Winkie Convention Countdown: 28 Days to Go

That first convention in 1980 was the only time I went with my whole family. And of course I had just as much fun afterward at Disneyland. I remember my folks basically enjoying the whole weekend on their veranda sipping gin and tonics, while my sister just found random kids to run off and play with. I also remember acing the children's quiz in my only year of eligibility. (I did miss one tiebreaker over a matter of interpretation, and it became the basis for another question on the next year's children's quiz.) One other memory I have is one of the evening's entertainment, the 1969 film, The Wonderful Land of Oz. Remember, this was before home video hit it big, and there wasn't a lot out there, so it was a lot harder to see some of these non-Judy Garland Oz movies. It was truly not a good movie, even then, so what happens when you get a bunch of clever people together who are all fans of the same stuff? That's right, you talk back to it. We did a little MST3K-ing of it long before MST3K even existed. I particularly remember Rob MacVeigh telling Tip, "Oh, sing us a song, Tip!" right before he started to sing something — and we all knew he was about to sing, in that way you always know somebody in a musical is about to sing. So (jumping ahead here a bit), a couple of years later, when Fed Meyer announced the evening's entertainment as The Marvelous Land of Oz, I think I shouted out something along the lines of, "Oh, no, not again!" Fortunately, this time around it was the much better Minneapolis Children's Theater's adaptation, which was much better.