Blue Whale, the Collinsport Inn, the Todd Antique Shop and the Eagle Hill graveyard all singing and all dancing!

Yes!  "Good Morning, Collinsport!"  I love it!!!  LOL!  

If Quentin Tarentino directs, do you think he'll recast the role of Barnabas & give it to Travolta instead? And cast Uma Thurman as Vicki Winters? And maybe have a scene at the Blue Whale where Barnabas & Vicki break into the Twist on the dance floor? Oh, I hope he'll have Carolyn call everyone "Honey Bunny" !

I actually sort of like these ideas -- LOL!!

I recall seeing Boy Who Cried Werewolf, at the long gone Nostrand Theatre in Brooklyn NY in 1973.
The co-feature was the mutant snake thriller "Ssssss...."

Ah, yes.
The horror movies of my youth.
What pleasent memories!

Yes!  When I saw it (in my small town in Ohio), it was a double feature with "Ssssss" but my mom wouldn't let me stay for the second one -- LOL!  But that was fine with me because werewolves were my thing and I had to beg and beg her just to let me see "The Boy Who Cried Werewolf" (she thought it would be too scary) -- LOL!  I did eventually see "Ssssss" on tv years later, though.  But "The Boy Who Cried Werewolf was very exciting and definitely scared me (yes, Mom was right, but I wanted to get scared!  LOL!).  I was in the 6th grade at the time.  I remember the scene where the werewolf was locked in the shed and the boy's mom had to go back into the house to get the car keys so they could escape and it seemed like everybody in the whole theater was yelling "Hurry up!" and sitting on the edge of our seats waiting to see if they could get away before the werewolf broke out of the shed -- LOL!  After I saw this movie I was terrified for weeks that someone around me would turn into a werewolf and attack me -- LOL!  But I thought this movie was so cool -- I took my tape recorder and recorded my own sequel (which I made up as I went along) where the boy was now a werewolf -- LOL!  It included lots of howling -- LOL!  (Yes, I sound like I still am in the 6th grade -- LOL!)

Anyway, thanks for your reply and sharing your memory, David!

Mary    

Umm - just from a purely logical point of view, did she also stop you from watching The Flintstones and any of the other cartoons that featured the characters in your dream? If not, well...  :-  

Nope, she didn't!  That's what I always thought -- where was the logic of that?  LOL!  Imagine -- blaming it all on poor innocent Barnabas!  LOL!

I don't know specifics outside of what I have been told by the people directly involved with the fests who deal with fan correspondence all year long.  If there isn't any show on the air, I don't see where there would be flexible income to market the show via festival.  At any rate, there is always the hope DS will be picked up elsewhere and that type of gatherings will be planned at least once a year - small or large.   Let's just  hope the show gets picked up on the airwaves again.

Market the show via Festival -- is that all the Fest is?  Just a marketing ploy for DCP?  That's just wrong.  (Yeah, I know I'm being naive and unrealistic, but it's still wrong.)  The Fest is supposed to be about celebrating the show and getting together with friends.   Back in the '80s when the Fest was first organized (and I've read this story over and over again in Shadowgram) it was organized by fans to celebrate the show, not to make money for DCP.  How did the organizers finance it back then before DCP took it over?  Why couldn't whatever they did to finance it then work today?  Maybe there are legitimate reasons; I'm just asking.  Maybe if DCP can't finance it then DCP should let Marcy and the people who originally ran it take it back over.  Or am I looking at this all backwards and DCP took it over in the first place to help finance it?  That hasn't been my understanding, but I want to get the facts straight.  I agree it would be very cool if DS got picked up by a network like Chiller or wherever and got back on the air again to attract new fans.     

None of us really know about the business model or finances of DCP.   The fact that fest attendance has dropped off (since the show left the air on SciFi) and the 40th Anniversary saw something llike only 2000 it doesn't make sense to finance something that appeals to a limited audience and stands to lose money.  My hope is that the show finds another home on cable.  Back when the series was on SciFi, festival attendance was as high as 4-6,000 people over the course of a weekend.

Before the show was on Sci Fi, 2000 people attending the Fest was the norm, or more like above the norm.  If that wasn't considered a poor attendance then, why is it now? 

Well, I'm sure they've talked about upping the admission price before, but more than likely if they did that, they'd lose a certain percentage of attendance. One of the draws, for me anyway, it how cheap the FEST costs, minus hotel fees and traveling expenses. If I had to pay, let's say $500 for traveling expenses and hotel costs, and then turn around and pay like $250 or so for a total fest admission (including all days involved, and the banquet) I'd seriously rethink me going.

I agree the low admission price is a draw for me also, but I didn't mean a huge upward leap in price, I was merely thinking of instead of the $30 weekend price fee maybe charging like $45 or so.

As for why they don't let other people run the fest--me thinks that it's because once people saw how much work goes into it, any volunteers would surely run the other way. Not to mention that if they royally screwed it up it would be Jim's, DCP's, and the Fest's name on the line. If I were Jim, I certainly wouldn't want that type of stress--worrying about someone else doing it and me not being able to go all control-freak. I am a control-freak, mind you

If someone else were running a DS convention on their own (which is what I thought was the Fan Fair group's intention), I don't see how it would be Jim's, DCP's, and the Fest's name on the line.

At the Brooklyn Fest last year, there was a....well, not a LARGE dealer room, but I was surprised at how many dealers were there. MPI, of course, and then there were a number of fan dealers that had a bunch of different fanzines for sale, and there were LOTS of table with DS pics for sale and fest vids for sale. Out in the main hall there were more DS picture tables, some DS Marilyn Ross tables with other little DS collectibles--watches, paper clipping, the like--and then a LARGE table that had tons of old TV Guides and 16, Tiger Beat, and related magazines, many with DS articles or mentions, and some that were just REALLY REALLY old and collectible to people who collect things like that.

This year, though, because of the scaled down event, I"m sure there won't be as many dealers. And if events in subsequent years are to match or mimic this year's gathering, I suspect dealers won't come in droves like they did before.

Yes, I too was pleasantly surprised at the number of dealers out in the hall last year.  But if you compare the number of dealers the Fest has with other non-DS cons, this is nothing.  This is nothing even compared to the number of dealers the Fest had in the dealers room in the '90s, which is still nothing compared to the number of dealers at other cons.  There are a lot of things people are interested in coming to the Fest or any other type of con for other than DS items.  For example, the friend I mentioned in my earlier post who no longer comes to the Fests -- at the first Fest that David Selby attended, when he made a surprise appearance (in '92 or '93 maybe -- not sure right now), I walked up to my friend who was in the dealers room and excitedly told her that David Selby was here and her exact response which I will never forget was "Who cares?  I found Lady Death!"  (LOL!)  I also know there are people who come to cons looking for things like bootleg dvds of obscure Eurohorror movies.  They're not going to find any of this stuff at the Fest anymore, if they ever did.  Maybe some people might say that none of that is DS-related and shouldn't be sold at the Fests in the first place, but if it brings in more dealers, more people, and more money for the Fest, why not sell it there?  I'm not saying the Fest should have room after room of dealers so there would be wall-to-wall people and it would be claustrophobic; there certainly should be a limit, but if money is a problem in financing the Fest, only allowing a few select dealers, selling DS merchandise only, in a small dealers room is ridiculous.