The "Committee"

Those of you who have been regular visitors to the Hobby Talk site, as well as folks on the BWF forum at Swifty's Garage, may have seen mention of the "Unofficial Official Johnny Lighting Black With Flames Committee". While many are "in" on the inside joke of this thing, some of you may not be aware of what exactly anyone is talking about.

Is there a "Committee" for Black With Flames cars? Who is on it? What do they do????

Well, rest assured folks, the "Committee" doesn't exist. Except that it does. And just who is on it is none of your business! If you were on it, you'd know, wouldn't you?! How does one get on it? That's for the committee to know, and for you to find out. Except that you can't, because it's a secret. And it doesn't exist. But it does.

Lol.

The "purpose" of the UOJLBWFC is to identify and qualify Johnny Lightning diecast cars as "bona fide" BWF castings. Is there really a need for this, you ask? Hell yeah, it exists to keep order in a world full of BWF "wannabe's"! Without the Committee and their "Official" rulings, people would be running around declaring all sorts of cars to be "Black With Flames", and we just can't have that. Imagine the sheer chaos and insanity!

A few years back, a handful of Hobby Talk members started getting focused on the BWF part of the JL hobby, and a friendly little "nyah nyah, I've got this car and you don't!" competition began to form. While a few people joined in on the BWF wave, the bulk of it on Hobby Talk fell to myself, Nick Shonsky (CenterShock), and Mike Murray (70XR7). Before long, we were all finding "BWF" Johnny Lightning's that weren't part of the Official "Street Freaks" series, where the Black With Flames cars were coming from.

A friendly rivalry formed between the three of us, shared by countless HT readers, and very often we'd find cars that one of the others didn't have yet, and in the great tradition of RAOKing (Random Acts Of Kindness) on Hobby Talk, boxes of cars started crossing the country, filled with gorgeous little BWF wonders. More people on HT got involved, trying to find previously undiscovered cars that may or may not have qualified as BWFs, and eventually the three of us were consulted as to our opinions on whether or not these cars "qualified" as true BWFs, and the "Committee' was born. What started as a fun inside joke wound up having a degree of merit in this very important part of the Johnny Lightning world!

The "Committee" has been a source of fun and laughs over the years, and as we created this back-stroy of mystery and intrigue, and a lot of folks have wondered if it was real, or if we were nuts. The answer lies somewhere in between! All I know is that the three of us had a lot of fun with it, as did many HT members, and a lot of great BWF cars have been RAOK'd all around the country to a great many people who share this segment of the hobby. And in truth, there did become a "clearinghouse" for what cars are on the JL BWF "list" and what qualifies a car for BWF status (more on that another time!).

So the "Committee" exists, but not "officially", and there is clear deniability about that. There are officially four members of it (three founders, one newcomer who is the only person to meet the, ahem, "standards' of the founders) and one "auxillary" member who should be admitted, but whom we simply refuse to for no good reason, and there is a handful of "aspiring" members, all of them invited here to this blog. There are no "meetings" of the Committee - which again, may or may not exist - and the only time the Committee even communicates is when a previously unknown Johnny Lightning is brought forth as potentially being "flamed". Not very often, as just about every JL casting has already been examined to death!

What it all amounts to is a small group of people with too much free time, and a bit too much self-importance.

And we're OK with that. lol