Temple O' Trunks - Misc. - Special Features - "Meri, Mike, and Eric Walk Into A Bar: No Big Story"- The Story

On Saturday, May 26, 2001, Meri of ToT and Mike of Daizenshuu EX embarked on a mystical journey to the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia. The mission: to meet and chill with voice actors Eric Johnson (Trunks) and Sonny Strait (Krillin). It was a day neither Mike nor Meri would forget for a long time. This section is dedicated to showing what happened on our fun trip, wheee! There are several movie clips, photos, screencaps, and much more for your viewing pleasure. I hope you enjoy checking out some of our goodies from the visit!

Movie Clips - Photos - Screencaps - Sound Files - The Story

Movie Clips
Since Mike and I can't help but be completely insane, we decided to bring my video camera along for our excursion. We got some real snazzy footage that you're bound to enjoy! Behold the world of promotional signings! *X-Files theme plays in the background*

Download Movie Clip	Length/ File Size	Description
The Adventure Begins	33 seconds / 1.96 MB	On a super rainy Saturday morning, Meri and Mike venture out to Philly in Meri's lil' automobile. With FenixTX as the music of choice, the pair anxiously await a day of joyous meetings and hot monkey sex with the voice actors.
On the Line	53 seconds / 3.13 MB	After walking around the mall for a few hours, Meri and Mike decide to finally wait on the signing line, which has died down considerably at this point. Witness men at work! Good job, boys!
Sonny Steals the Camera!	25 seconds / 1.57 MB	Shock! Sonny confiscates Meri's video camera! Watch the merry mayhem that ensues when Sonny (complete with Krillin-sounding commentary) gets his hands on electronic devices and fools around with the happy fans. Look for such things as sarcastic remarks, and intelligent questions such as, "how come you can fly, but you can't use a camera?"
Up Close With the Guys- Part 1	29 seconds / 1.79 MB	Meri and Mike make their way to the front of the line! After Sonny attempts to avoid the pair, he comes out of hiding and tries to sign some rather odd objects. Listen to the background, where Eric explains the future of his character to a fan!
Up Close With the Guys- Part 2	37 seconds / 2.11 MB	At this point, Eric speaks with a fellow fan about his future jobs, such as his staring role in "Blue Gender", and appearances in commercials. Meanwhile, Sonny signs some of Meri's DBZ cards.
Up Close With the Guys- Part 3	50 seconds / 2.91 MB	Ahhh, I LOVE this clip!! After the people standing in line before us left, Eric takes the time out to look dead straight into the camera and tell us how weird we are, haha! :) Plus, watch as Meri makes an ass of herself twice! (First, I drop all my crap. "Hey Meri, you dropped everything." Second, I imply that Eric can sign my stuff "later." Oh my, what a dirty girl I am!)
Eric's Cry For Help!	10 seconds / 611 KB	After the four hours of signing have passed, Meri and Mike sit waiting across from Sonny and Eric. It's time for the men to go and join us for dinner, but before they do, Eric has a little fun and sends Meri and Mike a message. How cute! :P

Photos
Not much to say here. I brought along my digital camera and did naughty things with it. Sorry these photos are rather ordinary. Not much (that I can say without being arrested :P) took place. Enjoy! Click on the thumbnails to see larger versions.

Screencaps
These are still shots taken from our video footage. Fun stuff. Give them a looksie!

The Story
This is the part where I write a general summary of the experience. Not only is this just to let you guys know what cool stuff went down, but I'm also taking the time out to write this so I don't forget what happened. I have a lousy memory. OK, let the mumblings of Meri begin!

   At 9:30 on Saturday morning, I picked up Mike at his house, and we drove off to Philly, PA. Despite the heavy amount of rain and stupid drivers on the road, we managed to get to the hotel where the VAs lodged at a decent time. Upon arriving at the hotel, we called Eric and he came down to the lobby to meet us. Much joy! After the introductions were made, the three of us went to a market and got caffinated food stuffs. We sat and talked for a while about what it's like to be doing the meet-and-greet mall circuit, working at FUNi, and dealing with fans. Soon after, we walked to the mall, where we got more snacks and talked for awhile before the signing began. It was cool, because Eric and I had apparently both seen the new movie "Pearl Harbor" on Friday, so we spoke about that, and spoiled things for poor Mike. :)

     When noon rolled around, Eric met up with Sonny and the signing and DBZ CCG gaming began. Not wasting any time, Mike and I strolled around the mall, took the scenery of Philly in, and listened as happy, young DBZ fans run around exclaiming "I can't wait to tell my friends that I met famous people!" During this time, Mike and I ran into interesting things, like a store for pimp-types, and customers who didn't know how to spell their own last names. Philly was indeed a very interesting place, and quite different from our homes a mere 40 minutes away.

     Two hours or so had passed when Mike and I decided to go check on our boys, Eric and Sonny. The fans were still coming in full-force, and it appeared like the men had their work cut out for them. I can safely say that after seeing this, being a voice actor isn't just fun and games! Anyway, seeing that the two voice actors immersed in the signings, Mike and I walked around some more. We returned a while later when the lines had died down. We got on the line ourselves (although we really didn't have to..but hey, it's the polite thing to do!), and readied the camera and video camera. As Mike took some footage with the video camera, I snuck a peek and took a snapshot of Sonny and Eric signing. Upon seeing the flash of the camera (ohh, ain't I getting so dramatic?), Sonny stood up and saw us taping and taking pictures of them. He successfully took my video camera from Mike. At first I thought he was gonna take it and give it to the security guards! But luckily, Sonny just was having fun, and filmed the nearby DBZ fans (check out the video here.) That was very fun shizzat!

     Since we were on the line anyway, I got some of my stuff signed, and Mike filmed Eric. We got some very fun footage that will make our trip all the more memorable. Once finished, the two of us returned to mall-trolling.

     As the hours went by, 4 o'clock soon arrived. There was barely anyone around (minus a scary kid who attempted to steal Eric's name plate, but was stopped by a security guard 2 feet away. Way to be a nut, kid.) and packing up ensued. When it was all over, Eric, Mike and I returned as a group to the hotel, where we figured out what to do for dinner. We decided to check out a pub, since Eric said he was a real fan of bar food.

     The pub was a nice cozy place to chill and hang out after a long day of signing and malling. The experience was kind of neat and surreal to me, like it wasn't happening. I was having dinner with my fave FUNi VA! Too cool. ^_^ The food was nice, and the bathrooms were...odd....and even Chris Sabat called Eric during the course of the meal! Ok, I'm going off on a tangent here. We spent quite some time at the bar talking and getting to know each other. Huzzah am I!

     When we were all done, we headed back to the hotel. Unfortunately, it was raining like mad at this point, and Eric and Mike had opted not to use umbrellas (hey guys, I offered! It's your own fault!). We got back to the hotel, where we freshened up, and I got some of my stuff signed by Eric (thanks mucho!). After spending some time talking to Jon (who had called Mike on his cel phone. Oh, you silly Jon, you), we all went to the bar at the hotel. Located on the top floor, the place had an awesome view, and just had a relaxing atmosphere to it. Mike, Eric, and I spent some time talking about odd stuff, when after awhile, Sonny showed up with a friend. Then, we were joined by an associate from Score, and we all sat and chilled. Eric told us some great stories, in particular, some amusing antics about Matthew Perry on a movie that Eric was working on.

     Soon, it was 9 pm, and it was time for Mike and I to return to New Jersey, since Mike had to go to work early in the morning. Despite Eric's wanting to find a "hip place" to go to, Mike and I couldn't accompany the gang. Ah well, I hope Eric and Sonny had a fun night out, regardless! After having some more pictures taken, and a few hugs and hand-shakes later, Mike and I went back to my car and drove back to New Jersey on the humid, rainy night.

     The ride home went a little like this: "Wow. That was cool." "Yeah. Eric is so cool!" "He's SO cool!" You'd think we were teenyboppers, or something. ^_^

     I am truly happy to have experienced something like this. Just to have met incredible people such as Eric and Sonny makes everything I've ever worked for in regards to my site worth it. I mean, I never made any money off the site, never got anything material out of it, and fans can be down-right mean sometimes, so I always used to ask myself, "what am I still doing this all for?" Well, after Saturday's experience, I now understand why I'm still in this game. I keep doing this so that I may have experiences like these that I will treasure for the rest of my life. I don't care if you're (this is a collective "you") a dubbie, subbie, FUNi-hater, lover, or someone who just doesn't care. In my opinion, the only thing that matters is that you meet wonderful and cool people that you enjoy being with, no matter who or what they are affiliated with. Such was the case with meeting Eric. If a person is so blinded by their hatred or close-mindedness that they are, inevitably, unable to meet such amazing people, I feel sorry that person. This experience has taught me not to care about what anyone may ever say about me. I realized that all of that stuff is unimportant, as long as you remain focused on what makes you happy. So, thank you Eric, for being nice enough to take the time out to spend time with me and Mike. The whole day was an enjoyable and enlightening experience, and I wouldn't trade it in for anything.

     Well, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it! Thanks for reading this far! I'm sure there are a crap-load of aspects of the story that I forgot to put in, and I apologize. I wish I could remember everything, but that would just be difficult. I hope you enjoyed this feature, and got a better understanding of how fun and cool this day was!