Photography by Vita Hewitt
San Francisco’s Fan Expo was a great way to begin the holiday season. Thousands of fans flocked to the Moscone Center dressed as their favorite characters. Here, they had the chance to meet some of their favorite voice actors, artists, and animators.
Animator Dave Warren sat patiently at a booth at the back of San Francisco’s Fan Expo with the air of a man who had surfed the ebb and flow of the collective zeitgeist and found that the ride was a good one. He should know. Warren has had a long career animating icons like The Simpsons, Dilbert, Sons of Anarchy, and Pinky and the Brain, to name a few.
An Emmy Award-winning creator, producer, and artist with more than twenty years of experience, Warren founded his company Pixlhaus in 2020 to develop original content for the digital world.
“Twenty-something Dave never thought that this version of me would be sitting behind a booth talking to people who grew up watching these shows,” Warren said of his work on the Animaniacs. Warren took the time to answer some burning questions about a few of our favorite characters.
BAS: What could Pinky and the Brain do to actually take over the world?
DW “Brain would take over the world by means of an orchestrated platform of chaos, division, and fear used by dictators and fascists for centuries to manipulate an unsuspecting and poorly educated population. This would be funded by a cryptocurrency cheese laundering scheme in which Narf meme coins would be used to fuel the Industrial Lab Mice Complex and line the pockets of their billionaire cheese bros.”
BAS If you could kill off one Simpsons character, who would it be?
DW “This is a two-for-one deal with a bonus side. Helen Lovejoy, the Yes Guy, and Poochie. When self-righteous, judgmental Helen Lovejoy is caught up in an extramarital affair with the Yes Guy, the two flee to South America in a small motorboat. The lovers are mistaken for South Americans being used as propaganda by an evil dictator named Poochie. Once thought dead, he reemerges as a corrupt canine who blows the two away to the extreme. He is later charged with war crimes and executed by firing squad. Eee Yeeeesss.”
Helen Lovejoy
BAS What is your favorite episode or Simpsons prediction?
DW “The Simpsons Movie is my favorite episode. It was a true labor of love that everyone involved poured their heart and soul into, and I believe the final result shows that love.
It also was a personal highlight for me because one of the scenes I worked in was when Bart was riding on the train with his mom and siblings. He drops down from an overhead bin wearing a black women’s bra on his head and proudly proclaims, Look, I am the mascot for an Evil Empire. This was long before Disney purchased Fox and The Simpsons, so it is pretty cool to have actually been a part of a prediction.”
Dave Warren is one of the many reasons to put San Francisco’s Fan Expo on your calendar next holiday season. To find out more about his work, you can check out his page on IG.
Below are some photo highlights from the weekend at San Francisco’s FanExpo at the Moscone Center.
All photography by Vita Hewitt
