Vanessa Bayer and her brother Jonah dig up childhood gems in their ‘How Did We Get Weird’ podcast
By Marianne Garvey, CNN
Living on opposite sides of the country, Vanessa Bayer and her brother Jonah Bayer found they missed each other.
Whenever they spoke, they would start reminiscing about their childhood, specifically toys, food and other nostalgia that have somehow disappeared. (Think Garbage Pail Kids.) Eventually, they decided to start a podcast about it, where they invite guests on to dredge up their own childhood obsessions.
They titled it “How Did We Get Weird?” and got Will Ferrell and iHeartMedia’s Big Money Players network to produce it. CNN spoke to the former “Saturday Night Live” castmember about the podcast and how it all came together.
“My brother and I, we really were very close and we love hanging out together and spending time together and working together as well,” Bayer says. “When we were thinking about the topic, you know, what we wanted to talk about, obviously we have nostalgic memories of hanging out together, but also we’re both sort of very into texting or calling the other and saying, ‘Do you remember this thing from our childhood or that thing from our childhood?'”
Bayer says items became super specific, like a particular book or toy that was no longer available.
“We were doing all this research and researching all these insane things from our childhood,” she laughs.
What she found in her research is that there is a whole world of online petitions people have created to try to get their favorite discontinued snack or toy back into production.
“There are so many change.org, petitions on snacks,” Bayer says, “If there’s any snack that you like, and it has been discontinued, for most of them there’s a petition to bring them back. The level of passion people have about snacks disappearing and them wanting them back is really unbelievable. They did bring back Dunkaroos and I think people are really thrilled about that.”
“SNL” star Beck Bennett was a recent guest on the podcast, and he shared his concern that Lean Pockets had been discontinued.
Beyond grieving pizza Lean Pockets, Bayer and her brother also cover mixtapes, “Jumanji” and early Tom Cruise in their discussions.
A new episode releases each week with a wide array of actors and comedians on as guests.
“How Did We Get Weird” can be found on iHeart radio or any podcast streaming service.
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