Comic Con: Joss Whedon Brings Out The Whole Horrible Gang

By Ed Perkis: 2008-07-27 23:17:03

As we previously noted, Joss Whedon brought along his whole Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog family to meet with the Comic Con fans in San Diego on Friday. Of course, there isn’t a lot of new info to share about this three episode online series, and what was new can be found by clicking the above link, so mostly it was Joss and friends making themselves and the fans laugh their asses off.

When the group that included Whedon, Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion, Felicia Day, Simon Helberg, Jed Whedon, Zack Whedon, and Maurissa Tancharoen hit the stage in front of their rabid fans, they clearly had no plan other than Fillion removing Harris’ chair and Harris pretending to fall on his ass. Joss immediately threw it open to questions from fans and it was an hour of the best sit-down comedy I’ve seen in quite awhile. The boss set the tone by responding to the first innocuous question from a female fan with an accusatory “How dare you, sir!”

It didn’t really matter if the questions were relatively serious or not, they almost always devolved into a few minutes of the panel riffing and then someone getting a quizzical look and stating, “what was the question?” Fillion and Whedon were the main culprits although Harris managed to keep up and even Tancharoen (she was one of the Captain Hammer groupies in Dr. Horrible) got in a few good quips. It all played well do the hardcore fans who packed Room 20, laughing on queue and getting a bit testy when one fan mistakenly referred to Dr. Horrible as Dr. Who.

Some of the better zingers from this panel:

Clearly not understanding the full implication of her question, a fan asks if Joss gets tired of the misery and death he brings to his characters and wonders if he ever feels like saying, “Screw it, this time I want a happy ending.” Without missing a beat, Whedon deadpans, “How do you know I didn’t have one?” If you don’t know why that’s funny, consult your favorite online slang dictionary.

Keeping with the theme of Joss killing people off (which was a recurring event in the questions and answers,) Nathan Fillion (or maybe Harris, my notes aren’t clear) said, “You do kill a lot of chicks.” Whedon feigned outrage and responded, “My personal life is not the point here.” Later in the panel after a question about if he planned on outing Xander rather than Willow (Whedon said no), he noted, “I have two tricks, you are out or dead.” More seriously, he said that his favorite death to write was Joyce, as it gave him Time to spend that close to something that close to me.”

When a sympathy whoring fan said her brain may be deteriorating and queried “What do you do to be happy when you’re devastated.” Fillion, refusing to be manipulated, cracked, “When my brain deteriorates…I’m pretty happy.” Whedon added, “Slightly less facetiously…the comfort of the people around me and the stories that I love,” were how he stayed happy.

Someone asked the panel what was the most memorable moment of the Jossverse and Simon Helberg said “I did one and that’s all I’ve done so, hmmmm, yeah, the one I did, the Dr. Who.” Fillion quoted his Dr. Horrible character by saying “The hammer is my penis.” That pretty much brought the house down.

Even the fans got a few good shots in. Describing Captain Hammer as “A super hero kind of a dick,” a fan asked Joss, “What it was you saw in Nathan’s personality (that made him right for the part.)” Joss describes Fillion as a sweet guy but also very smarmy, adding the death knell for everyone’s favorite Priceline.com pitchman, “Shatner, your time is done!”

It wasn’t all fun and games (just about 90%), and a few questions like “Will Fray get a continuing series” were thrown out (the answer is no.) Joss said Buffy’s Oz would be brought back in the comics. Fillion said you could get Dr. Horrible’s van control icon from this website. The panel was asked their favorite musical and votes came in for Sweeney Todd, Rent, Singing in the Rain and Into the Woods. Harris spoke about his time in Rent and Whedon put in a plug in for buying Dr. Horrible on iTunes. I mostly just laughed and wondered how I was going to write up a story on this panel that didn’t have much news in it but was probably one of the highlights of the convention.

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