If you haven't read my earlier item about Peter David disguising himself as the Green Hornet at WonderCon, read it now. Then read the message Peter sent me earlier today…
"As I walked past him at one point, I almost said something like, "Nice to see you, Mr. Hornet" but I didn't."
Oh yes you did, in exactly those words. As I approached you right after the panel, you said exactly that, and at first I thought you were being tongue in cheek. And I dropped my voice, said what a huge fan I was, you said "thank you" very sincerely and then you kept going. At which point I thought, My God, he wasn't kidding around. He really didn't recognize me." That was the first real proof to me that I could pull it off, because you have no idea how sure I was that people were going to go, "Hey, Peter, what's with the mask?"
I don't recall either of us saying anything but I'll take your word for it. Of course, the thing you had going for you, Peter, was that no one ever thinks a lot about the folks in those costumes. If someone had said to me, "The guy in the Hornet suit is someone you know," I could probably have figured it out. Which is not to take anything away from your clever bit of masquerading. It was a funny idea and you pulled it off. In fact, some of us prefer you with a mask, nyuk nyuk.
What this makes me think of is that at the annual Licensing Show, which is usually held in Vegas these days, you have this big hall full of powerful folks in the fields of entertainment and merchandising. They're all hanging around and talking strategy. You also have all these full-body, can't-see-the-person-inside-at-all walkaround costumes of characters that are being promoted at the show. I used to wonder if someone involved in the business end of things ever put on one of those suits and wandered about in it to eavesdrop on the competition. I stopped wondering when I mentioned this once to a fellow at one of the major toy companies and he said yes, it had happened. A vice-president at one of their rivals had gotten into a costume as — I'm not sure if he said it was Hello Kitty or something like Hello Kitty — and had spied on private business conversations involving his company. The fellow who told me this said, "One of the actors we hired to wear one of our walkaround suits was in the area where they get dressed and undressed and he saw this guy taking off the costume and recognized him."
People at his company are now a lot more careful what they say when a six-foot kitten is lurking nearby.
By the by: Someone got a photo of Peter D. dressed up as the Green Hornet. Would you have recognized him?