1994 - 11/1994 Meeting

Page Created: 09/25/10. Last Updated: 10/26/10. Last Google Group Page Update: 02/23/08.

MICHAEL O' HARE

Video: BABYLON 5: "Deathwalker"

Mr O' Hare's website is: http://www.geocities.com/heartland/pond/1868/msmoxey/michael.htm.

MEETING SUMMARY:

Meeting Date: November 12, 1994.

Meeting Site: Saddle River Valley Cultural Center, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Official Attendance: 45.

Meeting Program: Talk by actor. Screening of BABYLON 5 episode.

Notes:

Meeting Memories:

Newsletter Account:

The November 12, 1994 meeting of the Association was held in the Saddle River Valley Cultural Center in Upper Saddle River. Early day activities included William Molendyk running the club AD&D game at the GameMaster for S F A B Cers Philip De Parto, Charles Garofalo, Abby Pelcyger and three other players, and a group of nine from the club joining Mr O' Hare for dinner.

At 6:00 PM, the doors to the Cultural Center were opened. The meeting of the Final Frontier began shortly thereafter. This was the first FF meeting run by Tony Tellado and ran smoothly. Chairs were arranged in a circle to promote a less formal discussion and worked fine. Discussion centered mostly on rumors and developments on the GENERATIONS movie and the VOYAGER series. No one seemed to mind that we never actually got a round to the discussion about the Dominion.

The last thing on the agenda was a reading of Pauline Alama's PIGS IN SPAAAAAAACE, THE NEXT GENERATION. Brian Gonigal was Captain Baldpork; Yvette Ciancio, Commander Datalink; Elizabeth Grout and Tom Zych shared the duties of narrator and the Mouse from the Disney Empire, and Carol Smith stole the show as Miss Piggy, the half-Betamax.

At 7:00 PM, the television was turned to STAR TREK, THE NEXT GENERATION. A few people wandered down to the basement to enjoy the repeat. We continued the process of pruning the club's book supply by offering a selection of less desirable paperbacks at a price of 3 for $ 1.00 and hardcovers 2 for $ 1.00. Roberta Rogow dropped in for the first time in ages and was given a table to hawk her fanzines.

The dinner crowd had not returned by 8:00 PM, so we started the meeting without them. In order to acquant anyone in the audience with the basics of BABYLON 5, we showed "Deathwalker," an episode of the show. The O' Hare party joined us about halfway through the show.

After the program ended, we began the meeting officially. The usual announcements were made. Then the stage was turned over to Mr O' Hare and guest interviewer Anthony Tellado.

Our guest gave a short talk and answered a lot of questions. The main topics covered were acting experiences, BABYLON 5, science fiction, and his own personal beliefs. A single comment often concerned more than one of these. A couple of examples.

He really did not like how James T Kirk behaved towards women. He felt that the TREK Captain embodied a 60's PLAYBOY use-'em-and-leave-'em mindset. He then opined that it has become fashionable to applaud the '90s woman for making similarly selfish lifestyle choices. He asked what we thought about Bruce Boxleiter as his replacement. When most of the audience expressed disapproval, he urged us to give him time to develop his character and get used to his fellow actors and crew. The pace of television shooting does not allow an actor time to rehearse and hone a character beforehand. He thought that there was a marked improvement from episode one to episode two of the new season. This had yours truly scratching his head. I watched it with a group of people in New York who booed the wretched ending. His response was, "Well, what do you know, Phil?"

This in turn led to a discussion of Hollywood realities. According to O' Hare, television priorities (in descending order of importance) are 1) "look," 2) action, 3) plot, and 4) characterization. When 20 minutes had to be cut from the pilot, guess which area took the worst beating?

Other points he mentioned were that his brother is actually a Commander in the Air Force and that, while he had little input into the characterization of Sinclair, whatever bit he did have was devoted to playing him as a father figure, a type which he feels is very little in evidence on television today. He also did an impression on what it's like to act opposite a special effect, and who some of his favorite actors are.

When asked about BABYLON 5 bloopers, he talked about a rear shot of him walking down a corridor in the station with a clown nose on his face. Someone commented that it probably meant that we would never get to meet the inhabitants of the Planet Bozo because of this. He also told of a scene in which he told a crowd to follow him and pointed in one direction, only to watch them head in the opposite direction.

He revealed that he had played a heavy in an episode of T J HOOKER. When his character turned to flee, Shatner tackled him. Or, to use O' Hare's words, "His double tackled my double." The next scene called for a kneeling Hooker to brab the prone villain by the collar and yank him up. There was a difficulty. O' Hare has a long torso. Shatner does not. They solved this by having Shatner kneel on an off-camera blanket. O' Hare mused that while Shatner might have the money, he has the hair. In fact, O' Hare made several references to Shatner's toupee over the course of the evening.

Our guest also gave us a major item of news. Sinclair makes an appearance in episode ten on the new series. It is in the form of a letter in which he relates to Garibaldi that he is doing much more than just being an ambassador on the Minbari homeworld and that there is a time of great darkness coming. He did five or six lines of his soliloquy, stopped, smiled, and told us we'd have to watch the show to hear the rest.

About 15 of us went to the Horizon Diner after the meeting. Thanks to everyone who worked on making things work, including Ernest Lilley and Sharon Archer for Mr O' Hare's transportation, Charles Garofalo for the refreshments, Elizabeth Grout, Theresa Griffin, and Thomas Zych for working sign ins, Robert Savoye and Robert Yeager for held with the book sale, Anthony Tellado for a number of things, and thanks to anyone I forgot to mention here.