Three crazy days are now behind us. I’m still reeling. So what happened? Here’s a few highlights:

For me, it started with one hour’s sleep on Wednesday night (don’t ask) before getting into a car with business manager Phil Ashcroft as we bundled off to San Diego at 5am. After navigating parking (a task that took almost as long as the 2 hour drive), we found our passes and started setting up a table at the huge Wizard booth.

Nichelle arrived around 10am, and the buzz and lines began immediately. So many people approached her for pictures and autographs, all full of love and respect for her and her work – it was almost overwhelming. We spent that first day, Friday, dealing with the hundreds & hundreds of people who had to shake her hand, touch her, and tell her how much she’s inspired their lives. What a living legacy!

I also had a quick word with John Barrowman – Captain Jack from Dr. Who and Torchwood – and he told me he’d like to do an episode of The Cabonauts if his schedule permits. Don’t believe me? I managed to get it on video! I’ll post it later this week.

That night we had drinner and drinkipoos with Erin Gray and her lovely daughter Sam who’s going to be starring in a new online version of Buck Rogers as…Wilma Deering! Sam seems like an absolutely terrific person and I’m sure she’s going to rock the role – can’t wait to see it!

Saturday, it all started up again only we scored a major coup at the start of the day. We were set to premiere The Cabonauts trailer at the Masquerade Ball, an annual Comic-Con event that’s attended by 6,000 people but we weren’t sure at what point in the proceedings that it would play. Once Nichelle suggested that she’d be happy to introduce it, the people at Masquerade pretty much jumped to get her on board – and within seconds, we’d locked in a time for Nichelle to get up on stage. And that night, Nichelle surprised a massive crowd as she walked onto stage to rapturous applause. The trailer got the right amount of laughs and a big cheer at the end – which was pretty damn cool. By the way, a quick word about the people who attend the Masquerade Ball in costume – WOW. The outfits were amazing, truly mind-blowing, and kudos to everyone who participated.

We also interviewed David H Lawrence – Eric Doyle from Heroes – who revealed on video that he’ll be on an upcoming episode of The Cabonauts playing…(wait for it)…a gay space pirate. We’ll be uploading that at some point soon too! And I had a chat with one of the stars of Lost who seemed quite interested in coming on board the Scarad too. He’s off to Hawaii in a few weeks, so schedule permitting, later on down the road he’ll be singing and dancing for us

Sunday was time to wind down – Nichelle and I were at the Cabonauts table for a few hours then called it a day after lunch. We all left very happy in the knowledge that we’d done a lot of word-spreading and, of course, the trailer debut will be the stuff of legend.

If you’re one of the people who stopped by the table and picked up a Cabonauts poster, thanks! Glad to have you on board too!

By the way; the picture of Nichelle above is courtesy of SciFiCrush.com who stopped by to interview her. You can check out the interview here.

Feast your eyes on this! The Cabonauts trailer featuring Nichelle Nichols and revealing that in our pilot, it’s guest starring none other than Dollhouse’s Miracle Laurie (Mellie) and Buffy’s James C. Leary (Clem). The Scarad 27 has been cleared for take-off. Glad to have you all on board

It’s all still coming together, but it looks like we’re going to be at Comic Con on Saturday, July 25th (two days before my birthday if you wanna buy me a present!). “We” is both me (Hayden) and Nichelle Nichols and we’ll be sharing a part of the Wizard booth which is Booth 2643. We should be there most of the day with lots of special, collector’s edition The Cabonauts posters that Nichelle will be signing.

And that ain’t all. That night at the Masquerade Ball, we’ll be premiering The Cabonauts trailer for all to see – that’s about 6,000 people, so we’re told. We’ll have it online the very next day for everyone who can’t make it, and you’ll be able to see who our special guest stars are for the pilot episode.

So please stop by and say hi, show us some Comic Con love, and get an autograph!

UPDATE We’ll be there from Fri through Sun @ Booth 2643 – here’s the official times:

Fri & Sat 10-1 & 3-6

Sun 10-2.

Plus the trailer screening at The Masquerade Ball Sat July 25th PM

Add our twitter @thecabonauts for any breaking news, info, etc!

Our second clip from our interview with Star Trek’s Nichelle Nichols as she talks about her new role as CJ in The Cabonauts!

There’s quite a few sites reporting on the announcement that Nichelle’s co-starring on The Cabonauts; thought I’d list a bunch in case you want to see what people are saying (and commenting).

http://trekmovie.com/2009/07/07/nichelle-nichols-joins-sci-fi-comedy-web-series-cabonauts/

http://newteevee.com/2009/07/07/star-treks-uhura-to-boss-around-hayden-blacks-cabonauts/

http://news.tubefilter.tv/2009/07/07/star-treks-nichelle-nichols-to-star-in-the-cabonauts/

http://www.shadowandact.com/?p=7078

http://www.podcastingnews.com/2009/07/07/hayden-black-snags-star-treks-nichelle-nichols-for-cabonauts-web-series/

By the way, that picture above is a snapshot of CJ (Nichelle’s) office. The Cabonauts offices are stationed in orbit around the newly  terra-formed Titan (one of Saturn’s moons but you all knew that).

The news is out and the buzz is pretty damn loud! The wonderful, beautiful, exceptionally talented Nicky Nichols – Star Trek’s Uhura – has come on board the Cabonauts as CJ, the CEO of the cab company.
We couldn’t have done it without our unbelievable casting director, Erin Gray. Erin allowed us to connect and, after I delivered a script and character breakdown, Nichelle said yes. It happened so fast too; within 3 weeks of having the initial idea to approach Nichelle, she’d said yes.

We’ve already spent some time shooting scenes and recording songs and videos. Nicky looks amazing in an outfit put together by Angela Sauceda, our stylist. It was a crazy day that first day – about 20 people buzzed around doing various jobs, among them the Bui Brothers who took some amazing pictures. You can imagine my surprise when, during an interview we did on set, Nichelle began comparing me to Gene Roddenberry and The Cabonauts to Star Trek. As far as absolutely surreal experiences go, that was right up there. We’ll be releasing clips of that interview over the next few weeks as teasers – you can see the first one up above!

Nicky’s character CJ comes from a long line of very successful women. In fact, she keeps one of them on her desk – the clone brain of her dead Grandma sits in a plexiglass container doling out unwanted advice. CJ had been COO of Farmer’s Seuticals, a top drugs manufacturer, but was ousted after being tainted in a financial scandal that she had nothing to do with. CJ’s now working as CEO of The Cabonauts Inc., a huge step down for her, but she’s going to give it her all.

CJ was married briefly to Cyril’s father who passed away. On his death-bed, he made her promise to help his son out which is why Cyril is employed by her as a cab instructor. And of course it’s Cyril who’s her biggest problem, slovenly care-free guy that he is.

Nichelle will be in every single episode, either in scenes or singing and dancing in the music videos – or both! Mostly both (Grandma will too, but don’t expect her to participate in much dancing.) Seeing Nicky dancing with our dance troupe was so much fun too; I was watching her on the monitor as she shimmied away, her dazzling smile absolutely infectious! You’ll agree when you see it. Plus, we’re lining up some extra special interactive features that will…You know, it’s a bit too early to reveal those surprises, but rest assured you’ll be closer to Nichelle than you ever dreamed possible!

The show will most likely premiere in a few months but between then and now, we’ll be appearing at some big sci-fi conventions across the country, releasing interviews, trailers, pictures and news so be sure to sign up to the mailing list (links on the main page) to be the first to find out what’s going on. Our guest cast keeps getting bigger and bigger too – because someone needs to play the role of the passengers and we’re only taking names from iconic sci-fi TV series and movies ‘cause that’s how we roll. More news soon on who those people are – and which two players from the Joss Whedon universe will guest-star in the pilot. In the meantime, in the summer of Star Trek, we couldn’t be happier, and prouder, to be a tiny part of it with one of the biggest icons in the world of Sci-Fi. Nichelle – thanks for coming on board!

One of the most insanely fun things about the Cabonauts is the fact that we’re getting some majorly iconic sci-fi actors and actresses to play the roles of passengers. Well that was the initial idea. You write that into a pitch and then you scratch your head and ask “how the hell am I going to do that?”. First off, as I quickly discovered, agents are more than useless. I say more than because they actively try and put the kibosh on it. When you’re on a small budget, agents don’t wanna know – not because they’re concerned about their clients (that’s the LAST thing on most of their minds) but because it means the money they’re bringing in to their agency isn’t big enough to warrant their own jobs. Actually, it’s not really the agent’s fault; it’s a plan set up by the agencies themselves and Hollywood’s now a slave to it.

But not us.

Very early on, we met with an absolute angel with a massively impressive acting resume herself. Erin Gray – you will remember her as Wilma Deering from the Buck Rogers TV series and the mom from Silver Spoons – now runs a company that represents iconic sci-fi/fantasy/horror genre actors for conventions and speaking engagements. Over a lunch at the Daily Grill (the one in Studio City, on Laurel), Erin told us that she’d never been involved in casting before. I told her I’d never done a sci-fi musical comedy – and she was in!

While talking, she mentioned a couple of big sci-fi names that she was very close to. It squirreled itself away in my mind as people we could get in our backseat. It was only a few weeks later that I had the thought “What if we got PERSON X as a regular? How unbelievably frakken amazing would that be?” So I made a call, someone else made a call, Erin made a call, and the next thing you know PERSON X said…Sounds interesting. I want to see more.

So more is what I sent ‘em. A script. An outline. And a character breakdown lovingly created 100% for PERSON X. A week later, the phone rang. PERSON X had said Yes.

They. Said. Yes.

I think I jumped up and down and screamed like a 10 year old girl when I got that phone call.

PERSON X said yes? To me? PERSON X will be saying back my lines? Singing my songs? Acting next to me? Holy shizzles. This was big. So big that we thought it best announcing at ComiCon ’09 (not that I’d ever been). And here’s the great thing about ideas, especially ones that spring up around The Cabonauts – it’s going to happen. Daily Motion’s PR firm, run by the very professional Ephraim C., made a call and voila. Looks like it’s happening.

But it hasn’t stopped there. More and more people are expressing interest on a weekly basis. People from Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Enterprise, Buffy, Dr. Who (the new series), Alien Nation, Stargate… Every week, I get to have my own personal freak out when we get a call from Erin or some of other well placed industry friends who are reaching out on my behalf (thanks to Marti R too for some massive gets!).

Who’s next? There are some people I want to work with just ‘cause I’m a huge fan, so that’ll be fun, just reaching out and asking. I also think once they see the show they’ll say yes because it’s so different – but the sky’s the limit, and there’s only one way to find out!