Tag: VegasCon

How The Hillywood Show Got It Right: the Supernatural Parody!

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Like everyone else in the Supernatural fandom (and cast), I loved The Hillywood Show’s brilliant parody of our beloved Show – mostly because they got it so very right. It’s not that easy to create a parody of a show with a passionate fandom; as fans, we notice everything. Get it wrong, and we’ll call you out on it in a microsecond. But get it right, and we’ll shower you with gratitude. I couldn’t wait to talk to the Hillywood girls, Hannah and Hilly Hindi, to find out how they managed to do just that.

Lynn: I’m so excited to talk to you, I absolutely loved the Supernatural parody! I’ve been a fan of this Show for nine years and this is one of the best things EVER. Congrats!

Hilly: Ohmygod, thank you, that’s a lot coming from you!

Lynn: Pretty sure I’ve watched it about a million times. I notice that many of your parodies are of shows or films that are fan favorites, like Lord of the Rings or The Walking Dead or Doctor Who – or of course Supernatural. Do you pick things that you know have passionate fan bases, or do you pick things that you are fans of yourself?

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One More From VegasCon – Sunday (aka Winchester Family Day)

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Finally, the last of our VegasCon reminiscences – and more beautiful photos of beautiful subjects. Huge thanks to talented photographers (and fellow fangirls) Kim Prior and RitaKF for working so hard to get these amazing shots. Leave them some love in the comments!

Sunday is always a blur of J2, and that Sunday was no exception. The boys did their gold panel early, and I think everyone was grateful to poor Jared for coming even though he clearly wasn’t feeling well. That didn’t stop his irrepressible sense of humor or his affection for both his costar and the fandom.

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Supernatural Saturday Night Special – VegasCon Style!

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So where did we leave off with this year’s VegasCon fun? Oh, that’s right – it was almost Saturday night.

Kathy and I had dinner with fangirls, and then it was time for the aptly named “Saturday Night Special.” The Saturday night concert has become one of my favorite parts of the conventions, as I wrote in an article here few months ago. VegasCon was probably the most epic Saturday Night Special ever, with cast member after cast member taking the stage and absolutely owning it.

The stars of the show are the band that makes the Creation Supernatural cons the very best – Louden Swain. I’m not a musician, but it doesn’t take one to realize that it’s not every band that can pull off what they do. They not only play their own songs all weekend, but they compose a little song to introduce all the guests, and are never afraid to play some impromptu music to go along with a guest’s request. That’s talent, clearly. But it’s more than that. The band works harder than anyone at these cons – in Vegas, for four days in a row – and they never EVER lose their good humor or their infectious enthusiasm. Rob Benedict, Billy Moran, Mike Borja, and Stephen Norton are immensely talented musicians, but they’re also versatile enough to provide musical punchline emphasis and are sometimes part of an impromptu onstage joke.

Rob can belt out the hardest rock song and make you get up and dance. He can also break your heart with emotional ballads, many of them auto-biographical and all the more powerful for it. Rob is willing to make himself vulnerable because he says he feels safe performing in front of the SPN Family. In fact, the cast has all said that at one time or another. It’s a special thing for them, just as it is for us.

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Catching Up With Cole: Behind the Scenes with Travis Aaron Wade on Supernatural

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Travis Aaron Wade and his infectious smile
Travis Aaron Wade and his infectious smile

We caught up with Travis Aaron Wade shortly after he did his first convention panel at VegasCon – and right after he had appeared in another excellent episode of Supernatural. ‘The Things They Carried’ was a powerful and emotional episode, and it took the character of Cole and his relationship with the Winchesters in a new direction. At times the episode was hard to watch, thanks to writer Jenny Klein’s ability to make it truly a horror show and Wade and Ackles’ ability to bring intensity to the struggle Cole and Dean are engaged in. We couldn’t wait to ask Travis more about filming that episode and his experience with the Supernatural fandom.

Lynn: It was so nice to meet you in person – and you did a fabulous job at your first convention!

Travis: That’s so nice to hear, it feels great to give back. I teach people how to speak onstage, but I rarely ever do it myself, so it was interesting. But it felt natural, very natural.

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What Happens In Vegas… Part 3 (Saturday Supernatural Shenanigans)

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Where did we leave off? Oh, right, with Tim Omundson being awesome, both onstage and at karaoke. And with him being able to pull off both the gravity of a role like Cain and the humor of a role like the king in Galavant.

At some point in the panel, he put on glasses, and then he was suddenly a version of brilliant (and bloody hot) professor. Who knows what other iterations of Tim Omundson we haven’t discovered yet?

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Saturday happened way too early (or possibly Friday ended way too late) but it turned out to be an amazing day. First up was Sebastian Roche, who really knows how to wake up a room full of bleary fangirls and fanboys. Sebastian rarely actually answers a question, but intrepid fans line up to ask him some anyway. Despite the lack of answering, Sebastian’s panels are always entertaining – mostly because he’s a great entertainer. He sings, he dances on chairs, he tosses around innuendo in response to just about anything, and he generally keeps you both laughing and incredulous (unless you’re dancing yourself and joining him in singing ‘Get Lucky’…)

Interestingly, Sebastian in ‘real life’ is one of the most intelligent and thoughtful actors out there. If you follow him on social media, you know how passionate he is about political and social change; more than once, I’ve learned about something important from his tweets. I rather like the way he can express both sides of himself, depending on the platform. Keep dancing, Sebastian!

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What Happens In Vegas… Part 2 (Jam-Packed Supernatural Friday)

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More beautiful photos from VegasCon, mostly taken by the talented and awesome @MamaPrior. With some help from RitaKF and a few by us. Enjoy.

Friday was a laid back day, kicking off with Curtis Armstrong, who is amazingly nice in real life for someone who plays a jerk like Metatron. (If you don’t believe me, check out our interview with him by clicking his name on the sidebar). Curtis fielded questions from his entire film and television history, with fans getting a chance to geek out over everything from Revenge of the Nerds all the way through to Supernatural. He says that Metatron is one of his top five roles ever, which is really saying something!

Curtis is a fanboy himself, and has been a Sherlock Holmes fan forever, which he proudly proclaimed onstage. He’s also funny as hell. Example:

The crowd groaned when Curtis mentioned Gary Busey.

Curtis: What, did he do something to the boys?

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What Happens In Vegas…. Post #1. Salute to Supernatural Thursday

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This is the first of several posts about VegasCon, because for once we have a wealth of beautiful photographs to share. That’s because we didn’t take them – instead, we were privileged to have a talented photographer shooting for us (You can find her @MamaPrior on twitter). Not only did she take some amazing photos, but we had a great time hanging out with her and her assistant, also known as her hubby.

One of the amazing things about Supernatural is that the passion people feel for the Show inspires many of us to push our boundaries and try new things. In this case, it meant our photographer getting some new equipment and shooting about a hundred times more photos than I think she was expecting to. Can’t say I’m sorry.

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Meet and Greet Tidbits: Jensen and Jared at VegasCon 2015

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VegasCon has been special from the beginning – a whole extra day, the first con to have a ‘house band’ in Louden Swain, the only con that takes place in a casino hotel with about five miles of hallways between the guest rooms and the convention center. But this year’s VegasCon needed a new adjective. Special just doesn’t cut it. We’ll have much more on the con and the Saturday Night Special that was off the charts, but for now, some tidbits from the Jensen meet and greet (and a few Jared meet & greet tidbits from our friend Lorri).

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Fandom, Passion and Supernatural: A Chat With Misha Collins

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“For me, discovering this fandom was pretty much like getting kidnapped by a dragon. I didn’t expect being inducted into this world to be anywhere near as strange, wonderful or overwhelming as it has been.” – Misha Collins, in Fan Phenomena: Supernatural

We sat down for a chat with Misha Collins at the recent VegasCon. Misha wrote a chapter for our new book, Fan Phenomena: Supernatural, in which he talks about his experience joining the SPN Family and the way it changed his life, just as it has changed the lives of so many fans.

Misha had just directed his first episode, so that was foremost on our minds.

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A Family Affair – Vegas Supernatural Style!

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Jared and Jensen by KarenCookePhotography
Jared and Jensen by KarenCookePhotography

Vegas Con is like a Supernatural con on steroids – it’s an over-the-top, nonstop, emotional rollercoaster of a con, with fans sobbing with joy leaving the photo op room or hugging friends they haven’t seen all year or collapsing in exhaustion on a conveniently placed bench. Of course it is – it’s Vegas!

We live tweeted the entire con (except for the beginning, thanks to an airport shuttle that took the scenic route to the Rio…) but we thought we’d share some of our favorite con moments here.

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