Rollbots premiere

Had the pleasure of catching the world premiere of Amberwood Entertainment's "Rollbots" this past Sunday. The gang at Amberwood provided much hoopla for what will most assuredly be a big ole hit. About 500 people converged on a theatre at the Museum of Civilization where we were wined and dined on free pizza, slightly burnt cookies and plenty of soda pop. The event was emcee'd by one of YTV's hosts, who did a good job pumping up the kids in the audience, despite some technical difficulties at first.
This was the first episode in the series, which will be on this weekend on YTV, and really, Amberwood has a hit on it's hands. The story is very similar in tone to the original Reboot episodes. Lots of fun action, easily identifiable characters, a nasty villain with some bufoonish henchbots. It's fast and loud and kids are gonna eat it up.
Talk among the crowd is that there's a Mattel deal, so expect the merch on this sucker to be everywhere.
Personally, I found the event enjoyable, with lots of local animation types in attendance. I didn't feel like pressing too much flesh, but got to say hi to some old friends. My daughter had fun, so that's cool. What I found really interesting is what this says for Amberwood. For the most part, the company has been milking the same stable of shows created by Gerald Tripp 15 years ago. They took a stab at something slightly different a few years back with Zero-Man, which I found, quite frankly, terrible. But this is something new for them. Sheldon Wiseman, Mr Amberwood himself, was there, but he didn't take a bow for this production. Instead, his son Jonathan, Supervising Producer Craig Young, the show's creator McM, and a few others whose names I didn't write down (apologies!) where given the spotlight. This felt like a passing of the torch to me.
Good job guys. And good luck.
(Pics provided by Craig Young, more over in his Facebook album)
McM shares his thoughts on the event here.