Best celebrity encounter: Mr. Rogers. Came to a thing I was doing in Pittsburgh when I was a teenager. Thanked him for being the only adult in my entire childhood to seemed to actually care about me. He gave me a hug, I cried a little bit.
First celebrity encounter: George Takei. My second Trek convention when I was eleven, first time waiting in line for a signature. All I had was “Star Trekkin’” on vinyl, and he said, “Oh, I know this song…” and proceeds to sing a verse or so. The line applauded, I was too starstruck to do anything but mumble a thank you.
Ran into him at a con a few years later in a hotel elevator. He remembered me, asked me how school was, if I still had the album, etc. I still have it.
Other awesome encounters:
The cast and crew of Supernatural: Got to do a press event at the Paley several years ago and got to meet and interview all of them. They were alllll great.
Kevin Conroy: Did a press roundtable thing at Comic Con a decade ago for a new Batman animated movie. I kept saying to the others how excited I was to meet Kevin Conroy. When he gets to our table, another journalist offers to take a pic of us, telling Mr. Conroy what a fanboy I was. He leans in for the pic and whispers “Fanboy” in my ear in the Batman voice. I nearly came, I shit you not.
The cast of Firefly: Via various press and cons, I’ve pretty much met them all, and they’re all as wonderful as you’ve heard, especially Nathan Fillion.
Those are the big ones for me.