It’s the week of Comic-Con and I wanted to the posts this week to be filled with tips, survival guides, restaurants suggestions…you get the idea, but something happened this weekend that I wanted to mention, and in a way it fits into the Comic-Con filled week.

Unfortunately on Saturday July 13, star of Glee and portrayer of Finn Hudson, Cory Monteith unexpectedly passed away. I think it’s clear by the outpouring of emotion on all media outlets that this was a truly sad day for not only fans of Glee but for the entire entertainment community.

I was personally shocked to hear the news, and my heart goes out to Cory’s family, friends, Glee costars and girlfriend Lea Michelle. The world has lost a talented person who overall seemed to be a nice, lovable and good guy.

This tragic event made me think about my history with Cory and Glee. While I I haven’t kept up with the show this season, I distinctly remember watching the pilot episode. Not sure if I have mentioned it on but for a while I was an intern at a major production company. One of the only benefits of this was that occasionally screeners came in to the office and we were allowed to borrow them.

My roommate at the time (another intern) and I were super excited to check out this show, we had heard some rumblings about it and he knew someone on the cast. From the moment I pressed play I could tell that this was a show I was going to love and that it was something special. It had everything I could want in a show, snarky humor, amazing characters and musical numbers galore. Then in the final number, lead by Cory as Finn sang “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey was it clear that this show had heart.

The actual pilot didn’t air on Fox until a few months later but I eagerly rewatched and couldn’t wait for more, unfortunately Fox for some reason aired the first episode in May and held off on the rest of Season 1 until September. Don’t worry this story is going to circle back around to Comic-Con right about now.

Cyclops took / dragged me to my first Comic-Con in the summer of 2009. I didn’t realize before I started looking at the schedule that there was something I was passionate about at the Con, panels upon panels about TV. I sat in line after line for panels on True Blood and Lost but overall I was most excited about a panel they were holding on this little unknown show, Glee.

For those of you familiar with the layout of the Con the panel was being held at the Indigo Ballroom, which is a large space, and since the show was relatively unknown at the time the room wasn’t full but the energy in the space was palpable. Then the lights went down, they hit play and everyone in the room got to experience the second episode of the series. Afterwards the crowd was giddy, myself included and then the crowd erupted as the cast came out to the stage. Here’s a shot I pulled out from my photo archives featuring Cory.

What really amazed me about that panel was how excited everyone was to be a part of this show because they knew it was special. As they started telling their audition stories, you got to learn a little more about their history. Cory was relatively unknown and instead of singing for his audition tape played the drums on plastic bowls. Watch the clip below staring at around 4:40 for the full story.

Obviously this panel at Comic-Con was just the beginning as Glee has become one of the most popular shows on television. But I think this clip shows how easy it was for fans to fall in love not only with the characters but with their portrayers. They brought the heart to the show and with the passing of Cory, Glee will never be the same. I am so happy that I got to be part of the show, even in this small way.

I’ll end this post with probably my favorite Glee song of all time, lead of course by Finn Hudson and Rachel Berry. We’ll miss you Cory.