Weird Kids | Episode 1: Welcome to Weird Kids

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Well, hey there, critters.

This is Ashley Johnson.

And Talis and Jaffe.

And we are popping in here to share with you all the first episode of our new podcast, Weird Kids.

In this series, we're diving into our lives as former child actors from unraveling our eccentric upbringings to embracing all the delightfully odd interests we still have today.

We're covering so many topics like antique toys, taxidermy, Japanese pop culture, and honestly, anything else we can come up with.

So to all the misfits, weirdos, and none of the aboves out there, come take a seat seat at our table and celebrate all things unconventional, eccentric, and wonderfully weird.

Weird Kids is available exclusively on Beacon, but we wanted to share this first episode with everyone to show what we've been working on.

If you like what you hear, use the code Weirdos to get a one-month free trial on beacon.tv to go hear more.

New episodes will be released every Tuesday on Beacon.

Now, without further ado, welcome to Weird Kids.

Oh, hello.

Hi there.

I was all prepared for like 10 seconds of awkward silence, but apparently that's a bad thing.

I mean, I don't think it's a bad thing.

Yeah, it's just to prepare people for how awkward this is going to be.

This is going to be so awkward.

Whose voice am I hearing right now in my podcast?

Okay, so yes,

if you are listening, first-time listener, first-time watcher, if you're watching this as well,

my name is Ashley Johnson.

What is your name?

I am known as Talison Jaffe.

Yes, you are.

That is my name.

And

we are.

We were child actors.

If we were still child actors, that would be a little awkward.

That'd be strange.

Yeah, at this point.

We are now adults.

Apparently.

Kind of.

And yeah, this is Welcome to Weird Kids.

Welcome to Weird Kids.

Why are we doing this?

Because we were told to?

Honestly, it's because we were told to because we have a lot of issues and are not well yeah we have yes i think

i i think we we have we're very

we're a little strange and i think we both know that and i think the the

the sort of

nugget of why we are is is well there's many reasons but i think one of them um which we will talk about in some of the podcast as we go on we're still figuring out what this is it'll change it'll morph But we will tell some stories of,

yeah, we both were child actors.

That's why we're weird.

Yeah,

again, we'll get deeper into this, but there is something that happens when you spend your

entire childhood being

treated like a child, but being expected to behave like an adult and not actually knowing any real children.

And

some people break hard.

We did not break hard.

I mean, you know, we didn't rob a 7-Eleven or anything, or if we did, we didn't get caught.

So well done.

Yeah, we didn't.

We didn't.

I was a fairly good kid.

I had a good heart.

Yeah, I think

in

being a kid on a set,

and then

you go back to

normal life.

And you go around kids, you're around kids your own age.

Oh, it's horrifying.

It's hard.

Yeah.

And I think because you are

not trained, but you're just around adults all day.

So you know, you interact with adults.

They talk to you like an adult.

And

we were very, we were weird kids, which I think when we were talking about putting together this podcast of things we wanted to talk about and why,

I think,

I don't know.

We have had very similar upbringings in some ways.

and and some of it is

was the actor stuff and some of it was not.

Both of us have had very interesting and strange and weird lives.

Very strange lives and the child acting definitely started it and then it just kind of morphed into a decades-long attempt to figure out what a real childhood is like and still attempting to figure it out.

And

it created an interesting reality for me.

I've had like six lives and at this point.

You've had more than that because you were born in 1642.

I'm 3027

next year.

Yes.

I beat Mel Brooks by a thousand years, which I'm really,

you know, I look better too, arguably.

You do.

You do.

There's more color and more flair.

Yeah.

And I'm here mostly because our friends told me that the only way I'm actually going to get healthy is if I monetize my sickness.

And so

they're like, you won't do it any other way.

And that's true.

No, it's true.

That was another thing we were talking about because we.

So

how long have we known each other?

12 years?

I don't know.

I feel like it's been a little bit longer than that.

I met you through D ⁇ D.

I had heard of your reputation, but we did not remember.

When we first met?

As far as I remember, unless, but that doesn't mean anything.

My memory is shot, which is ironic for doing a.

I remember everything before like 2010.

Yeah,

we remember a lot of our childhood, but everything, you know, if I had to tell you what I I did yesterday, I probably couldn't tell you.

No, I can tell you the lyrics to every cartoon I watched up until 1985, though.

I don't know why.

And I watched a lot.

And we'll get there.

Yeah, we will.

Yeah, we did.

We met

through

playing a game of Dernjens and Dragons.

Yeah, at Laura and Travis' house.

Yeah,

that's where I remember meeting you.

Yeah.

And we have played in that same game, even though we've had different campaigns for the past 12 My God.

And have connected on many different levels.

Yeah, I don't meet a lot of people who have a similar level of damage.

Yes!

I mean, there's a, I mean, plenty of people who have a depth of damage.

I mean, it's always a, you know, it is, it is, it, it is a, it is a deep lake.

It's a deep lake.

It's a deep well.

Yeah, and, you know, deep lakes tend to have

have quiet surfaces.

It's, it's streams that are loud and

it's always shallow water that is loud and crackly and moving everywhere.

What a good,

I like that, that it's very quiet on the outside, which I feel like we both are until you sort of get in there and you're like, uh-oh.

Yeah, and there's a lot of shit going on here.

Immediately, I had that, oh, child actor, okay.

Yeah, you know, and I don't know a lot of them.

So, anymore.

Yeah, are you friends with any still?

Oh, I mean,

I don't think Sam Regal quite counts because he was a theater kid, which is a whole different thing.

He was another friend of ours that is also plays in our Dungeons and Dragons.

Worth looking up.

Another interesting life, but very different.

Very different, very different.

Yeah.

He was in theater, so he was kind of like a cool.

That was just such a different vibe.

Like, I feel like the theater kids were very separate from.

Yeah, they were, yeah, they were serious actors, but not

to other, I mean, it's one of those things where in acting, you're like, you should get a real job, but also that looks looks hard.

And oh, you're an artist, whatever.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The theater is for the artistic and the real actor.

Yeah.

You learn to sing and dance.

That's great.

That doesn't actually help you get a real job.

Yeah.

Even in acting.

Oh, you're a mime.

Mimes make more money at this point.

Never mind.

So,

where are you from, Tallison?

Oh, boy.

I am born and raised,

Los Angeles, California.

Wow.

I was born at home in Venice Beach because my mother was

my mom was.

I don't know if I knew this.

I may not have ever mentioned it, but yeah.

She had a home birth.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

Explains a lot.

It does explain a lot, but I think that's pretty fascinating.

There are rumors she was mildly inebriated, but I haven't been able to confirm that.

Good for her.

That's one way to do it.

I wasn't there, technically, until minutes later.

Yeah, I moved around Los Angeles probably once a year for most of my, or close to once or twice a year for most of my life.

I don't know why.

And then

series of various step parents along the way,

which will be fun to get into.

A little bit of time in London, a little bit of, and then later Japan and Colorado and Texas, but those are all different vibes.

You spent some time in each of those places.

You spent some time in Japan.

You know Japan pretty well.

It's been a long time.

I'm sure it's very different.

But yeah, yeah, that was my 21st birthday out there.

And I come from a film family, film and theater family, four generations.

Four generations.

My great-grandmother was a silent film actress.

My grandfathers were, one of them was a writer, playwright, and

film writer.

We have some of his books here on the set.

Oh, yeah.

May I grab one?

Yeah, sure.

Do you want to show it?

We can show it.

This is, I mean, this is not really what he's known for, but I was amused that he wrote

some novels as well.

I'm going to move the microphone with me because we can.

Because this is technology that we have.

This is why you should watch the video of it.

Yeah, because you want to see us move around.

It really makes a difference.

Yeah, Uncle was a producer, grandfather.

So we have two versions of that.

Father and mom.

Yeah, that's the new version.

We have this one,

and then we also have this one, which I think is Norwegian?

It is a language I do not know.

It's not either.

Blackmailer by George Axelbrod.

She was born bad.

I do know that there's born bad.

She was born bad.

So the

front page with the scantly clad woman with guns and money say.

Look at her.

I want to be her.

So he wrote these.

Yeah, and I and I think like there's...

Can you also say what else he wrote?

I can say some films, but like this, I know that like, I think this is one that has like a vague Truman Capote vibe in it, where like he's

a character with a different name in there.

My grandfather wrote some episodes of the shadow, I believe.

Tron Aries has arrived.

I would like you to meet Aries, the ultimate AI soldier.

He is biblically strong and supremely intelligent.

You think you're in control of this?

You're not.

On October 10th.

What are you?

My world is coming to destroy yours.

But I can help you.

The war for our world begins in IMAX.

Tron Aries, suited PG-13.

Maybe inappropriate for children under 13.

Only in theaters October 10th.

Get tickets now.

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Terra Madre Americas is supported by Sacramento International Airport and brought to you by Slow Food and Visit Sacramento.

Hey there, critters.

This year marks our 10-year anniversary of Critical Role and we are partnering with Fathom Entertainment to bring our 2025 tour to movie theaters across the U.S.

and Canada.

Head to theater to see the wedding of the year coming to theaters on October 15th with an iconic Jester and Ford wedding at our New York City live show.

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The radio play back in the day.

Whoa.

He wrote

The Seven Year Itch, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter.

How fucking cool is that?

The film adaptation of the Manchurian candidate.

Damn.

a couple other things uh bus stop uh he did the adaptation of bus stop with marilyn monroe he uh did he ever talk about marilyn oh yeah tons did he love her oh yeah they were he thought she was fucking delightful and always had great stories about what a delightful mess she was we had a lot of i mean he and my grandmother were huge socialites so we had all sorts of interesting people around the house all the time that

I wouldn't even know where to begin with it.

My grandmother was,

I guess, roommates in college.

I don't know what they called it back then with Lauren Bacall.

So there was a whole bunch of that in reality.

I love Lauren Bacall so much.

Oh, yeah, Betty is a whole

lot.

So many of those stories, which I can't wait to get into.

And another thing that we've talked about, where it's hard to sometimes tell these stories,

because

you're like, I don't want to name drop.

These are not names I ever want to say out loud, and I've been told I have to for this podcast.

Yeah, and well, that's that's enough because I have to save some stuff.

Yeah, we'll save some stuff.

But you did have a very, there's some things that I can't wait to talk about of your upbringing with staying at your grandparents that I think is

so different and so bizarre and is so much fun to just

unpack.

Oh, yeah.

I've seen, I've seen, I saw Shed as a child that no child should see.

And honestly, just on like a psychedelic level.

So ashley johnson yes who am you anyway who am i who am me um i

you know just a just a

normal woman um

we're all in trouble just yeah we're all in trouble um

i am mostly from los angeles as well lived in michigan for a little part of my life um franklin the town that time forgot so i'm a little bit of a michigander um sometimes the accent comes out, the accent.

Like sometimes, like if I get around people from Michigan and all my O's become A's, and it's just terrible.

But mostly from Los Angeles.

And when we moved out here, my family, we lived on a sailboat for three years,

very small, only

38-foot sailboat.

And it was the best.

Explains a lot.

I had no idea.

I'm just going to go to the bathroom.

Yeah,

my dad's side of the family, there's a lot of sailors so we

always on the water so we grew up grew up on the water um and then

during that time I I mean I started acting when we came out to

Los Angeles just kind of as an accident and then just kept doing it but during that period there were times where

You know, I wanted to feel like I was never forced into it.

And I think you and I both, I think that's why we kind of turned out okay.

My parents were practically against it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Same with mine, where it was like, well, I mean,

you're like, you're a kid.

Should they be working?

But they seem to be enjoying it.

And

I don't know.

I look back on it now and I'm so, I'm thankful for that time.

But it was a very different time of being a child actor.

in the industry than it is now.

Oh, I can't.

Because there was some shit that I know that we both saw where it was like,

that's going to, that caused some trauma for for later.

God, I'm glad no one had the ability to take a photograph with their, with their camera back.

That would be, that was my thought.

Was I'm glad that portable cameras aren't really a thing other than Polaroids.

And yeah, thankfully, I only have a few of those.

Oh, God.

Yeah, so we

mostly Los Angeles.

And then I just kept doing,

I just kept acting.

But I really feel like

I didn't really start to love it and love the craft of it until

maybe I was like 16,

which is still pretty young.

I mean, I was

working consistently as a kid and was just kind of what life was.

But

yeah.

That's interesting because like that's around the age I pieced out.

I know.

And I feel like we've talked about this, where you were like, I'm done.

Yeah.

Why is that?

It was, I was, I had an audition.

So as a child actor, we should probably, you spend most of your time going to auditions.

And

so honestly, almost every day, nearly every day, if I was in school, immediately after school or right before school ended,

my parents would come pick me up.

I would go straight to an audition.

That would be my next two hours, three hours would be auditioning for commercials, television shows, whatever.

So that kind of cut into social time, which is one of the reasons why I didn't get close to any of those people.

Those children.

those children.

Those children.

I don't know who or where most of them are.

They don't know me.

And you do that.

And then, like, once or twice a year, maybe more, depending on how well you're doing.

If you do it twice a year, you're doing well.

You book something

decent and then you vanish for two years onto a sitcom or six months onto a film or three days or one day onto a commercial.

So that day

I had an audition that I had to go to for Bay Watch.

Oh, shit.

It was Baywatch.

What season?

Who knows?

Was it already on the air?

Yeah, it was already on the air.

It was an episodic, and

the sides were

a level of terrible I did not even know how to contemplate.

I did not know what children sounded like, and even I knew this was monstrously bad writing and that no child sounded like this.

It was absolutely terrible.

It was a whole.

Even as a kid, you were like, this writing is terrible.

I was giggling.

I couldn't stop laughing at it.

I couldn't get through it at all.

And I was trying to prepare with my dad and I just kept snickering because it was so terrible.

And he finally, he didn't yell.

He wasn't a yeller, but

he got frustrated and basically in his

very strange way, said, wow, you know, if you can't take this seriously, maybe you shouldn't be doing it.

And I had an epiphany at that moment.

I'm like, oh my God, you're right.

There are going to be kids in that room who want this.

Yeah.

And this is disrespectful.

I'm out.

Call my agent.

I'm done.

Wow.

I'm done.

You quit everything that day.

Yeah.

That was just like, that was it.

I shouldn't, I shouldn't be in there if I can't take this seriously.

But then you started voice acting.

Oh, much later.

Much later.

Because you still had the itch to perform.

Do you like performing?

I do.

It's everything else I hate.

Yeah, okay.

I get that.

Including the haircut and

the

haircut, maintaining a physical form.

Yeah.

Like the auditioning is awful.

Occasionally booking a terrible thing is terrible.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then it was just, I kind of wanted to know what real life was like.

So I'm like, I'm about to start high school.

I'm just going to go to high school or some version of it.

I felt I made a terrible mistake pretty quickly,

which is its own.

Yeah, but you got to go to high school.

I didn't get to go to high school.

I know.

And I feel like everybody has that reaction where they're like, oh, you dodged a bullet.

But I also feel like

yours was really bad.

I feel like mine would have been bad too.

Because at that time,

I was.

I didn't really come into my own yet.

Yeah, I feel like high school probably would have been terrible for me, but I still wish I would have had that experience.

I get it.

Because I didn't go to prom.

You went to prom, and we have your lovely prom photo over here, which I think we should try to

get out of it.

We'll get around to it.

Yeah.

And that was a whole

weird breakdown of reality that got there.

But that was until I got into voiceover because I got into anime, and then anime led to VO, and

just because I had opinions because, you know, I was a performer.

Of course.

But I often think about what life would have been like if I had continued.

And who knows?

But

you kept going.

Why?

Like, I say why, but.

I know.

It's such a mixed bag.

It's a mixed bag.

And I think there are times where

I feel like when you...

When you're an actor, you're sort of at the mercy of

a production,

a writer, a director.

You kind of sometimes have to do jobs that you,

like you're saying, you are not necessarily into.

Not everybody.

Some people get lucky and they're just like, have awesome

projects that they get to do.

Yeah.

You can, yeah.

Yeah.

But I think

I worked with

I feel like I know when it really changed for me.

I worked on

this feels funny to like

talk about ourselves in this way, but I mean, whatever.

I worked on a movie called, I might have been a little older then, I guess, when this kind of hit me.

I worked in a movie called Fast Food Nation,

and the director was Richard Linklater.

And

we did a rehearsal process that was about two weeks prior to filming.

And I had never done anything like that before.

And I think so, it was so collaborative and so

just we were just in a little office space in Los Angeles and just crammed into a tiny room.

And

we just,

he like Link later's approach was like, well, who are you?

Talk to me.

What do you like?

What are the things you're into?

And let's infuse that into the character.

And it was such a foreign concept to me where I was like, wait,

it can be like this?

And I think it was such a cool experience, and it was such a laid-back set.

And I think because he'd worked with all the same people and all the same crew, it was just like such a well-oiled machine.

And it was just, it was,

it was cool to see at an age in my life where I was like, oh, this can be done.

You can do this, and you can make movies, and you can

make your art in a really

cool way.

And I think

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Prior to that, it was always a coin toss of whether it was going to be a fun set or a bad set, or

you know, it didn't, it finally felt creative in a way that I think I was yearning for.

But, you know, and since then I've had some jobs that you, you,

that, you know, I've had jobs that I love and I have, I've had jobs that I, that I didn't love as much as the other ones.

Jobs that you take and jobs you take.

Jobs that you take, yeah.

But,

yeah, it's a, it's a weird, strange world.

And

I think on top of that, um

we both did sitcom, which is interesting.

We both did sitcom, which is why I'm going to just talk about this set for a second.

Go ahead.

And I love that this set kind of looks like a sitcom set.

Yes.

And these are, we have, we have filled the set with trinkets and things that we both love and that we,

I guess, maybe not cherished, but things that we liked as a kid or things that we collect now or things that we're super into.

It's hard not to be nostalgic when so much weird, when you had so many bizarre things happen to you.

Yeah.

Because, yeah, I miss three or four of the people I used to be.

Yeah, God, well.

They were fascinating.

Yeah.

I feel that really hard.

I was a precocious

11-year-old, and now I haven't really evolved enough to be anything but kind of an idiot.

40-something.

It's just kind of, it kind of, yeah, I mean, like the person changes, but the ability to function has not really improved.

Yeah.

I feel the same.

I feel the same.

Yeah.

And

it is odd.

And

finding that line between art and working.

It's hard.

It's hard to find that little sweet spot of like

how to be a creator,

but also

the business side of things or like the how to it's it's hard to

which is again i hope that this is as horrifying for everybody else as it was for us.

I was kind of aware of it.

You were?

Oh, I was surrounded by, I barely knew anybody who wasn't in the industry.

Like, because all I knew were my grandparents' friends and all of them, everybody worked in the end.

All my family was in the industry.

It's kind of, we didn't have much else to talk about.

Yeah, it just becomes your...

your life.

I mean, that was every,

it's all-encompassing.

And I, like, I would have a creative writing project for seventh grade or sixth grade that i had to write for english class and i would write it and inevitably three people who have like written films would look at it and go okay here are your problems and start redlining

and they're like the like the narrative is broken this dialogue is is crap just like

they couldn't they also i think they delighted in seeing me like just get the right amount of irritated and

do you feel like there was a little bit of which i feel like some people in, like if they've been in the industry for a really long time, there's a bit of a chip on your shoulder where you're like, no, you got to work for it.

You got to earn your way up here.

And so maybe when you were a kid writing it, they were like, no, no, no, here.

We're going to give you some of the hard knots.

I had respect for the people who were

kicking me around a bit, and they did it with love.

We are one of those families where we show love by being

kind of awful to each other in ways that you can only do to someone you know intimately.

Yes.

And it was how we expressed love.

And, you know, trying to think my grandfather, I don't even remember who he was talking to, but someone came over for lunch and he was like, I'm here, you're very talented, and I'm so happy that I'm old enough that I don't give a shit anymore.

Yeah, that's.

Oh, my God.

We were talking about actors at the table.

We all had to raise our hands before we went further to remind everybody that we were talking about an actor.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just to make it, okay, these are broken people.

Yeah,

and having that, yeah, definitely.

and I was very serious and you were a serious kid?

I was attempting to blend in and I didn't like being a problem.

I didn't like making a fuss.

I liked being funny and I liked being funny to adults and not in slapstick ways.

Man,

I think that's something that you and I talk about a lot of

the sort of,

I guess, issues that you can have as a grown-up after being a child actor because you get really used to

people pleasing

and sort of

like

I'm I'm I'm I'm pretty good at taking direction, but I think to a fault to where it's just like, oh yeah, I'll do exactly what needs to be done.

But,

you know, as you get older,

that doesn't That doesn't really help you a lot.

No.

To sort of, it's hard to speak up for yourself.

It's hard.

I have a harder time advocating for myself.

Deeply.

Oh my God.

It's embarrassing.

Like, especially if

I'm on a downslope, this is, I am incapable of expressing any opinion at anybody.

Yeah.

You're like, I'm fine.

I'm fine.

I will just do what needs to be done and I'll make sure everybody's happy right now.

And

I'll deal with my shit when I go home.

And I'm still at the point where like everybody I know now, because I know, I don't want to say, I know

new people, obviously, because I grew up.

They're still younger than the people I knew when I was nine.

Like, I still don't know people who were the age of the people that I was talking to when I was a kid.

That's wild.

It freaks me out.

Yeah.

And like, several times a year, I like, I see an obituary.

I was like, oh, wow, I should have really sent an email

while it was an option.

Damn.

Fuck.

I have, I have a little, a little bit of a, because I keep getting distracted by a picture over here that I'm going to grab.

Please.

So I

do you want me to grab a thing?

Okay, yeah, grab that photo right here.

This one right here.

So to give you more lore of why I'm so a little fucked up.

Welford, paint a picture for the people who cannot see.

I was Miss Junior, Michigan, not to brag.

I'm a winner, baby.

I don't know how old I was, but this was in Michigan.

Early 20s.

I don't know how I ended up in pageants,

but I did.

And it was a very brief period of my life, and I would not recommend it.

So, I mean,

there are wonderful punk songs about how no one should be involved in a child pageant.

Oh,

yeah.

I never knew that there would be a punk song about child pageants.

The dead milkmen don't trust the happy

is a good one.

This is just to paint the picture.

This looks like definitely like a rented ballroom.

Yes.

There's a little bit of that fake Greek

white marble, which is clearly not actually marble.

Pillars in the background.

You are holding.

You are maybe three feet in this picture at best.

Maybe.

With the tiara.

Yeah.

In a blue dress.

It's still.

Is this blue to you?

It's light.

It's silver blue.

This is silver.

Okay.

This was a gorgeous, shiny silver with sequins.

The photo is a little, is, is, is, is not, I feel like the color could be boosted.

It could be a little boosted.

I don't know.

But yeah, and you have very curly hair going into this.

I did.

A smile that is creeping into the eyes, but the eyes are fighting it very powerfully.

And the trophy comes up to your shoulder.

Yeah, I so

so to, and I feel like this is a the so when I for some reason reason got into pageants

It was very brief period of my life maybe a year or two But I did end up winning winning in the end, which is very cool, you know I wish I still had that trophy.

I was gonna ask if you still had the trophy but the first pageant that I was in and I feel like this should have been an indication to my family that I would get nervous on stage

There was a portion where they asked questions

and I peed on the stage because I was nervous.

What question did they ask?

And was that an appropriate answer?

He asked me, he was like,

do you know who George Bush is?

Oh, no.

And I said, yes, he's a small tree.

And I peed.

I peed on the stage.

And I just remember looking down

and like backing up a little bit and seeing that I peed.

And I remember the guy's face because he looks down and he saw it too, and then just went to the next little girl and asked her a question.

So

I don't know if I was like meant for performing, but I worked it out.

You know, I work hard.

I mean.

I work hard to overcome.

I was going to say, bladder control seems to not be an issue anymore unless you're doing it.

No, it still is.

Okay.

When I get nervous, I start wiggling because I feel like I have to pee.

I just assumed

that, yeah, your legs are falling asleep.

That's good to know.

No,

I will will pee.

This is riveting.

I will pee up until the last minute of performing, and then somehow

a little bit will still show itself up in the bladder.

And I'm like, God, why?

It's nerve.

Nerves are weird.

Yeah, you are usually almost the last one, if not the last one.

Yeah, performing nerves have never gone away from me.

Well, I definitely still have.

I still have nerves as well.

And

I mean, we're both terrified of everything we will ever say.

And then I got a tremor when I started after I had quit, which I can.

How old were you?

I was about 16 or 15, and it just they said it would just get worse the older I got, and they were not wrong.

And I do remember a doctor when I was like 17 saying, just have like some, like a gin and tonic or something, and it'll take the edge off.

And I was like, what?

I was like, you're either the best or worst doctor I've ever spoken to.

That's kind of amazing.

I mean, does it work?

It helps.

Although I have other things that help a bit more,

but I'm too lazy to take pills that do nothing but just make my life slightly easier on occasion.

I'm the same way.

Yeah, I'll take the stuff I have to, but if it's optional, I'm just

I just keep going.

But just in case everyone's nervous that I like haven't eaten in three days, this is normal.

Yeah.

It's just what we that's it's a a part of you that I love.

Oh, thank you.

It it definitely makes doing on-camera stuff, stuff, unless I'm, you know, on a bunch of these pills that don't, like, almost impossible because you need your hands to not do that.

You need your hands.

But

yeah.

Well,

well,

it's so crazy because I feel like we haven't been talking very, it doesn't feel like we've been talking long,

but I feel like there is something that before we are finished,

I would love for us to.

This is going to be changing a little bit.

The show, we're going to, it's going to be a little bit loosey-goosey.

We're going to figure out what this is.

We're going to do some fun stuff.

Yeah, and this is this is more of an introduction to us.

This is not what we're going to be talking about all the time or anything.

It is more

coming from the perspective of who we are now after all of this happened and kind of the ways that we have adapted to our damage and maybe the ways that we have adapted to our damage might help others find ways of delighting delighting themselves when they find themselves older in the

twilight of their ability to pretend that they're old and not really mean it, as opposed to going, oh no, things break and they don't get better anymore.

Yeah, yeah.

We have,

as

a little, a little surprised,

we're going to take a trip back to

our childhoods and

show some of the show some old commercials that we were in

because

you know

you can't get enough of an 80s commercial and commercials are great for us because they're short to the point and like it's its own I'm trying not to pay attention to anything something fell behind you something's haunted clearly I think it's it's haunted because it's next to your prom photo and your prom photo is very cursed I feel like we need to push that up though.

It's going to drive me crazy.

That's fair.

I will do an intro while you do that.

Yeah, you do an intro and I'll fix the set.

Commercials are great because they're very, very short.

They're very to the point.

There's usually a quick gag and we, you know, haven't found the time or the system yet for watching a 22-minute episode of television or otherwise that we did.

And

they're always bizarre.

So let's do some dueling commercials.

Like

you can do one, I'll do the next.

And for those of you who are not watching on videos, we will do our best to kind of paint a picture.

This is Prime Talisin right here to me.

This is a Rice Krispies commercial that you did?

No.

Yeah, strawberry Krispies.

Strawberry Krispies.

Look at your little face.

Look at your little hair.

So tell me, do you remember shooting this?

Oh, yes.

You do?

Not the least of which is there were so many camera setups.

If you find this, you will notice that there is not a single

repeat shot in the whole thing.

Every cut to me is always a different, is always a different angle.

Oh, over here.

And then we're going to cut in a second, and then you'll see.

Oh, yeah.

Why did he do that?

So it must have taken forever to shoot.

I don't know.

I genuinely don't understand what this man was thinking.

Also, that suit was

a weird mix of comfortable and uncomfortable.

Really?

And then the girl who was in the corn suit, who you can see on stage there, actually threw up in the corn suit.

And so it's not moving because they had to stand it up on like a mop because she got.

She threw up in the suit?

Yeah, and they had to take her up.

She standed it up and just brew it.

Oh, she was, it was a giant like foam column.

No, nobody should be in that thing.

It looked horrifying.

Damn.

But yeah, they had to take her away, and I felt bad.

But that's why the corn isn't moving there is because it's just on a stick

and smells terrible.

Did you enjoy eating?

Because I always felt like whenever I did a commercial where I got to eat something, I was like, this is the best day of my life.

I mean, that stuff was really good.

Although, like, again, like, they did the glue thing for the one that's actually shot where instead of milk, they just use like white glue so it wouldn't melt under the camera.

Yeah.

They would use glue?

They used glue so that they could take like a dozen shots of it and it wouldn't get soggy.

Oh, that makes sense.

Yeah.

That makes sense.

I tried really hard not to eat a ton because then they would have to reset the cereal if I ate too much every time.

And that

when I was a good boy, I was here to work.

I'm aware.

And I can't believe this certainly haunts me to this day.

You can't believe this.

Can you give it to us?

I can't believe it.

I've got to be, yeah, that's not even a very good.

Even now, I'm embarrassed by that line reading.

I could do better.

Some

friends of ours, we call you the

baby strawberry goth.

Yeah, strawberry goth is awful.

Strawberry goth is definitely your vibe.

I've been trying to buy more strawberry goth, like out, because I'm going to lean into it.

There's nothing else to do once.

You should.

Yeah.

Once people pick a nickname, lean into it no matter how weird it is.

Yeah, it feels good.

It feels good.

Yeah.

And like the only other thing I can remember about this, other than I actually like the suit, I wish I still had it,

was they gave me a lifetime supply of strawberry crispies, which was not.

That's wild.

So are you still getting them in the mail?

Well, man, that'd be great.

No, they like, it wasn't actually a lifetime supply.

It was just a very, very like 10 boxes.

Oh, 30 boxes.

It was a lot of boxes, but like, and I ate it not quite every day, but an awful lot.

And I got through it in about a year and change.

And literally, as the last box was being eaten, I discovered that they had taken it off the market because it was causing cancer because of red dye number five.

And being the kid I was, it was a spoon in my mouth going, oh, I'm going to die.

I was at the table.

It was like back when you would have a TV at the on the kitchen table.

I'm like,

oh, God.

That's another thing that you and I both connect on is health stuff, where if anything's wrong, we're like, well, I'm going to die.

Oh, yeah.

That's sure, for sure going to happen to me.

Oh, yeah.

No.

I mean, I was taking spirulina shakes by the time I was 13.

Yeah, it was bad.

Oh, yeah.

So after the last box.

But what if, would you still, how, why wouldn't they just switch it over to regular rice krispies then?

Well, they to give you

for your lifetime supply.

I think they just assumed I would die soon, so it hardly mattered.

Who owns rice krispies?

Kellogg's.

I say we write to Kellogg's and say, hey, I did a commercial when I was a kid.

I was promised a lifetime supply.

Where is it?

I want the strawberry krispies.

I think they changed.

They have a new red dye.

It took a while.

And so I want that's honestly, I still like strawberry

quite a bit.

It's exactly what you would hope for, which is like someone took rice krispies and then like dunked a strawberry shortcake doll in it and like stirred it for three three days.

It's amazing.

Oh, that sounds delicious.

It's really good.

Give it to me now.

Strawberry milk, too.

You can go.

Actually, that was overboard.

I did try it once and it didn't work.

Strawberry milk?

With strawberry krispies at some point.

You could do chocolate milk and then you got the chocolate strawberry, but

cereal is a science.

Cereal is a science, and I just had cereal the other night and it was so fucking good.

We're going to have to delve into that at some point.

We will.

We're going to do a cereal episode at some point.

But I did have

fruity pebbles and milk in a bowl, and it was so

good.

I'm going to have to, yeah.

I want to see some of your shame.

All right, let's see some of my shame.

This is a commercial for a toy.

A little disturbing.

Our baby bundle, I think.

Wow.

Oh, my God.

Is that backpack trying to get out?

Oh, my God.

The child is banging on.

Okay.

So it's just like, hey, don't you want to have kids don't you want to be a good little wife that is that is to be fair

okay so this is like this is like i can't remember a bjorn that those like those like little bjorn with the weird stork that was also looked like the pickle guy it did look like the pickle guy pickle stork maybe he needed a side job you know acting doesn't always pay the bill it doesn't always pay the bill you take the you take the job you can get you really do he's like i can be a stork too cartoon stork and yeah and so it's it's like a it's it's like a bag and you put a baby doll in it and then the doll tries to like, it can like actually, it feels like it's kicking the front of the bag because it wants to get out.

Yeah, it wants to get out.

So it's like

trying to

make it feel like it's a pregnant belly, which is why it's kicking.

Oh, is that why?

But then you open it up and it's like...

But you had the baby.

It's a full-grown child.

I thought it was because the baby was annoying and you were like trying to like close it up.

To make it sleep.

And it was just trying to get out.

I didn't know that this was like a fake pregnancy bag.

Go to sleep, go to sleep.

So

I think, I don't know.

I don't really understand it.

Well, the baby's wearing a headband.

That could mean anything.

I mean, yeah, it could mean anything.

There's, hey, headbands are the baby needs a swatch, considering like what year this was.

Yeah.

So was the bag kicking or was the baby kicking in the bag?

I have to kind of know.

Or do you not know?

I don't remember.

I

bundle baby, my bundle baby.

That's horrifying.

Thank you.

And yeah, you're wearing 80s, 80s, 80s toy child clothing.

And your hair is like this big curly thing.

My hair was very curly.

My hair was very curly.

You've got a very sitcom vibe.

And I think also that was a, I do have a very sitcom vibe.

But I think people in that era loved it because they were like, oh, it's like a little Shirley Temple.

So they tried to make me like a baby for a long time.

Yeah.

And that caused a lot of problems.

Yeah,

I had the

weird blonde, like, yeah, I played much younger than I should have for way too long.

They always do that.

I was also, I was well-behaved enough that they're like, oh, it's practically like hiring an adult, which, because I didn't cause, I've watched so many other kids cause issues, and I'm like, I'm fine here.

I don't know what their problem is.

This is

work.

It made me mildly beloved for a while.

I mean,

okay, we got to watch another one.

Yeah, okay, let's bring, let's bring another one.

This one's classic.

This is a

Coca-Cola commercial.

It was a Coca-Cola commercial.

Feel free to.

Oh boy, this was like a whole deal.

This was a cool one, too, though.

It was very Close Encounters.

And I think actually,

like,

people from Close Encounters were involved, if I recall.

That's also all inside a warehouse.

None of this was shot outdoors.

Really?

But it's an airplane hangar.

Well, the cinematography is gorgeous on this.

Thank you, yeah.

I wonder who it was.

It was a nice wave.

I don't remember, but I remember it being important or like interesting.

And getting that Coca-Cola bottle to fall with the Coke logo up apparently was driving everyone into it.

It just took a while.

The fake sand was great.

And like you can see, it's like a

not a real backdrop.

But it's great.

Yeah.

It's such a vibe.

I loved being in a warehouse.

I remember this commercial.

Really?

Yeah, I do.

It was.

It was just going to be fun watching through some of these because I'm going to be like, oh my God, I watched that and I didn't know it was you because we didn't know each other yet.

They also, this was apparently a dueling commercial with Pepsi.

Like, this was like a retort, if I recall.

Yeah, because Pepsi's in it.

Yeah, it was.

How was that allowed?

I don't know.

It was, it was the 80s.

There was, and they actually call me by my real name in this one, too, which is interesting.

They do?

Yeah, they, they, they, she, the mom yells TJ because I don't think they thought that far ahead.

TJ!

Yeah.

Uh, dialogue was definitely not high on the priority here.

God.

But yeah, I did a coat commercial.

Sizzling little.

There's a McDonald's commercial somewhere.

There's a, there's a,

There's a

insurance commercial with a lion where I have to sit

on a couch with my family where there's a lion in front.

They just brought a lion in.

You showed me pictures of that.

And

for the audition,

they had you sit with a kangaroo because they couldn't get a lion.

Oh?

Yeah.

That's very different from a lion.

I felt that.

I was definitely why.

Now thinking back, I think they just wanted to make sure you weren't going to mess with an animal.

But apparently, all they could get was a kangaroo.

So for me, we need a lion.

We only have a kangaroo.

Okay, we'll take the kangaroo.

Yeah.

What a bizarre.

There's probably some insurance reasons why you can't have auditions with the kids.

Even kangaroos are mean.

I think it was like the appropriate level.

Sure.

I did get kicked by a goat on a show one.

Anyway, that's for later.

I can't wait to get into our working with animals.

Working with animals is a whole thing.

Because you taught me something about dolphins, which I'm very excited to get into because I am.

That goat was mean.

Sorry.

I think last up we have

a Duncan Hines commercial.

What?

Oh my god.

No, no, no.

You have a voice here.

I sound like

it sounds like when you let a little bit of air come out of a balloon.

You did the weird

giggle shake here where

you're trying not to move too much when Sedla's a kid vibrates.

You've seen that?

That was amazing.

My problem was

I really loved sugar.

I still do.

That's fair.

And so anytime there was like a commercial for food,

especially like a sweet, especially a brownie, my God.

Couldn't be happier.

So that was probably very genuine of like, I'm going to get you eat the butter.

I have bad teeth, so they wouldn't, wouldn't, it didn't do a lot of, I had, or like bad teeth for, they're very big on good teeth for

sugar things.

Did you ever have to wear a flipper?

Yeah.

So if you don't know what flippers are,

flippers are things that if you were a child actor in this time.

That's right, because normal actors.

I forget these.

I totally forgot.

So they have,

like, if you have, if your teeth came out, because you're a normal child whose teeth come out,

they would make you fake dentures to wear.

And it would be just like, it was like a retainer, but with teeth and everything that was on a hit.

Just one tooth that would pop in.

Because you had to have a perfect set of teeth on everything.

I lost a tooth on a bagel in the middle of a shoot of a film,

and so they had to make me one for the film because that would have been a problem.

Damn.

Having a tooth randomly disappear mid-show.

Yeah, because you've got to have the consistency.

Yeah.

Of course, the continuity as well is hard.

I got fired from a peanut butter commercial, too, for having bad teeth.

I remember that.

Really?

Yeah, like literally, I don't remember who it was either, I think it might have been the director, like literally put her, like, grab my face and like opened up my mouth and said, not this one, get it out of there.

Get him out of here.

And

without eye contact, I was like, I get paid anyway, whatever, motherfucker.

Take my money and go home.

Not this one.

Get this one.

Literally, literally, I don't even know who she was speaking to after, like,

gross.

Jesus.

You don't know where this mouth has been.

Wash your hands.

Yeah.

Well,

I mean, I feel like, I feel like,

I feel like we did pretty good.

I mean, I don't know how long we've been talking, but

I feel like that was a sort of a good maybe introduction.

There's still so much more, but I feel like that was a good start for

and I'm curious.

We'll get eventually into your transition from child actor to actor, and I definitely am excited about the various nervous breakdowns that led to all sorts of weird adventures that

had so many teenagers moving into young adulthood or whatever that was.

And

wonderfully bad decisions.

and well they all worked out I suppose I'm they worked out well enough that I have achieved the 21st century dream of being on a podcast we finally did it all downhill from here we finally did it we finally achieved everything we've ever wanted which was a podcast

um

well this is great Talison I like hanging out with you I like hanging out with you too it's fun that we get to do um

this is I this is this is helping us hang out more I know we were we have said for years we should really monetize and attempt to hang out because otherwise we'll never leave our homes.

That's so sad.

That's so

sad, but true.

Um, but we will be doing some field trips, yeah.

Field trips are important, field trips are important.

We have some things that we've already done that we're going to talk about and some other stuff that we have on the books.

And uh, and uh,

I mean, now that we have this and we have this lovely set, and I'm sure we'll be trading out things and maybe talking about things on occasion.

I mean, like, uh,

do we have, I don't know, do we, do we do like music or do we say something?

Or how do we need to end this somehow.

I feel like we need a theme song.

I'm bad at writing music.

I am too.

I feel like we should.

I'm just going to sing.

Well, you can sing too.

But

I feel like we should get somebody to write an amazing theme song for us weird kids.

And

I feel like we know just the person, Talison.

Sam Regal, who are we going to get?

Dave Heatwave.

You can't get Dave Heatwave.

Well, we could certainly try.

I could, I, I, listen, I'm gonna write him a letter, and I'm gonna just see if maybe, just maybe he will write us a theme song.

An email or a letter?

You know what?

I'm gonna do?

I'm gonna write a letter to Dave Heatwave

right in this moment.

Definitely didn't write this prior to this moment.

Better you than me.

I'm, I've, the, it would freak me out.

All right.

Let me just

get my pencil ready.

If you don't know who Deep Wave Dave Heatwave is, by the way, uh, I don't know what's wrong with you, and just Google that.

That's just weird.

You should know.

That's ridiculous.

Dear

Mr.

Dave Heatwave,

Ashley Suzanne and Talison Armstrong here.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I heard your music through the sound waves traveling through the cosmos, and it pleased the holes in my ears.

I don't even know where you are on this earth, or if you even reside in this here Virgo supercluster.

But please, we need your help.

I am requesting your assistance wherever you are.

Can you please make us a theme song?

An anthem, if you will, for the strange kids, the anxiety-riddled,

the awkward and the insecure, the misunderstood, the wallflowers, the melancholic, lonely loners.

The weird kids that grew up and are still weird.

This needs a stand-up base.

Carry on.

Thank you, Dave Heatwave.

Please, we need your help.

We will await your response.

Ashley and Talison?

Yeah, no, I'm in on that.

That was amazing.

I'm going to send this off.

And it's going to make its way to Dave, and we'll see what he does.

I'm excited.

This is this is that's quite a letter.

I'm going to put it in an envelope and send it to him for sure.

And we're going to see

if he will write us back.

I have some fancy stamps.

We can do that.

Great.

They're super fancy.

Great.

Well,

this has been fun.

This has been fun.

I've learned a lot.

I wouldn't.

I've learned a lot too.

Yeah, this has been great.

I can't wait to learn more.

Finally, talk about this.

Yeah.

We did it.

All right.

Well,

hey, at some point we'll find a sign-off here, but thanks for sitting with us at our table.

See you next time.

See you next time.

Bye.

Bye.

And Talis and Jeffy.

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