Ted Raimi (Joxer)

* Before announcing Ted Raimi they played the Joxer music video. For those who've never been to one of Creation Entertainment's Xena conventions, the music videos are basically clip montages of characters from the show put to contemporary songs. Quite a few of the female fans were "awwww-ing" and "whoo-ing" during many Joxer shots. And no, I was NOT one of them!! (I was only thinking those things... :)

* After the Joxer video, Ted Raimi came out on stage tripping, falling, and stumbling over the microphone, in true Joxer fashion, giving the audience exactly what they wanted.

"You're that guy, ain't you?"

* A surge of girls with cameras washed down the center isle in front of the stage to take pictures. Another group raced over to the side forming a line in front of the microphone to ask questions. I stayed in my seat and waited for the crowd in the center isle to get smaller before heading up there myself to take some pictures. After all, can you really get a good photo from a half-blinded star who's shielding his or her face from an explosion of camera flashes? * Ted started out telling the audience how he spent his day checking out some of the museums in Philadephia, which is basically just on the other side of the Delaware River from Cherry Hill. Ted said he was standing next to this one guy who turned to him and leaned in really close to him. This, of course made Ted lean way out in the other direction. Ted, in a Philly/NJ accent (think Jack Kleinman in The Xena Scrolls), told us the man said, "You're that guy, ain't you? Yeah! You are!" Ted's reply was, "Well, I might be. Who do you think I am?" The man's response, "You know, that guy! That guy who falls down all the time on the TV!"

* Ted talked of the perks and the pitfalls that come with often being cast in small roles in films. "Say you're playing a waiter in a restaraunt. You get the script and your only line is 'Here is your drink, Sir.' Since this is your only line, you want to get it right. So you spend all night staring into a mirror reading your line: 'Here is your DRINK, Sir... Here IS your drink, Sir... HERE is your drink, Sir...' The next day, you get called in to film your scene. By now, you have your line down cold... Then, the director tells you, 'Oh by the way, we've changed that line. You no longer say 'Here is your drink, Sir'. You now say, 'Sir, here is your drink.' So the camera starts rolling and the director yells 'action' and you say your line: 'Here... is... your drink, Sir?' The director yells. 'CUT! Can't you do anything right!?'" * On the same subject, Ted told of how when they did "Army of Darkness" (remember, the creative genious behind this as well as the other "Evil Dead" movies was Ted's brother, Sam Raimi) he went though the script finding all the one line characters saying, "Hmm... who's playing, Cowardly Warrior? Nobody? Okay, I'll take that role. What about Supportive Villager #2? I'll do that one too. Store Clerk? I'll can handle that one. Then I was told, 'You can't do all of those!' and I said, 'Well, why not?'" Ted explained that since he was disguised it really didn't matter anyway.

* Ted mentioned how he had worked with Tim Omundson in "SeaQuest DSV". He then said when Tim was first sceduled to appear in Xena: Warrior Princess as Eli, he had called up Ted because he was nervous about meeting Lucy Lawless (Xena) and Renee O' Connor (Gabrielle). Tim told Ted, "I've never met them. What do I do? What if they don't like me?" Ted said that he assurred Tim that everything would be fine and that Lucy and Renee would love him. Ted told the audience that as soon as he hung up with Tim, he called up Lucy and said, "Listen, my friend Tim Omundson is going to be working with you tomorrow and he's really excited so (something about treating him like he doesn't exsit). Then Ted voiced Lucy's query to the odd request in his best imitation of her kiwi accent. "Because", Ted replied, "Tim will get a big kick out of it." Ted then said he called up Renee, "Look, my friend, Tim Omundson is going to be on the set tomorrow so when you see him treat him like he's the biggest jerk you've ever met." "Wha would I wanna do thayt?" Ted said in his hokiest impression of Renee (since she's from Texas). "Because," Ted explained, "Tim will think it's REALLY funny." "Ahll Riyght," he said as Renee. So Lucy and Renee did as Ted had told them and after they had Tim completely freaked out, they finally told him that it was all a joke set up by Ted. I heard that Tim Omundson (who was one of the guests on Sunday) said to the audience that he vowed to get even with Ted many years from now, when Ted would least expect it.

* Someone asked Ted if he'd sing the "Joxer the Mighty" song. By this time, I had crawled up the center isle to the stage to take pictures. A girl sitting next to where I was crouched in the isle said, "YES! I KNEW someone would ask that!" Ted paused for amoment and then asked the audience, "Who knows 'Joxer the Mighty'? Raise your hands!" He then started picking out folks from the audience to come up and sing along with him. When those and a few other people came up to the stage Ted announced "We're ALL going to sing 'Joxer the Mighty'!" One girl then asked Ted which version they were going to sing, pointing out the different verses from the various times the song was sung in the show. Ted laughed and said to the audience, "I forgot for a moment that I was amoung fans." He then proceded to mimic what the girl had said, "She just asked me 'Which version are we going to sing? There's the long version and there's the short version, there's the one with Gabrielle in it and the one without Gabrielle.' Let's sing... the short version." And so Ted and the "Joxer Chorus" led the audience in the orginal verse of the "Joxer the Mighty" song:

"Joxer the Mighty He roams though the countryside He never needs a place to hide With Gabby as his sidekick Fighting with her little stick Righting wrongs and singing songs! Being mighty all day long! He's Joxer! He's Joxer the miiighty!"

Where's Ted? Behind the girl with the pony tail!

* Someone asked Ted who he thought was funnier and the bigger practical joker on the set, Lucy or himself. "Lucy," Ted replied, "Definately Lucy."

* After I had felt I'd taken enough pictures, I headed back to my seat. I didn't stay there long, though because the questions line wasn't too long so I headed over there to the line to ask a question. I wanted to ask a question about the alleged Joxer action figure. I've heard rumors about one for quite some time. Ted had even said once himself over a year ago that it was coming out soon, but no talk of it since. This was the same question I had wanted to ask the last time Ted did a chat session on America Online. I had actually signed up for AOL just for the chat. I had signed onto the room way before Ted arrived, but right before his scheduled show up time, AOL crashed my computer! I then had to restart and go through all those crazy AOL windows to get back to the room. Ted was there already and I quickly typed my question and hit the button. Then I realized I had hit the COMMENT button and not the QUESTION button. Right after that, AOL crashed the computer again and by the time I got back to the room, Ted was gone. The next day I called AOL and cancelled the service. I had considered mentioning that along with my question, "I signed up with AOL one time just for your chat session, and as soon as you arrived, AOL crashed my computer! So anyway, the question I had wanted to ask then and still want to know is, "Is the Joxer action figure ever coming out?"

* A girl asked Ted if he had recently lost weight, because she'd noticed how he kept hiking up his pants. Ted admitted that he must have because it was funny, those pants had seemed to fit him a week ago. While he was on the subject of embarressing questions, he seemed to anticipate where this conversation might go. I believe this is where he mentioned, "And yes, I wear boxers." Someone in the audience said, "Joxer Boxers!" Ted laughed, "Joxer Boxers, that's right!" Yes, Ted has actually been asked the boxers/briefs question at a convention before.

* Somebody asked Ted what his favorite and least favorite episodes were that he was in. Ted mentioned, as he has many times, that his favorite episode is "For Him the Bell Tolls". He was hard pressed to come up with a least favorite episode, but it had made him think of an episode that fans apparently either love or hate, "Married with Fishsticks". He said "Married with Fishsticks" was probably his favorite recent episode. Some of the audience groaned at that. Ted explained he liked the episode because it was a fantasy episode, totally off the wall, and had nothing to do with the normal Xena storyline. He then appologized to the girl for not having a least favorite episode to tell her.

* I was the next one in line to ask a question when Ted was told he was out of time! I wasn't really upset. I had just thought I'd give it a shot. I knew at least I'd have a chance to talk to him during autographs.

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