Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Anne and I enjoy attending entertainment and comic conventions together, whether in our hometown of Indianapolis or in adjacent states (or sometimes beyond). She’s been doing them since the early ’90s, and invited me to tag along as our relationship evolved from classmates to coworkers to neighbors to BFFs to married geeks twenty years and counting. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

This weekend we attended the fourth annual Galaxycon Columbus in Ohio’s very own Greater Columbus Convention Center. The show returned with another lengthy guest list for fans of all media across the pop culture spectrum…

…though our own to-do list was actually pretty short. After a couple of unfortunate guest cancellations and some hard thinking about whether or not we really want to meet every single actor we’ve ever seen in anything ever, we whittled our checklist down to just three of ’em, two of whom we’d already met before. Quite a few of our photos ended up falling into the “celebrity” category anyway, including pics from a pair of crowded Q&As at the Main Stage.

The star of our lead photo topped that list. Once upon a time we knew Ben Schwartz from his recurring role on Parks and Rec as Tom Haverford’s best friend, unskilled man-child Jean-Ralphio Saperstein. His comedy stylings have appeared in many a show and film before and since (e.g., his tiny yet brilliant part as Ugly Sonic in the underrated, live-action Chip and Dale: Rescue Rangers movie). Now he’s the voice of video-game icon Sonic the Hedgehog himself in three feature films and counting, which have grossed a combined $1.2 billion worldwide. We vastly underestimated their impact in our pre-planning and were caught off-guard like a pair of comic-con amateurs when his autograph line kept getting capped on Saturday because the con had sold tickets to everyone in America who’s seen a Sonic movie, played a Sonic game, or used the word “sonic” in a sentence (including the phrases “sonic screwdriver”, “Sonic Youth”, and “Negasonic Teenage Warhead”).

With a bit of day-long monitoring and effort I finally reached him and had him sign my DVD set of Parks and Rec season 3, the one with the Entertainment 720 arc. (I think about E720 a lot to this day, especially with each and every new headline about some spoiled bro handed untold riches only to lose them all in seconds flat. Schwartz’ line was hardly the longest we’ve ever waited in, but what especially concerned us about this year’s con is so, so many actors — especially in the anime quadrants, but not just them — had lines as long as his, sometimes even longer, with bonus “overflow” sections herded off to one side. Really, a lot of super-sized lines clogged up the area and made basic walking nigh impossible midday Saturday. We didn’t stick around Sunday, but we hope folks had slightly more elbow room then.

Also on our list: Jodie Whittaker! We already met the star of Broadchurch, Doctor Who, and other series three years ago at this very same con, but we normally don’t get the Doctors’ autographs and were pretty okay with just a photo at the time. Fast-forward to today, and I thought it’d be keen to have her cosign my copy of Attack the Block, which I’d just gotten signed by John Boyega last spring at C2E2.

When we general-admission fans were let inside the exhibit hall Saturday at 9:50 the two of us sped straight to her booth and were next to arrive after a single VIP badgeholder. Whittaker took to her booth shortly after 10:30, in high spirits and happy to see a less common choice of signing object — certainly a divergence from her vast selection of 8×10 pics, nearly all of which were of the Thirteenth Doctor.

Next stop after her: Eugene Cordero! I’d had the pleasure of sharing space with him at last year’s Star Trek to Chicago show, but Anne had missed out due to a scheduling conflict. Marvel fans remember him as TVA office drone Casey from Loki; she wanted to add him to her Star Trek autograph collection in his capacity as the voice of Lower Decks‘ LTJG Sam Rutherford, the endlessly effervescent engineer who super-loves doing science and tech support just for the fun of it. Cordero reflected on how he sees Rutherford as a positive role model for his own son in terms of doing what you love even if other people look down on you for it.

…and that was our entire celeb checklist for this show. None of those three were in the house Friday, which left us with time on our hands that day once we’d finished touring the exhibit hall. We had our eye on a 5:30 panel in the main-stage ballroom, but we fiftysomethings were already a bit tuckered after a few hours’ walkabout — which had included getting lunch before the show a few blocks away — and were ready to sit for a spell. Rather than lean against a random hallway wall and doomscrolling for an hour, we decided to take advantage of GalaxyCon Columbus procedure: unlike some other cons, they do not clear out rooms between panels. Whereas Dragon Con and Fan Expo Chicago will practically chase an entire audience out the door with spiked flails once a Q&A is over, GCC is cool with letting folks stick around for the next one.

That’s why we wound up attending the 4:30 Q&A with four cast members from the Twilight saga.

(GalaxyCon has a neat tradition of ending every celeb Q&A with a “selfie” of the guests with the audience behind them. Can you spot us in the Twilight crowd? Scroll down for the answer!)

Full disclosure: I’ve only seen the first two Twilight movies, and only because their DVDs fell into my lap. Anne has seen zero of them. Apart from an occasional brow-furrowing about the whole “sparkly vampire” deal, we don’t harbor any deeply ill will toward the series; it just isn’t our thing. (If it matters, my favorite character was Mustache Dad. If Billy Burke has ever been boring in anything, I haven’t seen it yet.) Seeing the first two was enough for me to understand whenever they brought up the fun scene of the Cullens playing baseball, but multiple jokes about eggs flew over our heads. If DVDs of the other three movies ever fall into my lap, now it’s been spoiled for me which of these four doesn’t live to the end of them. That’s my own fault, though.

Even as outsiders, it was fun seeing such a tight-knit fandom up close, that shared enjoyment in a singular gathering, at least some of which I understood. The actors were extremely kind to all the fans who’d lined up at the microphone (mostly but not all female), especially to the really nervous ones who were probably brand new to comic-cons in general and celeb encounters in particular. Anne and I remember that youthful sensation of stepping in front of a favorite actor only to feel our brains melting down and our tongues growing three sizes too large as we desperately tried to utter a single word in their presence. The Twilight stars were more than happy to gently welcome all these honorary members of the extended Cullen family.

Once the Cullens and their followers dispersed, we moved up to the third row and waited for our 5:30 feature presentation: a Q&A with “Weird Al” Yankovic! We’d already met him at last year’s show, and I’ve even seen him in concert, but we hadn’t seen him do a panel yet.

Weird Al looks and sounds older than he used to, which flies in the face of my longstanding assertion that he should be immortal, but such is the reality of this broken world. He remains nevertheless as “weird” as ever, reassuring one and all that it’s okay if we’re still weird after all these years, too.

Subjects included but weren’t limited to:

• His musical influences, from the original British Invasion to New Wave acts of my childhood — Devo, Oingo Boingo, Talking Heads, et al.
• His favorite movie parts: his cameos in all of the Naked Gun movies (even the new one), as a big fan of the original Police Squad!
• He swears no allegiance to any particular hair-care product for those lengthy locks; whatever his wife puts in the shower will do.
• He didn’t write the musical numbers in his two My Little Pony episodes, but he’d worked with that show’s composer William Anderson in the past and fully trusted him.
• His favorite video to shoot was for the Pharrell Williams spoof “Tacky”, a three-minute oner that only took six takes and was basically just him spending most of a day with friends.
• Among artists who never gave him their blessing: Prince had a sense of humor except about his own works and declined numerous times.
• He has no plans to bring back Harvey the Hamster, who — in a scandalous behind-the-scenes revelation from his short-lived Saturday-morning romp The Weird Al Show — was never played by the same hamster twice.

More tidbits:

• Usually he’d have his people reach out to other artists’ people for parody permissions, but a few times the artists have requested personal contact from him before they’d say yes — e.g., Kurt Cobain, MC Hammer, Iggy Azalea.
• Roger Ebert’s one-star review of UHF stung at the time (as did Siskel and Ebert‘s two-thumbs-down, I’m sure), but he’s feeling much better now.
• He’d happily appear on the Comedy Bang! Bang! podcast again, but hasn’t been asked back in a while.
• He’s rarely starstruck anymore, but still can’t comprehend how life has led to him being good friends with his idol Eric Idle.
• He’s taken to gaming since the pandemic and enjoys GTA, God of War, Horizon, and most recently Ghost of Yōtei.
• He’d never dream of replacing his now-retired mentor Dr. Demento; among other barriers, even Demento himself was struggling to keep his show financially feasible by the end.
• The press tour for his first album, whose singles included “I Love Rocky Road”, led to a lot of ice-cream-eating situations. To this day he’s still sick of Rocky Road.

(Special shout-out to the young South Asian lady who somehow made it into both our close-ups. I see you!)

And a fun time was had by all. Our Friday experience ended there, but we’ve more pics to come.

To be continued! Other chapters in this very special MCC miniseries:

Part 1: Cosplay!
Part 3: Comics!
Part 4: Con Stuff!
Epilogue: The OSU McDonald’s and More

[UPDATED 12/12/2025, 7:00 EST: Full-resolution pics of the panel selfies were finally released online, so I’ve swapped in improved versions of those four shots.]