THE MASQUERADE - Hosted by KP
The acts, in order:
ANGRY WAH - A Chinese red panda, or Wah, gets angry at being repeatedly mistaken for a raccoon. His infuriated outbursts are accompanied by a heavy thrash guitar soundtrack. "ANGRY WAAAAAAH!!! I'M NOT A RACCOON, I'M NOT A RACCOON!!!" The sound mixing seemed a little off, though, and it was hard to hear the voices.
NEW WAVE JACKET - Punk Tiger on keyboard and Twitch Wolf on inflatable guitar act out this song in Devo-esque fashion, fittingly as it's by Polysics, a Japanese band influenced by Devo. The angry Wah reappears, in straitjacket, for the synth-voice "Let's start New Wave jacket" chorus. This is a song I first became familiar with from an animutation: Wizard Power.
RED RAVEN LEGENDS - Uncle Kage came onstage to cut this act short for running overtime. Something about a tail-growing potion and a sinister hooded figure at Anthrocon.
CUZ I'M A BLONDE - Shown on the big screen beside the stage. A video, edited by HKUriah, of the song by Julie Brown, featuring clips from Tiny Toons and Animaniacs, showing all the blondest characters from those shows: Shirley the Loon, Minerva, Hello Nurse, Katie Ka-Boom, and that girl moth from that one cartoon about the moths. "I'd like to say that being chosen as this month's Miss August is, like, a compliment I'll remember for as long as I can. Right now I'm a freshman in my fourth year at UCLA, but my goal is to become a veterinarian because I love children." Everyone loved this one!
LEADER OF THE BAND - The song by Dan Fogelberg, performed by a wolf on guitar and a collie on trumpet and vocals. "My life has been a poor attempt / To imitate the man / I'm just a living legacy / To the leader of the band."
The next act was Bursty Lyons the purple lioness and friends, who had told KP they were going to perform something that's been seriously overplayed. The music started, and got as far as "Everyone else has had--" before KP came out to stop it and tell them they couldn't do THAT song. So they did another seriously overplayed number: DRAGOSTEA DIN TEI, by O-Zone. "Vrei sa pleci dar nu ma nu ma iei! Nu ma nu ma iei! Nu ma nu ma nu ma iei!" It's seriously overplayed because it's seriously catchy.
A special surprise: THE NAIROBI TRIO. This act originated on the Ernie Kovacs Show back in the 1950s, and features three guys in trenchcoats, bowler hats, long wigs and gorilla masks, performing to a song where the lyrics are simply the notes: "Mi sol la, re fa re sol, do mi do fa re sol sol do." One plays keyboard, one sits and conducts, waving a banana baton to the beat, and one stands holding two xylophone mallets and whacks the conductor guy on the head at the end of every other phrase. (I later found out my friend Michael Mink was playing the guy at the piano! He was subbing for another performer.)
VOTE FOR PEDRO - Cnipur came out in a Vote For Pedro T-shirt and did the funky dance from "Napoleon Dynamite" (which I still haven't seen yet; I only know that's what it's from because I've seen so many animated LiveJournal icons of it; I should see the movie someday).
Magnus Diridian came out and did a bit called HERO, where he glammed and posed heroically to a medley of various rock and metal songs that are great for glamming and posing heroically to.
Then the stage ninjas set up a couple of cardboard houses. "There's a lot of construction here," said KP. "It feels like I-76!" They were setting up for BIG BAD FOX, a fractured telling of the fairy tale in which the Big Bad Fox gets eaten by a Big Bad Bear. Urp!
Rapid T. Rabbit and friends peformed the JOKE-A-LOT NATIONAL ANTHEM and tossed long balloons out into the audience.
PRESENTING LILI - Lili the arctic fox came out for a dialogue with an unseen narrator
(I recognized the voice as Max Goof).
"I chased a streetcar for five blocks!"
"Did you catch it?"
"No, but I saved a dollar. Next time I'll chase a taxi and save ten dollars!"
DOWN ON THE FARM - Jenna Shrew puts on a record of the Chicken Dance, waking up Barncat Scratch, who throws the record away and replaces it with... the Techno Chicken Dance.
IMPROV - Prismo hosts a segment of the Sound Effects game, performed by Terry Mouse (sound effects) and Joshua Jackalope (mimed actions in fursuit). The scene: washing a car. This was very well done, with Terry and Joshua playing off each other nicely. Best part: an unseen bird appears to ruin the freshly washed car.
THE PILE OF FURRIES - SonicBlu performs his parody of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire", joined by various fursuiters who enclose David von Foxkin in a furpile (don't worry, it was G-rated; basically a big group hug).
IF I HAD A MILLION DOLLARS - Another video, this one by Fluff 'n Such Productions, with Tag the Dog and Hardley Bear performing the Barenaked Ladies song. Best parts: Tag shaving Mutt, and then getting bopped later for it.
AT AC - Sym performs a parody of "On Broadway" by the Drifters. "But they're dead wrong, I know they are / 'Cause I can play some DDR..." Keltai and Redfox danced in the background, and at the end of this skit, KP told everyone it was Keltai's birthday, and asked the audience to sing "Happy Birthday". Keltai was so embarrassed! But he was a good sport about it.
FURSUIT BODY LANGUAGE - Zig Zag, Shrag and Single Speed Cheetah demonstrate
how to act out various common concepts. For example:
"I'm hungry." Shrag rubs his tummy.
"I'm looking for something." Single Speed holds his paw over his eyes and visually scans the horizon.
"Do I look good in this outfit?" Zig Zag shows off her curves.
The last act of the evening was DEX. He comes out in fursuit on stage and starts dancing to "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger". But something is wrong; he doesn't seem very into it. Then the switcheroo is revealed: it isn't Dex in the suit! The real Dex comes out from the audience to chastise the fursuit Dex for his poor performance. Dex the suit suggests (by holding up a sign) that Dex the real guy should do a magic trick. So he does; he goes to a table in the middle of the ballroom and performs a card trick, also shown by camera on the big screen. Dex makes the four aces appear out of a deck. He deals out four stacks of three random cards each, facedown. Then he puts the aces on top of those stacks, one each. He shuffles each stack in turn, showing that the ace has disappeared from it, leaving four random cards. He picks up the ace of spades' stack last; then he turns the cards in that stack over, one by one, showing that they have transformed into the three missing aces.
