Chris Comes To Good 'Ol Iowa...

Saturday & Sunday, February 6 & 7, 1999

Well guys thought you'd like to know Sam & I did our best to make Chris feel welcome in good old Iowa. The poor guy -- I felt sorry for him since he was a little too old for this venue. Not many people were in the Q&A session to ask any questions. If it weren't for the two of us, the local Fox honcho and a few little kids, it would have been rather embarassing. BUT -- Sam & I made up for all of that -- well, I should say Sam, she was the rather loud one between the two of us *g* -- I was the quiet one in the group (NOT!). (If you believe this, I have some swamp land I can sell you!) But Sam did do a good Mitchly deed -- and proudly wore her 'Got Milk' t-shirt with Mitch's likeness!

Not two minutes after he sat down in those stupid chairs they put in the middle of all the stages, did he get up and gravitate over to where the true fans were -- yep, two feet from us -- and he stayed there the entire time. I of course, took this opportunity to start snapping pictures left and right and got some good shots of him looking down straight at me. He asked me if I wanted to come up and have my picture taken with him and I told him I'd wait and do it downstairs during the autograph session. (whew!...)

A few of the questions that were asked were: What's your favorite episode, which he replied PMP. He told us the first day he shot that ep, he was in the make-up chair for 7 1/2 hours and waited another 4 hours for Chris Carter to show up for approval, only to be told: "I don't want to see ANY face." I had the official magazine that had the Great Mutato on the cover and then held it up for Chris and the others to see. Chris joked with everyone that: "That's my agent down there". When asked what another fav ep was he had a hard time remembering the name of the ep: "Hmm, what's the title, the one where the vampires came out?". Sam & I took this opportunity to help him out again. :) A few other questions were asked mainly by the little kids (under 11 maybe?) which he was so sweet when he answered them.

I was surprised to see as many people as I did in the autograph line -- but again, a lot of these were just kids. I was actually amazed at how many LITTLE kids actually knew who he was and said they watch the show! I know if I were their age and watched it, I'd have nightmares!!!!

He autographed the recent People magazine (Chelsea cover) where he's highlighted. And yes, those are his aliens he bought from the show. Also autographed his picture in the recent Entertainment Weekly magazine and the Great Mutato cover. He took his time with everyone and even let you get your picture taken with him. When I did this, I knocked over his Evian bottle he had on the floor. When I went to pick it up, I realized I should get him to sign that too (to go along with the one Mitch signed for me). LOL! When I asked him to sign it -- he was rather sheepishly puzzled and said this request would rank right up there with one of the top strangest fan requests. Thank God Sam reminded me to tell him WHY I wanted an Evian bottle signed (to go along with Mitch's), so hopefully it didn't sound too weird then.

We developed our pictures that night and decided to take them back in the morning and have him sign some of those too. Did I mention, there weren't a whole lot of people at this thing -- we did our best to make him feel welcome! I also printed out and gave him a couple of screens from two web pages devoted to him which he got a chuckle out of. I took the newest Official Magazine (DD on the cover) that had the article about 2F/1S in it. He spent quite a bit of time looking through it and remarked on how much of a sweetheart Veronica Cartwright (Cassandra Spender) was in real life and laughed when he saw the close-up shot of Bill Davis in the 1973 wig. I offered to give him the magazine, but he declined and said he could get a copy from somewhere. My reply to that was, "Ok, then would you sign it?" A friend of mine also gave me an official press packet from the beginning of Season 6 with some great b&w still shots of Triangle and Dreamland along with some slides of the same pictures. One of the Triangle pics was from when Mulder had Spender (in Nazi attire) on the floor of the ship's room beating the sh... out of him. Chris was rather intrigued on how I got a hold of that -- but I told him I couldn't reveal my sources! We both commented on how much we liked that episode and then he signed that one for me too. He also signed a few of the pics we took from the night before which he and the local Fox people enjoyed looking through. I made a comment when looking through those pictures that he was looking and gravitating over to the loud fans in the audience his reply was: "The ONLY fans in the audience!". (I didn't have the heart to say it!) In turn gave him a couple of silly little Iowa presents. One being an Evian water bottle in an Iowa koozie which I signed. He was giving me a hard time because when I went to sign the Koozie, it was hard to write on that thing, and I asked him how "you guys" (the stars) sign weird stuff like this. He laughed and said, 'See, it's not easy, is it?" Then he ribbed me for not personally addressing the koozie "To: Chris". Well, I took care of that one real quick.

Sam did the MPPB proud again and gave him a little alien head from everyone on the list and he laughed when she asked him to sign a 'Weasel ball" we found the night before. We got some great pics of the two of them with these items. One of the expressions on Chris's face is exceptional!

All in all, it was a great time! He might as well have been there just for us -- which is fine by me!!!! He's a sweetheart of a man -- great sense of humor -- loves to smile and laugh AND rather quite handsome IMO (very unlike Spender in all the above!).

It definitely made my weekend and something tells me he said a few times to himself over the weekend, "Thank God for those women!" I tell you it was sooo weird watching such a great episode, not to mention a "Spender-heavy" episode Sunday night knowing that just 8 hours earlier I was talking to this man in real life!