I Am The Cute One: A Mary-Kate & Ashley Podcast
Taylor Harrington 6/29/2021 11:53am EST
The fact that this was such a pop-culture moment of the 90s is really fun. I make a joke, I think in episode two, that this really has become like an exercise of self-care for me, that I really just turn off my brain and I’m teleported back to the time of VHS. I don’t know. You turn off your brain and you turn on Mary-Kate and Ashley and you’re like, ‘Okay, no, these girls can’t sing, but I kind of want to sing off-tune along with them.’Chelsea, @ohnobravo
Donny Hadfield-Smith, @RealDonnywood, and Chelsea from @ohnobravo sit down to talk about their new podcast, I Am The Cute One, where they recap and cover all things Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, starting with their quintessential 90’s mystery show, The Adventures of Mary-Kate and Ashley. Presented by The Dipp, “I Am The Cute One” is sure to keep you captivated as we follow the chaotic minds of Donny and Chelsea as they try to solve the crime before dinner time.
Welcome to Confessional Magazine. I’m Taylor and this is “More to the Story”. I’m here today with the two and only, I Am The Cute One: A Mary-Kate & Ashley Podcast, hosts @ohnobravo’s Chelsea and @realdonnywood’s Donny Hadfield-Smith. Thank you so much for being here today, both of you! Chelsea and Donny have recently just launched a new podcast with The Dipp all about Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. In the first season, they are dissecting, divulging, and solving all of the Olsen twin mysteries that maybe the rest of us have been wanting to for the past 30 years.
Donny I knew I had been, so I figured there were other people in the world that wanted to do as well.
Chelsea Nobody asked for this, but I thought to myself, ‘Should we be recapping Mary-Kate and Ashley?’ and I was like, ‘You know what? I feel it in my soul that yes, yes, we should.‘
Can you explain a little bit about what The Dipp is and how you got connected with them?
Donny The Dipp is an online magazine. It’s subscription based and they recently started a podcast network as well. They have a few Bravo podcasts and they’re getting a RuPaul’s Drag Race podcast. Chelsea and I noticed that everything was in the moment, like, ‘What are the current Housewives doing now? What are RuPaul’s Drag Race contestants doing now?’ Chelsea and I were like, ‘What were people doing 30 years ago? This needs to be discussed.’ So we reached out to The Dipp and told them our idea for this podcast. Luckily, they saw our chaotic little vision and wanted us to bring it to life.
It’s not just a chaotic vision. The two of you individually are chaotic, but when combined, it’s magical chaos that everybody needs to just get a little bit of. How did you decide where to start with Mary-Kate and Ashley?
Chelsea Well, it was perfect because Donny really has a connection to The Adventures of Mary-Kate and Ashley. He could recite the first two episodes forwards and backward. I loved Mary-Kate and Ashley growing up, but I have not revisited it since its inception. The last time I watched it was probably 25 years ago. It felt like a natural starting point and it was really funny, especially the first two episodes that we have out right now. You can hear Donny knowing every word to every song and me realizing ‘Oh wait, I forgot this is a musical.‘
Musicals they are, but let’s not bring them to Broadway anytime soon.
Donny I would bring them to Broadway. I wouldn’t bring The Twins to Broadway, but there’s nothing wrong with “Thorn Mansion”. I would love a staged version!
Chelsea Hey, we can pitch it!
Donny Perhaps, but only if it’s with Patti LuPone.
What kinds of things are you diving into throughout these episodes and what can your listeners look forward to hearing?
Donny Every episode, like Chelsea said, is a musical. So number one, we spend time rating each song anywhere from zero to five and we change the rating scale based on what is happening in the episodes. Sometimes we do a one to five t-shirts scale and sometimes we do one to five Lisa Frank-inspired bathing suits scale. We always rate based on what’s happening in the episode and what the twins are wearing. We also decided to incorporate a little game where we come up with who could really make the songs pop now or anytime within the last 50 years. The twins sometimes are not doing the songs justice, so who could take the songs to the Top 40 now? Would it be Bruno Mars? Would it be Miami Sound Machine? The choices are endless, really!
Chelsea About this game, it started out like ‘Oh, let’s have a fun little thing where we say which person we want to see cover the song.’ Well, then Donny took it upon himself to just get the answer right every time. He really nails down who the artist should be. It’s really a game to see if I will ever catch up to his right answers. Mostly, no, I do not.
Donny Then we also, of course, try to solve the mystery before the girls do. Usually, we do because again, these are seven-year-old girls solving problems, but I will say, sometimes they really throw us for a loop and we never see the end coming.
It sounds like an adventure that everybody needs to join! So how can we find your podcast?
Chelsea You can find our podcast wherever you usually stream, and you can go to The Dipp to see our write up. The show is I Am The Cute One: A Mary-Kate & Ashley Podcast. You can also go to either one of our Instagram pages and just click the link in our bio.
Let’s talk a little bit about you guys. I know that Donny, you are one of three hosts of Know That: A Real Housewives Podcast. Tell us a little bit about your individual journey and story, including sliding into Tara Reid’s DM’s.
Donny Of course. I started Know That with my husband and my friend Anthony in November. We started just talking about the most recent Housewives episodes week to week and then about a month, and only a month, I said, ‘Let’s see what Housewives we can get on the show. We’ve been doing this for a month, we have experience.’ So we reached out to Elyse Slaine (Real Housewives of New York), and she said yes. When she said yes, I started to really feel myself, so then by New Year’s we were interviewing LeeAnne Locken (Real Housewives of Dallas). I was like, ‘Oh my God, everyone is saying yes!’ I think on New Year’s Day, I just messaged anyone that’s ever been on a Bravo show, like anyone from Andy to Phaedra, to Big Poppa. When people started to say yes, then I was like, ‘Oh my god, I can literally I can interview Obama tomorrow if I want to!’ Then I started my own podcast where I would interview a different celebrity from the 90s each week and like you mentioned, I messaged Tara Reid. I thought I would start the podcast off with a bang. Since everyone was saying yes, I reached out to Tara Reid. She did respond, but she asked how much she would be paid. I thought, ‘Oh, okay, there’s first time for everything.’ So I responded, ‘Well, normally, I don’t pay the people coming on the podcast, but we could talk about it. What’s your normal rate?’ I guess she was not okay with that because she did not respond. It’s okay, when we blow up and she asks us to do the finale of I Am The Cute One, she’ll really wish she never crossed me. We’re gonna make her pay us.
I once reached out to Vanderpump Rule’s James Kennedy and his response to me was, “Sure, let’s do it for $2,500.” I said, “Put it on my tab”, and I haven’t talked to him since.
Chelsea Well, now I’ll be expecting my $2,500 from you for promoting our show. I’ll expect the direct deposit, please.
Yeah, yeah, Chelsea, put it on my tab.
Donny That’s why I asked her (Tara Reid) what she was talking, because if she wanted $100 I could scrape some things together, but if she was anywhere near the $2,500 mark, we weren’t gonna be speaking anymore.
Donny is the boss of 90s nostalgia and regularly interviews actors from our favorite past-times, as well as co-hosts Know That: A Real Housewives Podcast. Chelsea, what’s happening over on @ohnobravo’s page?
Chelsea As the name suggests, it’s pretty Bravo-heavy over there. On Friday nights, I go live on Instagram at 5 pm Pacific/8 pm Eastern time with another podcaster or just another Bravo lover and we break down recent Bravo shows. Over on my Patreon, I’m talking Bravo and pop-culture as well. It was a melding of the minds with the Mary-Kate and Ashley love. We originally were going to record the series for my Patreon. We actually released a couple of episodes and as we were releasing them, both Donny and I were kind of like, ‘This is a thing. I feel like people love Mary-Kate and Ashley, even if it’s just to like, kind of make fun of it.’ The fact that this was like such a pop-culture moment of the ’90s is really fun. I make a joke, I think in episode two, that this really has become like an exercise of self-care for me, that I really just turn off my brain and I’m teleported back to the time of VHS. I don’t know. You turn off your brain and you turn on Mary-Kate and Ashley and you’re like, ‘Okay, no, these girls can’t sing, but I kind of want to sing off-tune along with them.’
I love this and I can’t thank you both enough for coming on here and joining me today so that we could learn a little bit more about I Am The Cute One: A Mary-Kate & Ashley Podcast, available everywhere podcasts are available. Make sure you’re following @realdonnywood, @ohnobravo, and @TheDipp on Instagram!
Chelsea Yes, follow The Dipp. They are blowing up!
Originally from Edison, New Jersey, Taylor Harrington won the 2005 Middlesex County Caring Award, and hasn’t stopped caring since. When she is not writing or hosting “More to the Story”, Taylor can be found chasing her two mutts around Athens, Ohio where she currently resides with her husband. Moving to Appalachia has made a huge impact on her life, and she can’t wait to share some of her stories, laughs, and (mis)adventures with you!
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