Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife Anne and I visit entertainment conventions together! As a married couple 21 years and counting, and best friends for years before that, we’ve attended everything from cozy local gatherings to small-town festivals to large-scale comic-cons in some of America’s largest convention centers — three Star Wars Celebrations, four Dragon Cons, four Superman Celebrations, a couple dozen Chicago events, and several other Midwest shows easily reachable from our Indianapolis hometown. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

Our most recent show was last weekend’s Indiana Comic Convention, where the headliner was Nicolas Cage, kind of a big deal to the national mainstream media who reported this was his first-ever appearance at an American comic-con. He spawned some controversy among online geeks when most of his photo ops bore the same dumbstruck-hangdog expression, which, to be fair, he’s sported in most of his movies. The unintentional running gag became troll-fodder for days afterward, whether as an inroad to complain about his high fees in particular or to complain about the very concept of paying to meet celebrities for autographs and pics, in this economy or any other.

Regardless, longtime MCC readers are well aware it’s something Anne and I have long enjoyed doing together, especially our jazz-hands poses. If none of this is your thing, then hey, cool, but maybe spend your online life joining chats about what does bring you joy personally? And in exchange, I won’t subscribe to 600 sports-based Facebook groups and keep replying to every single thread, “SPORTS SUCK LOL!” or follow you around and flame you anytime you mention how much you love alcohol, which I cannot stand. Seem fair?

In the conclusion of our three-part ICC 2026 experience, I amused myself and maybe nobody else by referring to him repeatedly as Academy Award Winner Nicolas Cage. MCC readers also know I’m a fan of the Oscars — yet another hobby with more than its share of virtual naysayers who “don’t get it”. I’ve watched every ceremony since 1998 (Titanic‘s big year) and of course I notice whenever two of my hobbies intersect. It’s now Golden Family Fun Trivia that Cage was in fact the third Oscar winner we’ve ever met. Our very first is right there in our lead photo, Richard Dreyfuss. He was a pleasure to meet, talked to us much longer than the average actor does at autograph tables, and sold copies of an engaging book about the disappearance of civics courses from American school curricula and the long-term deleterious effects on politics, governance, and elections, thus leading to 99% of American political discussions (online or off-) bearing all the intellectual rigor and clever insight of a drunken barroom brawl.

Oscar winner #2: actor/songwriter Paul Williams! It was a tad before my time, but he shared Best Original Song honors with Barbra Streisand for “Evergreen” from the 1976 version of A Star Is Born. He was also nominated twice for 1979’s The Muppet Movie in Best Original Score (co-written with Kenny Ascher) and Original Song for Kermit’s immortal banjo-banger “The Rainbow Connection”, which lost to some piano-and-strings schmaltz from Norma Rae that was never, ever played again.

So that’s three (3) total Oscar winners we’ve met so far. We’ve passed up a few chances to meet others. We don’t go meet actors just because they’ve won Oscars. Maybe someday we’ll add a fourth name, or maybe someone we’ve already met will have a fortuitous career turn and earn a moment in the limelight. All this rumination begged a follow-up question for me: how many Oscar nominees have we met so far, whether before or after we met them?

I went through our master list, which has gotten a bit unwieldy after 35 years of cons, to see how many I could confirm. I may even have overlooked one. The Oscars are literally the only awards body in any media that I consistently pay any attention to, so they get all the focus here. There’re Emmy, Tony, and Golden Globe winners in there, as well as some Eisner Award winners among the comics creators. Good for them! Not my thing, though.

Alphabetically, the nominees were:

…and that’s it as of June 6, 2026. Again: the preceding was compiled and shared purely in the name of Fun Trivia. Nobody will ask, but at least now I have this entry for my own reference. I might even update it in the future. It’s fun when it’s fun!