Flashback-My Online Chat With Danica McKellar

     Three years ago today, I got to have an online chat with former child actress turned Hallmark Channel/GAC Star Danica McKellar. The online chat was set up by my dear friend, Jacklyn Collier, as part of That's4Entertainment's Virtual Christmas Con after that year's Christmas Con, originally scheduled for that December, was postponed to the following December due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

    To understand how this got set up, we have to go back to 2019. At the time, Danica was the host of an online Twitter game called "Name That Palindrome". On  April 25, Danica announced that she would be stepping down from her role as "Name That Palindrome" game master after eight years and was looking for a new host. The next day, an actress from New York City named Jacklyn Collier, who at the time was one of the co-hosts, along with Shawlini Manjunath-Holbrook, of The Bubbly Sesh, Hallmark Channel's official podcast, responded, saying she was throwing her hat in the ring for Game Master. (No really, those were her exact words). On May 3, Danica officially announced that Jacklyn, or Jacks as she is known, would succeed her as Name That Palindrome Game Master beginning on May 9. On May 9, Jacks posted her first official Name That Palindrome clue, and I responded to it. When Jacks saw my response, she suggested that I DM her with any suggestions for palindromes. This surprised me as 1. I had never submitted anything on Twitter before and 2. She had just taken over the game and was already confident in my palindrome-making abilities. This was, to quote Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, "the start of a beautiful friendship".

    Flash forward to August 2020. By this time, I had been working with Jacks on Name That Palindrome for over a year now. One day, Jacks messaged me on Instagram to tell me that she wanted to set up an online chat as part of the Virtual Christmas Con and asked if I wanted my chat to be with Danica. Of course, I immediately said yes and was excited when Jacks told me that Danica was excited to get to meet me online. 

    Finally, on Saturday August 29, 2020, after having spent over a year as a Name That Palindrome contributor, I got to have my online conversation with Danica McKellar. We talked about my work on Name That Palindrome and about how I could improve my palindromes. I also talked about another famous gift of mine-being able to tell people the day of the week they were born on based on the date and year of their birth. We closed the conversation by wishing each other a Merry Christmas.

    To celebrate the three year anniversary of our conversation, I've included it below. 

Sources

https://twitter.com/JacklynCTweets/status/1121732966382821376

https://twitter.com/danicamckellar/status/1124170933239984128