Vanessa Harryhausen is coming to Wonderfest! Sponsored by CultTVman and friends.

Vanessa Harryhausen is coming to Wonderfest! Vanessa is daughter of Ray Harryhausen, the creative force behind Jason and the Argonauts, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, and so many other magical movies. Vanessa and the Harryhausen Foundation are sponsored by CultTVman, with a lot of help from his friends – Squadron, Aztek Dummy, Monarch Models, Paragrafix, and Flintstone Studios.

This is special to me. This is personnel. Like so many of us, Ray Harryhausen touched my life.

One of my earliest memories as a child was watching TV with my parents and this giant metallic figure coming to life and terrorizing a ship. Years later, I connected the dots, and it was Jason and the Argonauts.

And if you read Famous Monsters, you knew who Ray Harryhausen was. In 1972, Ray Harryhausen and the Golden Voyage of Sinbad were all over Famous Monsters. That year, Ray published a wonderful book called the Film Fantasy Scrapbook and my mother bought it for me. And a few months later, this 10 year old kid was mesmerized by The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (and Caroline Munro, but that is another story.)

Flash forward to 1995. I am married. Connie is very pregnant with our son Chris and I convinced her to fly out to Los Angeles for the Famous Monsters convention, where Ray was appearing. (That is another crazy story for another time). (And more pics from that event are here.) It was a thrill to meet one of the people that made me who I am.

The following year in 1996, CultTVman was formed and this little internet community started to grow. One of the things we discovered was that there was this show in Louisville called Wonderfest and Ray Harryhausen was the big guest. And damn, we missed it! But I started going to Wonderfest. These were my kind of people. Model kits, monsters, spaceships.

And CultTVman grew. And Wonderfest became the event I planned my year around. At some point, I approached the leadership at Wonderfest about sponsoring a guest appearance. The first guest I sponsored was the wonderful Marta Kristen. In the years that followed, CultTVman helped to bring many guests including David Hedison, Caroline Munro, Yvonne Craig, Robert Picardo, Nick Tate, Veronica Cartwright , Sybil Danning, Mat Irvine, and so many others.

Last year I approached Dave Hodge, the [illustrious] leader of Wonderfest about the possibility of bringing Vanessa Harryhausen to Wonderfest. My thoughts were that Wonderfest had a strong connection to Ray, going back to his appearances in 1996 and 2003. Additionally, there have been a number of officially licensed Harryhausen models now available. Dave agreed this was a good idea and worked to make bring the Harryhausen Foundation to Wonderfest.

To make this happen, I tapped into a several close friends to help sponsor this. Bandon Lowe and Squadon/MMD have helped to make Harryhausen model kits available. Monarch Models has been an innovative, creative company producing figure kits, including Sinbad, from the classic Arabian Nights. Aztek Dummy and Paragrafix have produced many wonderful aftermarket products. Flintstone Studios has been a production partner, and longtime Wonderfest vendor. All of them have contributed to make this happen.

The Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation is committed to preserving the legacy and memory of Ray Harryhausen. As part of this sponsorship we are donating to the preservation of Ray Harryhausen’s miniatures. For more information about the Ray Harryhausen Foundation, please visit their website.

My thanks to all my friends at Wonderfest, and all my friends that helped bring this together.

Please join us in June at Wonderfest in Louisville, KY on June 1-2