I received word of two actors from the early 90s TV show Eerie, Indiana appearing in Philadelphia. Man I loved that TV show back in the day. I remember talking about this TV show in the school bus while going to middle school. Sadly it wasn't the main actor showing up. Just the second main actor and a supporting actor. So I was on the fence. But also appearing was Jessica Harper (who has been in movies, Minority Report for instance) and one of my traveling buddies really wanted her. So I had someone to go with and decided to embark on this for the Eerie folks with Jessica as a bonus. Sadly since this was a last minute thing for me I had no 8x10s printed.
Arrive and find free parking a short walk from the venue. The Eerie actors were up first. I got there and the show was ending. I asked if I could go in they said the talk is done but the cast is doing a m&g. Sounds good to me. I paid $10 (tickets were actually $12) and went in. I knew they'd likely be fine outside (spoiler alert they were and I didn't need to go inside for them) but paying that $10 would end up helping me big time. More on that later.
So I go in and I get a picture with Justin Shenkarow (Simon on the show). Nice as can be. They had posters for $5 but I elected to choose a free program instead. I then went for Jason Marsden (Dash X on the show, also has done a lot of other stuff for instance Goofy Movie, Monsters Inc, Disney's Tarzan) and got a combo. Then went back to get Justin's autograph. Both of them couldn't have been nicer. After mingling with the crowd inside they came out and as expected were nice as can be. Jason was also giving out a free Earie pin which I got.
Next up it was time for Jessica. We were told she wasn't stopping. My traveling buddy advised not to ask her going in and instead to ask her leaving. I went against this advise (spoiler, I did the smart thing). She arrives, I ask for a photo op, she hesitates but is whisked inside by the venue owner saying she's not stopping. One guy who was communicating with her via email was allowed in the stage door and got multi combos from her. Two minutes later the venue owner says "where's the guy with the camera" and asks me if I got a ticket. I tell him truthfully they were sold out but point out 2 or 3 times in the conversation that I paid for the last show. He eventually lets me in and I get a photo op with her no issue and thank the guy. My traveling buddy still needed his autographs and offered the venue owner $10 which he accepted. With both of us done with all the names we happily drive away from Philadelphia.
Justin Shenkarow
Jason Marsden
Jessica Harper
Autographs
An another day, NXT. Shockingly enough, I have yet to do a mass NXT flight. For one the reason or another those stars never aligned. So this time I was determined to finally do one. Took 2-3 hours of searching late night, but I finally found this flight. Since this flight was so difficult to find, I predicted (correctly) that there would be no other human who would both have the desire to look for this and have the necessary skill/patience required to find it. This is not the ideal flight to do by myself because there are a lot of people to get and extra eyes always help. Plus if I were the only one more chance I could be harassed. So I invited a handful of people including markedout's adelta to the flight.
I picked him op, arrived close to the airport. We still had some time till the flight so there was no sense in going to the airport and paying more money to park. So we mooched some breakfast to kill some time.
We get to the airport, wait, and see our first wrestler. There is just ONE handler and he tries to cock block us, but we are 5, he is 1, and the wrestlers are many. He was basically powerless to act. It was so wonderful! I also heard him on the walkie talkie telling the bus driver to get ready cause they need to get them on the bus as soon as possible.
This is why I only like to do wrestlers at an airport. Cause anywhere else you deal with security telling you to leave the property. No one can tell you that at an airport! It's just sweet honey when the power is all yours (for a change). And aside from Velveteen Dream no one denied us photo ops.
The following names I got were repeats: Kassium Ohnom, Tommaso Ciampa, Steve Corino, EC3, Johnny Gargano, Norman Smiley, Jeremy Borash.
Of those Norman Smiley was an upgrade because he's wearing shades in the convention shot I got. And EC3 was the first time I've seen him since he was Derek Bateman.
I also got Chad Lail AKA Gunner in TNA who has eluded me for many years!
I totaled 23 photo ops! Of which 16 was fresh. In the next year or two some of these names will be expensive pro ops at cons, just like the NXT folks before them. And I will happily pass on those pro ops.
Full list of NXT photo ops
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