Lost media found: Full video recording of the very first BotCon script reading from 1998!

[Sabrblade]

A rare piece of long lost media has finally been found! Ben Yee of Ben's World of Transformers has uncovered from his archives, and uploaded to YouTube, a complete recording of the original, very first BotCon live script reading from 1998.

This script reading is of the humorous Beast Wars story titled "Visitations", written by Bob Forward and starring:

• Garry Chalk as Onyx Primal and Optimus Primal
• Scott McNeil as Packrat, Vice Grip, Silverbolt, Rattrap, and Waspinator
• Doug Parker as Fractyl
• Susan Blu as Antagony
• David Kaye as Megatron

With music and sound effects performed live by Vince DiCola, and a brief cameo appearance by Ben Yee himself (off-screen in this recording since he was in the audience off to the side from where the camera was pointing).

The story is set during Season 2 of the Beast Wars cartoon (between the episodes "Other Visits" and "Bad Spark") and served as a light-hearted prologue to Simon Furman's big, multi-part epic "Reaching the Omega Point", which would begin the following year at BotCon 1999 (with the prose story "Herald" serving as the direct continuation of this story).

The script itself has been freely available to read online for decades, but no complete recordings of the live onstage performance have ever surfaced until now!

Additionally, this video includes both the preceding and proceeding events that bookended this original performance. Before the main presentation, the four Beast Wars actors read a short fan-written script in which Megatron had called a truce to invite Optimus Primal, Rattrap, and Dinobot over to the Predacon base for a game of poker with himself, Terrorsaur, and Waspinator. And after the main presentation, there was a brief Q&A session between the five voice actors and the audience members.

The video begins with an introduction from Ben Yee himself.

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

Finally gotten around to watching this just now, and digging the Vince DiCola music. But I can't find anything about what these tunes are called, or anything else -- all my searches just bring up the concert he and Stan Bush did the year prior.

Anyone know if there's any other trace of these online or anywhere?

 

[Sabrblade]

Finally gotten around to watching this just now, and digging the Vince DiCola music. But I can't find anything about what these tunes are called, or anything else -- all my searches just bring up the concert he and Stan Bush did the year prior.

Anyone know if there's any other trace of these online or anywhere?

It's possible he may have just improvised the music the whole way through, as the voice actors admit later in the video that they themselves had no prep time to rehearse any of that before performing it.

DiCola also provided music to the 2004 script reading (the, uh, official one from OTFCC 2004, not the unofficial BotCon 2004 one), so you may compare his music in this one to that one to see if there are any familiar tunes between the two, or if that one also sounds original like this one.

 

[The Predaking]

Neat, I will have to check this out later tonight.

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

It's possible he may have just improvised the music the whole way through, as the voice actors admit later in the video that they themselves had no prep time to rehearse any of that before performing it.

DiCola also provided music to the 2004 script reading (the, uh, official one from OTFCC 2004, not the unofficial BotCon 2004 one), so you may compare his music in this one to that one to see if there are any familiar tunes between the two, or if that one also sounds original like this one.

Thanks, I'll give it a look later. =)