Washington State Toy Show

Here is the Panel schedule today. Come listen to the stories and ask questions for four awesome guests who have voiced so many characters that we grew up with.

Day one was awesome even with the crazy weather. New vendors are loading in tomorrow, and current vendors are restocking in the morning for day two of the Washington State Toy Show. Enter through the gold gate at the Washington State Fair and Event Center. Free parking in the Gold Lot. Doors open at 10:00 a.m. and all admission tickets are only $5 on Sunday!

Tomorrow is the big day. Vendors have their booths filled with awesomeness.

Saturday - The Toy Show will open at 9 a.m. for Early Access ticket holders ($10) and then at 10 a.m. for all Premium General Admission entries ($8). General Admission Tickets are only $5 starting at 11 a.m.

Sunday - The Toy Show will open at 10 a.m. for all General Admission for only $5; kids 12 and under are free with an adult.

The Washington State Toy Show will be held in the Pavilion and Expo Hall at the Washington State Fair and Events Center. Entry will be through the Gold Gate and free parking in the Gold Lot.

Here is the Panel Schedule for this weekend. All Autographs, Recordings, and table selfies can be purchased at the show. Prices are listed on our website.

The guests should start the day at their tables between 10:15 am and 10:30 am and will be at their tables until 3:45 pm unless they are having some lunch, taking a quick break, or speaking at their panels.

The show runs from 10 am to 4 pm Saturday and Sunday. Early Bird Access is only on Saturday at 9 am. Admission Tickets are available at the gate on either day of the show. More info at: www.watoyshow.com

We have finally secured the Master of Mind Control for our final guest at the Washington State Toy Show in Puyallup. Please welcome Brian Cummings to Puyallup on November 4th and 5th. Brian is known for providing the voice behind the evil Dr. Mindbender from G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero animated series.

Brian has performed in multiple animated series since the 1980s. Among his most famous roles are those of Doctor Mindbender in G.I. Joe, Dimmy in The Snorks, Morton Fizzback and Professor Funt in Denver, the Last Dinosaur, Mr. Hollywood in 2 Stupid Dogs, Clyde Cat in Tom and Jerry Kids, Papa Q. Bear in The Berenstain Bears, and Do**us Drake in DuckTales, he can also be heard as the voice of Sokolov in the Metal Gear Solid video games.

Brian has been one of the long-time voices of Buena Vista Home Entertainment (now Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment) trailers and promotions. He also did some narrations for some Sony Pictures Home Entertainment trailers but is perhaps more known for his extensive work for Paramount Home Entertainment.

Brian Cummings will be with us on Saturday and Sunday (November 4th and 5th), signing autographs, taking photos and speaking on an animation panel on Sunday. All admission tickets are available at the entrance on the day of the show. Kids 12 and under are free.

Saturday - The Toy Show will open at 9 a.m. for Early Access ticket holders ($10) and then at 10 a.m. for all Premium General Admission entries ($8). General Admission Tickets are only $5 starting at 11 a.m.

Sunday - The Toy Show will open at 10 a.m. for all General Admission for only $5; kids 12 and under are free with an adult.

The Washington State Toy Show will be held in the Pavilion and Expo Hall at the Washington State Fair and Events Center. Entry will be through the Gold Gate and free parking in the Gold Lot.

Please welcome Loren Lester to the Washington State Toy Show in PUYALLUP on November 4th and 5th. Loren Lester is a highly successful voice-over actor best known as the quintessential voice of “Robin” and “Nightwing” on Batman: The Animated Series and The Adventures of Batman and Robin. His other iconic roles include “Barbecue” on G.I. Joe and "Rick Gordon" in Defenders of the Earth. He has recurred on The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes (as the first actor to ever voice the character “The Iron Fist”) and as “Hal Jordan, The Green Lantern” on Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Loren portrayed the villain as "Dr. Kirk Langstrom," AKA "Man Bat" in Arkham Knight.

Loren's career began as a teenager and has amassed over 35 years of film, stage, and television credits. In his early years, he played the evil hall monitor “Fritz Hansel” in the cult classic film Rock ‘N’ Roll High School, “Charlie Boy” in the horror cult film Evilspeak, and he recurred for five seasons as “Roy” on The Facts of Life opposite Nancy McKeon.

Since then, he has appeared in over 200 television episodes, including Parenthood, Bones, NCIS, Ringer, Good Luck Charlie, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Awake, The Closer, Desperate Housewives, Cold Case, Criminal Minds, Castle, Two and a Half Men, and many others. He recurred on all three seasons of the HBO hit comedy series Hung and had recurring roles on Victorious (Nickelodeon), Gilmore Girls, General Hospital, The Bold & The Beautiful and The Young and the Restless.

His voice has been heard in hundreds of TV and radio commercials, numerous critically acclaimed audiobooks, and popular interactive games such as Halo 4.

Loren Lester will be with us on Saturday and Sunday (November 4th and 5th), signing autographs, taking photos and speaking on an animation panel on Sunday. All admission tickets are available at the entrance on the day of the show. Kids 12 and under are free.

Updates: COBRA has been defeated and the power has been restored!

This is the first. We are still open and having a great time at the Toy Show. We are currently without power as a truck crashed into two power poles outside of the facility.

We cannot confirm COBRA involvement at this time.

Do you have those toys and comics ready to get signed tomorrow? Michael, BJ, Bill, and Neil are headed to the airport. Mary is all packed up and headed to Washington.

The Washington State Toy Show is this Saturday, October 21st in Vancouver/Ridgefield at the Clark County Events Center. General Admission Tickets are for entry after 10 am and are $5. Early Bird Admission is for access at 9 am and is $10. All admission tickets are available at the entrance on the day of the show. Kids 12 and under are free.

Please welcome Mary McDonald-Lewis to the Washington State Toy Show in VANCOUVER this Saturday, October 21st. In a rare appearance, we welcome the voice behind Lady Jaye to join Flint, Duke, Scarlett, and Shipwreck (to name a few) at the show this weekend.

Mary McDonald-Lewis is an accomplished American voice actress. Throughout her career in the entertainment industry, she has worked on numerous projects. Mary began her career in the entertainment industry as a voice actress, appearing in shows such as Goltar & the Golden Lance, G.I. Joe, and Where's Waldo. Voiced Lois Lane in the Super Friends cartoons.

Mary plays I.V.A.N in the PIXAR movie "Lightyear"and has previously starred in titles such as Action Force, Green Room, Max & Me, Staties, Bad Samaritan, Lean on Pete, and Frau Pech in Grimm. Mary is the automated voice of GM's OnStar and has spoken in countless radio advertisements.

She was initially auditioning for a minor role in the GI Joe series, but the voice director detected something in her voice that he liked & requested her to read for Lady Jaye instead.

MaryMac’s also a dialect coach. Stars lighting up the screen depend on her to give life to their voices, from Juliette Binoche to Patrick Stewart and hundreds more.

For MaryMac, there’s magic and mystery in the voice. There’s power and hope and joy. That’s why she loves what she does, and that’s what she brings to the mic.

Don't miss this RARE chance to meet Mary McDonald-Lewis at the Washington State Toy Show on October 21st in Vancouver. General Admission Tickets are for entry after 10 am and are $5. Early Bird Admission is for access at 9 am and is $10. All admission tickets are available at the entrance on the day of the show. Kids 12 and under are free.

Please welcome the LEGENDARY voice actress B.J. Ward to the Washington State Toy Show in VANCOUVER this Saturday, October 21st. With over 200 projects and credits, B.J. is known for numerous characters and roles. She was Scarlett's voice in G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, G.I. Joe: The Revenge of Cobra, G.I. Joe, and G.I. Joe: The Movie. Over the last 20 years, she has voiced brainy Velma Dinkley in several Scooby-Doo animated movies, shows, and video games from the late '90s and early '00s!

B.J. also portrayed Princess Allura and Ginger in Voltron: Defender of the Universe, Voltron: Fleet of Doom, and Voltron: The Third Dimension. In addition, she was the voice of Wonder Woman in The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians and Jayna in Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show.

Ward started her voice-over career with Hanna-Barbera's Jana of the Jungle in 1978. She also voiced the third Betty Rubble of The Flintstones from the franchise in the late 1980s and the 1990s.

BJ Ward was Betty Ross in The Incredible Hulk, M3 in Batman: The Animated Series, Surprise and North Star in the My Little Pony television series, Small Foot on Challenge of the GoBots, Sincia on Saber Rider & the Star Sheriffs, several characters on the original My Little Pony series, and SO MUCH MORE.

Don't miss this RARE chance to meet the legendary B.J. Ward at the Washington State Toy Show on October 21st in Vancouver. General Admission Tickets are for entry after 10 am and are $5. Early Bird Admission is for access at 9 am and is $10. All admission tickets are available at the entrance on the day of the show. Kids 12 and under are free.

Please welcome Bill Ratner to the Washington State Toy Show in VANCOUVER on October 21st. Bill is an American voice actor, author and solo performance artist. He is best known as the voice of Flint in Hasbro's syndicated TV cartoon G.I. Joe.
Any G.I. Joe Reunion needs to have our favorite Rhodes Scholar and Warrant Officer in attendance.

Ratner is best known as the voice of Flint in Hasbro's syndicated TV cartoon G.I. Joe. His voice was used in numerous movie trailers, including Inside Out, Will Ferrell's Talladega Nights and Blades of Glory, Kung Fu Panda, Mike Myers's The Love Guru, Monsters vs. Aliens, and many more. He narrates documentaries on Discovery Channel, A&E, The Weather Channel, and The History Channel.

In Gaming, his voice is on Kings Quest, Grand Theft Auto IV, Mass Effect, and others, and he is the narrator in episodes of Ben 10 for the Cartoon Network. Ratner is also a voice-over announcer for television stations across the US.

His book, Parenting for the Digital Age: The Truth Behind Media's Effect on Children and What To Do About It, winner of the National Indie Excellence Award and a Next Generation Indie Book Award and Eric Hoffer Award finalist, is published by Familius. His personal essays are published in the Baltimore Review, Blue Lake Review and The Missouri Review.

Ratner's performances of his personal essays are featured on KCRW's Strangers and National Public Radio's The Business. and Good Food. He tours nationally for storytelling conferences and festivals, is a regular competitor in The Moth Story Slams in Los Angeles, is a nine-time Moth StorySLAM Winner, a National Storytelling Festival Story Slam teller-Jonesborough TN, a National Storytelling Network storyteller.

He is a contributing author of the book Secrets of Voiceover Success and a member of the Actors Equity Association and Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of TV & Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), where he teaches voiceover.

Please welcome the LEGENDARY Michael Bell to the Washington State Toy Show in VANCOUVER on October 21st. Michael has amassed over 1000 radio and television voice-over credits across SIX decades and played a significant role in many of our favorite animated shows for decades. Get your G.I. Joes, Transformers, Voltron, and grumpy Smurfs ready and head to Vancouver, Washington.

Michael began his career on screen, where he has worked for over 40 years. He has guest starred in dozens of episodic television shows. A partial list includes Star Trek, M.A.S.H., Three’s Company, Deep Space Nine, The Bold Ones, Charlie’s Angels, Get Smart, Mission Impossible, Ironsides, Ghost Story, Streets of San Francisco, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

Bell has dozens of film credits, including many Disney and Pixar movies, Rugrats, Pink Panther, Transformers, and My Little Pony, to name a few.

Michael's animated series credits are too numerous to list here. Still, they include The Transformers, G.I. Joe, The Smurfs, Rugrats, Snorks, Plastic Man, Super Friends, Spiderman, Scooby Doo, The Chipmunks, My Little Pony, The Incredible Hulk, Voltron, Snorks, The Inhumanoids, Darkwing Duck, Star Wars: Rebels, Spiral Zone, and Tom and Jerry.

Bell's video game credits include Warcraft 3, Rachet and Clank, Legacy of Kain, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, Alpha Protocol, Condemned, Madagascar, Advent Rising, Doom, Shark Tale, Enter the Matrix, Darkwatch, Eternal Darkness, Metal Gear Solid, Diablo II, Star Trek: Starfleet Command, Star Wars, and Call of Duty.

Don't miss this chance to meet the legendary Michael Bell at the Washington State Toy Show on October 21st in Vancouver. General Admission Tickets are for entry after 10 am and are $5. Early Bird Admission is for access at 9 am and is $10. All admission tickets are available at the entrance on the day of the show. Kids 12 and under are free.

This Saturday in VANCOUVER, don't miss your chance to meet another legendary actor at the Washington State Toy Show.
Neil Ross is a versatile voiceover pro whose work runs the gamut from announcing both the Academy and Prime Time Emmy Awards telecasts to voicing outrageous cartoon characters and everything in between.

Neil has performed in over two thousand episodes of television animation, creating beloved characters in a number of iconic shows, including Transformers, G.I. Joe, Voltron and Spiderman: The Animated series. He was the voice of Honest John in Steven Spielberg’s An American Tail. His voice characterizations can also be heard on numerous top-selling interactive games, including Mass Effect, Call of Duty and Metal Gear Solid.

Neil was a co-announcer on the 75th Annual Academy Awards telecast and the announcer on the 56th Annual Prime Time Emmy Awards telecast. He was also the announcer on seven AFI Life Achievement Award telecasts, including the Emmy Award-winning salute to Mel Brooks in 2013.

He’s voiced radio and television commercials for many major retail clients, including Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola, Kellogg's, Southwest Airlines, Volkswagen, Anheuser-Busch and many others.

He’s done promos for all the major television networks, cable channels, and network affiliates. For five years, he was the voice of Game Show Network (now GSN).

Neil’s voice work has been heard in many Television sitcoms and feature films, most notably in multiple episodes of Seinfeld, Robert Redford’s Quiz Show, Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy, Steven Spielberg’s Back To The Future II, Sydney Pollack’s The Interpreter and Gus Van Sant’s Milk.

Meet Neil this Saturday, October 21st, at the Clark County Event Center just north of Vancouver and Portland. General Admission Tickets are for entry after 10 am and are $5. Early Bird Admission is for access at 9 am and is $10. All admission tickets are available at the entrance on the day of the show. Kids 12 and under are free.

We couldn't have Lion-O without Tygra at the Washington State Toy Show in PUYALLUP. Please welcome Peter Newman to Puyallup on November 4th and 5th as we celebrate two of the legendary voices behind the ThunderCats and SilverHawks next month.

Peter Newman is an American voice actor known for his work with Rankin/Bass. In ThunderCats, he provided the voices of Tygra, Wilykat, Bengali, and Monkian. In SilverHawks, he provided the voices of Quicksilver, Mumbo Jumbo, Flashback and Timestopper. Peter was Mako in Tigersharks.

He also played the evil Duke of Zill & Wack Lizardi in Felix the Cat: The Movie. In 1987, Newman also provided the voice of the camp director of Camp Mimi-Mon for the Rankin/Bass show Mini Monsters. Peter's other popular credits include "Eric Orben" in the TV series "Filmore!", along with " Maj. Nikolai Jackov " in the TV series "Archer".

Peter Newman will be with us Saturday and Sunday, signing autographs, taking photos and speaking on a ThunderCats panel on Sunday. All admission tickets are available at the entrance on the day of the show. Kids 12 and under are free.

Please welcome an animation icon for our first guest coming to the Washington State Toy Show in PUYALLUP on November 4th and 5th. We are honored to host the voice behind the leader and Lord of the ThunderCats, Larry Kenney to Puyallup. You have one month to gather your Lion-O, Jackalman, and Bluegrass memorabilia... and a couple of boxes of Count Chocula and Coco Puffs to get signed!

Larry Kenney is an actor known for his voice work as Lion-O and Jackalman on the 1980s Rankin/Bass cartoon ThunderCats, and Karate Kat, a martial arts blackbelt cat featured as part of The Comic Strip. He was also the voice of Bluegrass in SilverHawks and Dolph in TigerSharks. Larry is the only voice actor to do a character in all three ThunderCats shows, SilverHawks, and TigerSharks.

Kenney also did voice work for several breakfast cereal characters, including Count Chocula and Sonny the Cuckoo Bird. He’s the voice of Skittles Candy: “Feel the Rainbow, Taste the Rainbow. He was also the announcer for “102.7 The Beat” in the Grand Theft Auto IV video game and K.T.I Radio in the L.A Noire. His most recent work is featured in the TV series Family Guy, Teen Titans Go! and the critically acclaimed Red Dead Redemption 2 video game as JB Cripps.

In the 2011 ThunderCats animated series on Cartoon Network, Kenney returned to the series, but as Claudus, Lion-O's and Tygra's father. Kenney provided voice-overs for The State, the 1990s sketch comedy cult classic that featured his daughter, Kerri Kenney.

He was also the announcer for VH1's Best Week Ever from 2004 to 2009, providing introductions for Westwood One's radio coverage of Monday Night Football and other commercial work.

Larry Kenney will be with us Saturday and Sunday, signing autographs, taking photos and speaking on a ThunderCats panel on Sunday. All admission tickets are available at the entrance on the day of the show. Kids 12 and under are free.

Our booth is all set up at Rose City Comic Con this weekend in Portland, promoting Summer Con, Anime Washington, the Washington State Toy Show, and the new secret (and yet to be announced) Washington State Gaming Show coming in 2024. If you are at the show, stop by and see us in booth 646, play a video game, pick up some free swag, or just say hello. Thank you, Rose City, for continuing to support other local shows like ours.

Voltron fans, we have assembled a reunion for you too. Neil Ross, BJ Ward, and Michael Bell will be at the Washington State Toy Show on Saturday, October 21st, at the Clark County Event Center just north of Vancouver and Portland. This is a very rare appearance of the original 1984 "Team Voltron" heading our way.

We will introduce each guest individually in the coming weeks, but we first needed a Voltron Reunion announcement. The voices behind Princess Allura, Keith, Pidge, Lance, and Sven... and SO MANY MORE of your favorite toys and cartoons are on their way to meet you at the show.

The Washington State Toy Show features vintage and modern toys, comics, and collectibles from local Vendors. Toys, Action Figures, Die-Cast, LEGO, Collectibles, Video Games, Comic Books, and so much more will be available.

General Admission Tickets are for entry after 10 am and are $5. Early Bird Admission is for access at 9 am and is $10. All admission tickets are available at the entrance on the day of the show. Kids 12 and under are free.

Please welcome our FIVE amazing and legendary guests for the Washington State Toy Show in VANCOUVER, who have portrayed over 40 characters from the original GI Joe series. They have reportedly never appeared together at a convention or show until this October at the Washington State Toy Show!!

We are pleased to host Neil Ross, BJ Ward, Michael Bell, Mary McDonald-Lewis, and Bill Ratner at the Washington State Toy Show on Saturday, October 21st, at the Clark County Event Center just north of Vancouver and Portland. (We will cover their Voltron, Transformers, Super Friends, and massive other credits in other posts)

Usually, we would introduce each guest individually, and we will still do that in the coming weeks, but we felt this ensemble needed a joint announcement first. The voices behind Flint, Lady Jaye, Duke, Scarlett, Shipwreck, Buzzer, Dusty, Monkeywrench, Blowtorch, Major Bludd... and SO MANY MORE of your favorite toys and cartoons are on their way to meet you at the show.

The Washington State Toy Show features vintage and modern toys, comics, and collectibles from local Vendors. Toys, Action Figures, Die-Cast, LEGO, Collectibles, Video Games, Comic Books, and so much more will be available.

General Admission Tickets are for entry after 10 am and are $5. Early Bird Admission is for access at 9 am and is $10. All admission tickets are available at the entrance on the day of the show. Kids 12 and under are free.