CatBusRuss returned to Morton, IL to visit his family which includes his big sister, ThePoeticCritic. If it is not a comic convention or film festival, the two rarely have schedules that allow them to record a podcast together in person. Thus, our podcast host was happy to rap with her about the poor state of the box office.

It is hard to nail down when the older sibling got jaded against Disney. Russ thinks it may be every time an animated feature under performed. With all the live-action remakes of animated classics, a piece of her seems to die. We have heard rant a plenty about the House of Mouse being responsible for superhero cinema once dominating the box office.

But in the end, she just wants them to return to creating great animated features, be it the Walt Disney Animation Company or Pixar. She just is not optimistic about "Hoppers" and is fed up with sequels to the billion dollar franchises. As always, her primary worry is a lack of personal stories being told on the big screen.

CatBus pities for her not appreciating Star Wars' tale of fatherhood, "Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu".

Russ also focuses on the fact that if a story is good, it should impress all, even if it is not the target demographic. We need more musicals for the lasses. Exploitation is not a bad thing (just come to a B-Fest).

Our host actually thinks Disney is not as bad off as ThePoeticCritic thinks it is. Inspired by this conversation, he finally sat down and watched the feature that the supposed fans of the oldest animation studio were determined to despise "Wish".

It may just have been released at the wrong time. Perhaps the film should not have sold itself so blatantly as 100 Years of Disney. Russ left thinking this is the appropriate feature for children at this time. You will have to check out catbus316.bsky.social to see the two Stevens argue about the revolution CatBus thinks Asha, Valentino, and Star are calling for.

For CatBusRuss⁠ and ⁠"Couchman" Andrew Tiede, UI-Con truly kicked of for them at 8 pm on Friday night. The convention had taken a break from panels to let the visitors kick it to Otter Chaos and to prepare for the anime-themed rave. In other words, if you were there to be nerdy, the evening panels were where you wanted to be. Even if some may have lacked that Japanimation flair.

This was "I Dig Crazy Flicks" debut for a new panel, "1986: RAD Movies or BAD Movies". CatBus had listed the similar movies and Andrew brought the box office stats to see what audiences thought at the time. It was a time where the important thing was to be first to a new film premise.

Some would say one flick would be a blockbuster while the other a mockbuster. This panel takes you back to when there was no direct-to-video market for studios to spend little on a VHS tape to capitalize on a major motion picture. It was a time to go big or go home.

Some match ups included in the panel are: "Iron Eagle" vs. "Top Gun", "An American Tail" vs. "The Great Mouse Detective", and a Robot Triple-Threat Match. Was it the audiences who won or was it just Steve Guttenberg?

The two panelists/podcasters' first panel was 4 pm's "Ninety for Chill: The Panel". With its poor attendance (At least the staff found it cool.), the two got to talk shop about their remaining two panels. Here is where they realized that "Big Trouble in Little China" may have had a similar battle in 1986 with "The Golden Child". To be ready for the next time Russ runs this panel, he gave Eddie Murphy's Chinese dark magic adventure a watch.