In which we pay a visit to the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention

This past Friday, we attended the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention - an annual event which takes place just outside of Baltimore, Maryland.   It features a mix of celebrity appearances, scholarly talks and many vendors offering all sorts of memorabilia and lovingly created fan art. 

We had a great time and took part in many of the activities that the convention had to offer. 

J.A. Morris auditioned for an old-time radio drama (A lost episode of Gang Busters.) produced & performed by the Gotham Radio Players.  Sadly,  he was not chosen, but we enjoyed listening to the final performance -  they only got 1/2 an hour of rehearsal! 

The Gotham Radio Players perform an episode of Gang Busters.

Julie Newmar, the definitive Catwoman and Elizabeth Shepherd, the original Emma Peel were part of a great panel discussion about their careers.  

We also attended award-winning author Garyn G. Roberts' lecture about the life and work of the late, great Ray Bradbury. 

Ray Bradbury and friend

We've been fans of Bradbury's work for some time and found much to enjoy in Roberts' talk.  For the record, we blogged about an adaptation of Bradbury's "The Halloween Tree" last year.  

RigbyMel with K-9 -- but ready to run if that Dalek behind me noticed I was there!

We even got to visit the TARDIS and some Doctor Who prop replicas thanks to the TARDIS Photo Booth. 

J.A. Morris exiting the TARDIS

We got to meet Robert Loggia.  Best remembered from his roles in the movie Big and the series T.H.E. Cat, he's one of the best character actors of all time.    

J.A. Morris and Robert Loggia

And Ed Asner,  who was every bit as salty, and funny and awesome as one would hope he'd be.  Asner has appeared in quite a few Christmas-themed productions (Elf, The X-Files, various holiday episodes of Mary Tyler Moore), we plan to review some of them this season.  

Asner says we're off the naughty list!

But our favorite celebrity that we got to hang out with was our friend Joanna Wilson of Christmas TV History.com.   She gave a lecture entitled "Entertaining Spirits: The Many TV Adaptations of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol".

Joanna and RigbyMel 

Her presentation was very informative, even for Christmas junkies like ourselves.  We both met her in 2010, we've done guest reviews on our respective blogs, it was great to see her in person again.

The Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention was a fun experience.  Future MANC events are well worth checking out if you get the chance.

-- RigbyMel and J.A. Morris