Podcast Episode 309: From Mad Men and the Tonight Show To Parenting Satire Transcripts

Please note: Transcripts for the No Guilt Mom Podcast were created using AI. As a result, there may be some minor errors.

Arthur Meyer: As a dad whose wife has given birth, I know a thing or two about how to tell if your wife’s given birth. So, to help you out, here are five signs that your wife just gave birth to a baby. Number one, there’s a naked crying baby in the room that wasn’t there before. Number two, your wife just spent the last 14 hours screaming the hardest she ever has in her life.

Well, that either means she just gave birth, or she just spent all day on Batman the Ride at Six Flags. He he he. Four, a team of nurses is standing in a semicircle around your wife’s hospital bed and congratulating her. This one kind of speaks for itself. And finally, number five, someone comes in the room and asks you what name you want to give to the baby that your wife just gave birth to. 

JoAnn Welcome to the No Guilt Mom podcast. I’m your host JoAnne Crone joined by the lovely Brie Tucker.

Brie Tucker Why hello, hello everybody, how are you?

JoAnn We have a fun episode for you today. We just get to talk about comedy and how to make parenting funny, which I think we need a lot more of in our lives.

Brie Tucker goodness we do. Like I think that this is going to be that break that every parent needs in the day. Like when you’re thinking to yourself, damn, I really need a glass of whatever wine or I just need something. Turn on this, turn on our guest today and it will give you that break, that relief that just this is good. This is good.

JoAnn Mm. Yes. So we are talking today with Arthur Meyer and Stephanie Drake. Arthur is a comedian, writer, and actor who wrote for and performed on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon for eight years. Stephanie is an actress best known as Meredith Don Draper’s ditzy but well -meaning secretary from the hit TV show Mad Men. Together they created ABC Parenting, a satire parenting advice channel to help remind parents.

that it’s important to laugh at the nonstop chaos of parenting. And laugh you will because we’re so excited to introduce you to Arthur and Stephanie. So let’s get on with the show.

JoAnn So I was mentioning Arthur and Stephanie before you guys got on that this was the most enjoyable amount of prep that I’ve done for a podcast interview because all like, I mean, you’re both comedians, actors, and all I got to do was watch funny reels and clips and it was great. So welcome to our podcast. We’re excited to talk all things ABC parenting with you, but I’m also like curious as to how you came to this.

Arthur Meyer Hehehehehe

JoAnn and how you started working together. So Stephanie, I wanna start with you first. As a Mad Men fan, I recognized you immediately. And I was so excited to meet you, but like, how did you get started doing parenting satire on YouTube going from that to this?

Stephanie Drake Cheering!

Brie Tucker Yeah

Stephanie Drake Yeah, from such a serious show. That’s a great question. So, mean, Mad Men was on Sad to Say, but it’s been over for 10 years. Yeah. Same, same. So a lot’s happened since then. One of the biggest things being I became a mom. Yeah. 

JoAnn I know. Yeah.

Brie Tucker God, really? I feel so old.

Stephanie Drake I didn’t meet Arthur. He slid into my DMs about three years ago. He was watching Mad Men and he messaged me saying he’d been rewatching it with his wife. And I went to his page then on Instagram and was like, my God, he just had a baby. So I knew this guy was legit.

Brie Tucker Whoa, so risque there.

JoAnn It’s the best

Stephanie Drake Like I didn’t have to worry, worry about anything. I’m not a creepy crusty old man. No. Yeah. So, and we had like a bunch of mutual friends and he’s very funny and had a real job. So I was like, okay. So I responded and I was like, thank you so much and congrats on your baby. Hope you’re hanging in there.

JoAnn Not a creepy crusty old man who is sliding into your DMs.

Brie Tucker It wasn’t your typical slide in.

JoAnn No!

Stephanie Drake And I didn’t hear from him. I mean, we didn’t talk for like another year. We really didn’t know each other. And then he had reached out after that, a year after that, saying, hey, I have this idea for a web series. Would you, and every episode starts with a question, would you be down to do one of the questions? And I was like, yeah, absolutely. That won’t take very much, too much of my time.

And I did, I sent it to him and maybe two, three days later he asked, he came back and was like, would you want to co -host this with me? I think I’m missing maybe where I came like into your mind, but he sent me a couple episodes that he had written and I thought they were very funny. We zoomed, we actually got to like chat.

JoAnn 

Mm

Stephanie Drake And then I think two weeks later I was on a plane to New York and I was thrilled because I had yet to be away from my son. He’d been alive for two years and that was the first time I got to go like be away from him and it was to work. So it was perfect timing.

Arthur Meyer You

JoAnn It’s wonderful. I love so many things you said in there from like, I’m going to come to you too for backstory, Arthur. the whole thing about being away from your son and he’s two years old and this is the first time that you’ve been away from him, that’s like so common among moms, like not used to being away from kids. How old is your son now?

Brie Tucker so this was also all just post pandemic. Like when it’s post pandemic, I don’t know about you guys, but I was like that video they had of like what an introvert did during the pandemic, like enjoying their book. And then the extrovert that’s like clawing at the windows. I was like, anything to get out of here, please.

Stephanie Drake Yeah!

Arthur Meyer Yes.

Stephanie Drake  Absolutely. I remember Arthur, Arthur you asked me when you picked me up from the airport why I said yes to this and I was, I, you know, I’m pretty sure I was just like, I wanted to get away from my kid. I wanted to get out of my house.

JoAnn Yeah.

Brie Tucker It sounded fun.

Arthur Meyer It’s that weird, it’s that strange, that weird contradiction that I feel like every parent has where a lot of times you’re with your kid for such a long amount of time that you’re like, just need a break. And then you’re on a break from them and all you can do is think about how much you miss them. You know, like I remember the first time my wife and I had a date after my son Theo was born, we spent the entire time just looking at photos of him and talking about him. So as much, yeah.

JoAnn Yeah.

Brie Tucker Yeah.

Stephanie Drake Okay.

Brie Tucker But yet you were so excited to go on that date and to get away. It was almost like the Wi -Fi. As soon as you got far enough away from the house and the Wi -Fi went away, as soon as you got far enough away that you knew that he couldn’t cry or grab you or drool on you, you were like, wait, we miss him.

Arthur Meyer Yes. Yes.

JoAnn Yeah!

Arthur Meyer Yes, exactly.

JoAnn Well, it’s so interesting. I think this is a different perception among different people too, because I’m a huge fan of armchair expert. And I was listening to Doc Shepard talk about this and his dynamic with his wife, Kristen Bell. And he says like, yeah, he’s so excited to get away from the kids. And then he misses them the entire time. Whereas she finds it hard to leave the kids. But then when she’s gone, she’s like, wow, this is amazing.

And I have to say I did identify more with her experience than his experience because like, my gosh, the hardest part is I think leaving. But once you’re gone, you’re like, this is nice. I’ll call and talk to them. And then I remember who I am again without my kids. Yeah.

Arthur Meyer Yeah, it really feels like a certain kind of a particular type of freedom that you that I never had before I was a parent where like, okay, I have like two hours to just soak everything up, whatever that even means. I don’t even know what that means. There’s just a really appreciate every moment like, my God, yes, this is a great freedom just for a moment.

Brie Tucker Wait.

JoAnn and not have

Brie Tucker Yeah, you learn how to do things on three times speed so much. You’re like, I can get so much done in an hour.

JoAnn Yeah.

Arthur Meyer Yes. Yes, exactly.

JoAnn So Arthur, as I was preparing for this, and first of all, like I watched your subway guy and that made me laugh. And I was like, looking at subway, subway idiot, subway idiot. And then like as I was watching subway idiot, the first thought that’s in my mind is like, my gosh, like filming this must be really hard because the cameraman like goes away with the train and then you have to wait and you have to come back. like, I don’t know. I thought those were my logistics things.

Arthur Meyer yes, subway idiot? Yeah, subway idiot, yeah.

Stephanie Drake Big fan.

Arthur Meyer Yes, I should maybe just to give your listeners a little bit of an idea of what it is. It’s maybe the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, which is that it’s a friend of mine on an actual New York subway train getting shots of me running alongside the train, like on the subway platform, but each of these videos has about 30 or 40 different shots. So it’s me running after the train, trying to catch up to it. And yes.

JoAnn Yes, please.

Stephanie Drake Thank

JoAnn Mm

Arthur Meyer Those shoots take a couple of days to do because you’re just standing there all day waiting for a train and hoping that you don’t get arrested.

JoAnn Yeah!

So how did you initially come up with the idea for ABC Parody? What sparked it?

Brie Tucker My god.

Stephanie Drake Hehehehehe

Arthur Meyer Yes, okay, I’m so sorry. Hold on one second. I have this…

Brie Tucker That is, that’s real life. Who do you got there?

Arthur Meyer I got this little dog sit right here, a little three legged. Yeah. really?

JoAnn it’s always the dogs. Our dogs are always, that’s he’s so cute. My dog’s currently asleep on my couch. So it’s just like a matter of time before a doorbell rings or something like that. Yeah.

Stephanie Drake Aww.

Arthur Meyer Well, so yeah, my wife was pregnant and I started to do YouTube searches for like how to be a parent. How do you be a dad? What do you do? I didn’t know what I was doing. just knew. Yes, exactly. And it turns out, as you guys know, that there are an infinite number of parenting resources online. You know, many of which give really good advice, some of which

Brie Tucker Where is the Cliff Notes version?

JoAnn Yeah. Mm

Arthur Meyer I have advice that I might describe as crazy. I was like, I think that I would like to make a comedy version of one of these because I am no parenting expert myself. I mean, I think I love being a parent. I love my son so much. And I try to learn about it. But I think what I’m really good at, at least maybe the only the only thing I think I might be good at is to make funny stuff. So I was like, this is a thing that is near and dear to me right now.

And there is literally an infinite number of parenting topics out there covering every age range that your child could be. So it wasn’t that hard to think of ideas. And then the more I was building it out, was like, I’ll try to make this kind of feel like an actual parenting channel with the ultimate goal being I want people to laugh at this, but I also want some people to look it up and think that it’s a real parenting channel.

Brie Tucker Hahaha!

Stephanie Drake Thank

Arthur Meyer And it turns out that at least on TikTok, that is what happens.

JoAnn Gosh, TikTok, it’s like all the crazies like I mean, not crazies, TikTok, like we love you. But still, like it seems like out of all the platforms, the TikTok people are the ones who will come at you most aggressively versus like the YouTube and the Instagram if they think something is wrong or if they disagree with it or anything.

Brie Tucker my god!

Arthur Meyer Yes.

Brie Tucker Interesting.

Arthur Meyer Yes, we recently had an episode that we posted on TikTok. It’s sort of a two part episode. The first part is a song called Wacky Zoo. And this was, it’s basically just a song. It’s kind of a song for kids where it’s kind of like, you know, well, the cow goes oink and the pig goes cluck and the chicken goes moo. It’s all animals making sounds that they don’t make. And it kind of feels and sounds like a song that might actually exist. And then our very next episode of ABC parenting was us issuing a very somber apology.

Brie Tucker I think I saw that! Yes!

Arthur Meyer confusing children and in some cases adults about animals making sounds that they don’t actually make. You know, obviously this wasn’t a real apology, but on TikTok, there are no less than I would say 800 comments on there. People saying, is this satire? Or people just straight up believing that it’s real and, you know, kind of mourning the place that we’ve come to in this country where you can’t, you know.

Brie Tucker Yes, I saw those. Like, it’s so sad that everything you do these days offends people. Okay, let’s take a step back.

Arthur Meyer Yes. But I cannot tell you how much joy I get out of both of the comments. Like at the comments of like, this is funny and I like this. And I am so outraged and you know, by the state of, you know, this country and wokeness and everything. It’s so, it’s very fun.

JoAnn That’s interesting.

Stephanie Drake I got texts from friends after that episode. Did this really happen? Yeah. Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Brie Tucker that were like, what were you thinking?

Arthur Meyer Really? That’s so funny.

JoAnn This is…

Brie Tucker You’re like, you do realize that it’s satire, right?

Stephanie Drake They do, but that’s the beauty of it. We take it so seriously that people believed it.

Arthur Meyer I mean, yes.

Brie Tucker Yeah, you do, you do. You do. I, that is, that is talent. I mean, you guys, obviously actors, right? You guys have that talent, but I could never keep the straight face you guys do. And just.

Arthur Meyer That’s, yes, that’s exactly it. That’s exactly, yes.

JoAnn Mm

Stephanie Drake Hahaha

JoAnn I know, we have a homework video of Brie eating Ben and Jerry’s in a closet during homework that would say otherwise. But there’s there’s some satire involved in Brie Tucker. But I want to I want to get more to like the comedy and actually the topics you cover and how you make them funny right after this. was like, we’re at 1205. We need an ad break. We need an ad break. Okay. Now I need to think of my word Phoenix, Arizona.

Stephanie Drake Now where are you two?

Brie Tucker Yeah, yeah. We actually only live like 10 minutes from each other. So yeah, we’ve known each other. Well, I mean, like if you want us to throw that in the episode, we’ve known each other since our daughters were in kindergarten and they’re now juniors in high school, so.

Stephanie Drake wow!

Arthur Meyer cool, wow, and so they’re both, are they like friends with each other?

Brie Tucker They, not right now, they’re going through the teen girl thing, but they also go, I also got divorced when our kids were like in third or fourth grade. because of that, I had to move. So my kids go to different schools. So, that kinda, know, when you go to different schools, it kind of like separates. So they all have their, they have their separate groups of friends now.

JoAnn There’s a little teen drama going on. But it’s funny because my daughter’s friends actually listen to this podcast. So hi, Lauren, if you’re listening. Yes, Lauren. She listens. Lauren actually recommends it to the high school librarian too. So thank you, Lauren. I really appreciate you for that. No, there’s like there’s high school drama going on. And I’m sure like also with your comedy and stuff, like you take things that happen in your own life and you put it in your show. But like

Arthur Meyer Yeah.

Brie Tucker They do? Lauren does, I’m not surprised.

Stephanie Drake Hehehehe

Arthur Meyer Yes.

JoAnn The drama that comes in, especially for parents, is that you have to try not to get in the middle of your kids’ issues. And that is something that I’ve had to remind myself over and over again. This is their issue, not ours. So Bre and I are still the best of friends, and our daughters can have whatever relationship they desire, whatever they want to do. Yeah, it’s…

Stephanie Drake Hmm. that’s such good advice.

Arthur Meyer Totally.

Brie Tucker  Yeah, I always tell everybody you need a ghost of a parenting future in your life. Someone that has kids that are at least five to 10 years older than yours, because you need that person to tell you. Like I remember doing potty training with my kids, because my kids are 15 months apart. So they’re really close. So I decided to try to do everything together. And I was trying to potty train both of them. I just remember being like, it’s never going to happen. And one of my friends that had kids that were in high school was like, listen.

Stephanie Drake Yeah.

Brie Tucker They are not gonna go off to college in diapers. You’re good. It’s gonna happen. Don’t have to push it. It’s okay. Sometimes you need that.

JoAnn Yeah. Yeah. So I want to know about your guys’ comedy writing process. Do you guys write the things together?

Stephanie Drake Yeah.

Arthur Meyer Wait, I’m so sorry, really quickly. I’m going to give my dog an empty jar of peanut butter to distract him for the rest of this interview. Give me 10 seconds. Okay.

Brie Tucker Yeah. That is totally fine.

JoAnn think we should leave this in too because it’s highly relatable.

Arthur Meyer Hahaha!

Stephanie Drake Yeah

Brie Tucker That’s what I would be like if I had like a toddler actually like hold on. Let me give my toddler insert item

Stephanie Drake an empty jar of peanut butter. Yeah.

JoAnn An empty jar of peanut butter!

Arthur Meyer Yeah.

Brie Tucker Actually a jar of peanut butter with a little bit at the very bottom so they can just work at it.

JoAnn Yeah

Arthur Meyer that’s such a good idea. That’s a really, I’m actually going to steal that idea, Brie.

Brie Tucker See, so they get to work at it and figure it out. goodness, okay.

Arthur Meyer Okay, he is working away at the jar, so we’re good.

Brie Tucker Is that, is that, I was gonna say, is that your second kid? Was the dog first?

Stephanie Drake Aww.

JoAnn Sometimes dogs are more high maintenance than kids are.

Arthur Meyer Yes. Yes, this is, yeah.

The dog was first and you know what’s funny is I remember hearing before we had our son Theo that like when you have a pet, as soon as you have a kid, your pet will go from feeling like your baby to feeling like your pet. And I was like, there’s no way that’s gonna happen. Like Sid, our dog Sid is like our little, our sweet baby. And then like the moment we brought Theo back from the hospital, I’m just like, you’re just a, you’re not a dog. You’re just, you’re just my pet.

Brie Tucker Did Theo get a little sad and clingy? sorry, Sid. Yes, not Theo. my God. Sorry. Yes, Sid. Did Sid get a little sad and clingy? I find little dogs are a little more emotional. Okay. No difference. Okay. There you go.

Arthur Meyer you mean our dog Sid? Yes, yeah, yeah.

JoAnn He… said it!

Arthur Meyer Yes, luckily, Sid has always been clingy. he kind of stayed consistent with his personality.

JoAnn Yeah. I have to say though, when you get your kids older and they like are less at that baby cute stage, your pet then becomes your baby again. Cause my dog, mean, Bree’s dog as well, they are our babies. they’re teens. Yeah.

Brie Tucker Well, again, we have teens. We’re at that stage like where Tina Fey did a bit where she was like, you know, when you have a teen, especially a teen daughter, it’s almost like having that like office crush that’s not interested in you, but you’re interested in them way more. And it’s like, hey, we’re going to have dinner. Like you’re if you already you probably you probably aren’t even hungry. You probably don’t even like it’s pizza. But, you know, you’re you probably have plans. So like, never mind. It’s OK. It’s OK.

Arthur Meyer That’s really funny.

JoAnn That’s pretty much how it is. That’s how it is.

Brie Tucker literally how it works with my kids most of time. Like, hey, we’re gonna go out to eat. You can go anywhere you want. And they’d be like, yeah, I’m gonna stay home. You sure? I’ll take you. I’ll get you anything you want. Anything you want. No, no.

JoAnn  So, yeah. So, on this podcast, we have a bad case of shiny object syndrome. So, you will find that a lot. So, going like back to your writing process. So, like what is your guys’ writing process like for ABC parenting? Like how does it work and how do you come up with ideas?

Arthur Meyer Yeah, anything, whatever.

Brie Tucker Yes!

Arthur Meyer Well, so I actually, this is sort of the weird thing. I wrote all the episodes of ABC Parenting. Stephanie is a writer too, and she writes, she’s a great writer, and she’s written short films and screenplays and stuff. I wrote, I basically just kind of hammered out 50 episodes in a pretty quick amount of time. Yeah, like it was, but they’re all sort of short episodes, so it doesn’t take too long to write them.

Stephanie Drake Thank you.

Arthur Meyer The weird thing was that a friend of mine, a different friend of mine was originally going to play the role that Stephanie played, but she got pregnant like shortly before we were going to film ABC parenting. So that was when I reached out to Stephanie because I just remembered how amazing she was in every single scene that she was in in Mad Men.

Stephanie Drake Okay.

Brie Tucker So that’s how you got in his head there, Stephanie.

Stephanie Drake Yeah.

Arthur Meyer Yeah, that’s really what it was. Anyone who watches Mad Men, like she plays Meredith, one of Don Draper’s secretaries in the later seasons. And I swear to you, every scene she was in was just like, you’re just so drawn to her. And so I kind of threw a hail Mary and thought, is there any way that you would want to be flown to New York and shoot all 50 of these episodes in four days? And Stephanie said, yeah, know. That was crazy.

Stephanie Drake Aww.

Arthur Meyer Stephanie said yes, and so she’s great in them. But I think we’re, you know, right now we’re maybe planning on writing, on doing sort of a second season of ABC. And Stephanie has been sending me some ideas for the episodes. It’s, yeah, it’s very fertile ground for comedy, because as I said, there’s just an endless amount of parenting topics that you can satirize.

Brie Tucker Yes! Okay. I’m wondering, do you guys just carry around your phone with you and make a note on there every time? Like, okay, exploding diapers. Okay, like whatever, just.

JoAnn Mm -hmm.

Stephanie Drake Yeah. Yeah, I think I text you Arthur last week. Pre -K, TK, kindergarten, like what’s it all mean? I was like, that’s an idea for an episode. I mean, yeah. Yeah, the topics. I mean, what’s kinder prep? There’s too many things.

Arthur Meyer Mm -hmm.

Brie Tucker my gosh, yes.

Arthur Meyer Yes, there’s so many. Yes.

JoAnn Kinder prep, kinder prep’s a term they used to. Yeah, exactly.

Brie Tucker yeah. Yeah, what’s kinder prep versus preschool versus daycare versus like you said, like all the, yeah. yeah. It’ll make your head.

Stephanie Drake Yeah, Arthur, you said, you said like one that I had never heard of too. And I’m like, wait a minute, why are there so many things that all mean the same thing or are they different? And yeah, I mean,

Arthur Meyer Yeah. Yeah, 3K, yeah.

Brie Tucker 3K?

Stephanie Drake 3K.

JoAnn Three -year -olds, I’m guessing.

Arthur Meyer Yeah, I think it’s like pre, it’s pre pre -k. So it’s for three year olds specifically. It might be a New York specific thing. I’m not sure.

Brie Tucker  Oh my god.

JoAnn 3K? That could have actually been at my son’s school. I think they had 3K and then Kinder Prep was the one they went to right before kindergarten, but it was all preschool. They had different classes. Yeah.

Brie Tucker Well…

Arthur Meyer But then you also think about kindergarten and you’re like, what the hell is kindergarten? what is that? Kindergarten?

Brie Tucker And then, know, if you wanna further blow your mind, a lot of states don’t even require kindergarten. So then, yeah, yeah, so kids, it’s optional. Or yeah, so it’s just, yeah, it’s a lot. It’s a lot of craziness.

Arthur Meyer really? Wow.

Stephanie Drake I did not know that.

JoAnn There’s a lot. So you get your ideas obviously from everyday life. And like, I’m wondering about satire because as like, I have tried to do satire and it just does not work out. Like, what are your rules kind of when you’re writing satire? Like when you have this idea, how do you then make it into this skit that is actually funny? Like what’s your process in that?

Brie Tucker Here’s what I imagine you doing, joy, on why he’s talking. Tell me, tell me how you do that.

JoAnn No, I’m just very curious as to what goes on.

Stephanie Drake Hehehehehe

Arthur Meyer So I think the key to satire, in my mind at least, is playing it straight. So for example, when you think of The Onion, you know, The Onion is a satirical newspaper, but they present every headline as though it’s actual news. And so with ABC parenting, we present every topic as though it’s a very serious thing. So for example, an idea that I just had recently was, you know, when babies are born, they’re pretty much always crying, right? So I…

I thought, it’s funny to think of that as an embarrassing thing for the parents, you know, that the very first moment of your child’s life, they’re crying. So how can we prevent that from happening? So to kind of sort of present crying as though it’s an actual problem with a straight face, and there’s an episode idea right there, you know. There’s another one that we have about, an episode that we’ve done is about baby proofing your home.

And we just say that the best way, you because there’s a lot of stuff out there, actual parenting guidelines and tips about baby proofing. And I thought, what would be a funny way to present, to kind of satirize baby proofing is just to you yourself have to dress up as a baby and roam around your apartment and stick your finger into outlets and start eating plants. That that is the best way to baby proof your home.

Brie Tucker Yeah. Okay, I need to see that episode. I haven’t seen that one.

JoAnn Nah.

Arthur Meyer So it’s basically just taking any topic and thinking of a dumb version of the idea, but presenting it with a straight face. That’s all that it is.

JoAnn Yeah, I have to say the first one that comes to mind is when your child starts calling the teacher mom, the one you did on that one. There were paternity tests involved. They were asking husbands if they were having an affair. There was like all of those things. It’s hilarious.

Stephanie Drake Hehehehe

Brie Tucker Woo!

Arthur Meyer Yes. Yes, exactly. feel like everyone has had the experience. I mean, I know when I was a kid, I sometimes accidentally called my teacher mom. So the idea of it’s just a very innocuous moment that everyone experiences. But I feel like in the world of parenting, a lot of times, you you might be told that even the smallest of things could be a huge problem that might forever damage your child. So, right. I feel like that’s very omnipresent. And so

Brie Tucker So yeah, it’s a thing. Yes

JoAnn Yeah.

Stephanie Drake Yeah.

Arthur Meyer If we took one of the most innocuous moments of just accidentally calling your teacher mom, but pretending like it’s the world’s biggest catastrophe, and then you just go from there and you just have, you know, creative fun with it.

Brie Tucker It is.

JoAnn So I’m curious with you both as parents, is there a situation in either of your lives where you’ve like, your kids have done something and you’ve seen it as kind of a catastrophe and had that parental fear that you then used humor to deal with? And I want to hear your question about right after this. If you didn’t catch Brie right there, she was very sly and she’s like, with the ad break. That was the sly ad break.

Brie Tucker That’s our cue. That’s our cue. Now that we’re streaming stuff, I can’t go like this anymore. So I just go like.

Stephanie Drake I didn’t even notice.

JoAnn Yeah, she’s like, that, yeah. Okay. So has either of you ever come into an experience with parenting in your own life where you have been really, really worried about it and you’ve used humor to deal with it instead of like going on like this anxiety rampage?

Stephanie Drake Hahaha

Arthur Meyer Well, I have one that comes to mind because it just has been happening very recently. And that is that my son who just turned two and a half, he started to become scared of monsters at night before he goes to bed, which, you know, I don’t know where he even got that. Maybe it was something that he saw on TV that he accidentally watched or something.

Brie Tucker Mm -hmm.

Arthur Meyer But whatever it was, been scared of monsters. And I was doing a little bit of research and learning that you’re not, guess apparently you’re not supposed to say, monsters don’t exist. You have to in some way kind of validate their reality that they believe that they’re at least scared of monsters. So what I decided to do is to use humor to kind of diffuse that situation. And the way that I did that was by turning everything into a monster. So in other words, you know, there’s,

Stephanie Drake Thank

Arthur Meyer Theo has a wall monster in his room and he has a stuffed animal monster. Like we literally bought him an animal that looks like a monster and he has a nose monster and a chin monster and just everything. There’s the chair monster over there, like almost just labeling everything as a monster. And so he giggles. I mean, I think that’s partially me knowing his sense of humor. I do think that kids from just about any age, I mean, at least like…

JoAnn That’s fun.

Stephanie Drake Hehehehe

Brie Tucker So he kind of giggles now. Yeah.

Arthur Meyer I remember Theo was laughing and stuff when he was like five, six months old. So a way that you get to know your child is through their sense of humor. And I just kind of had this thought, I kind of think that he’ll find it funny if everything is a monster. I could have totally backfired. It could have been like, now I’m, now I’m.

JoAnn Mm -hmm.

Brie Tucker and he doesn’t want to move anywhere in the apartment.

JoAnn those happening. have backfires. Yeah.

Arthur Meyer Yes, but I think to label everything as a monster, there’s our ukulele monster, this monster, that monster, it just kind of diffuses the power of monsterdom in general.

Stephanie Drake Hehehehehe

JoAnn fun thing to do. Yeah, totally. What about you, Stephanie?

Stephanie Drake So, kind of similar to Arthur, like we’ve noticed over the last three years that with our son, he is fully into, if we make anything he doesn’t want to do into a game of some kind, we can get him to do it. And when it comes to those like big, big things like the potty training and we’re currently gearing up.

transition him into a big boy bed. Things like that. If we, like my husband and I, like amp it up and get him pumped and make it the biggest, most exciting, fun thing ever, he’s all about it. Potty training was the easiest thing we’ve ever done with him. yeah.

JoAnn wow, that is not something that’s ever said usually by parents. That’s amazing.

Brie Tucker I’m so jealous of that. Okay, if you guys haven’t done a potty training episode, that’s definitely coming in the future it sounds like.

JoAnn There you go!

Arthur Meyer We do indeed have a potty… Yes. It’s basically potty, it’s potty -splaining. It’s combining the concept of potty training with the concept of mansplaining, where you’re mansplaining but to your toddler.

Stephanie Drake I think we did do a potty training, yeah.

Brie Tucker Okay, I need to watch that one.

JoAnn Yeah

Brie Tucker Yeah. Nice. Okay, well, Stephanie, I have to tell you, I have some of the best pictures of my kids in the weirdest positions when we transitioned them to a big kid bed. cause now they can get upright and play and they can get, so I would have like pictures of like my son, like his body was half under the big kid bed with the legs out and a toy in each hand and he just fell asleep there on the floor, like spread eagle.

Stephanie Drake Yeah.

Arthur Meyer That’s amazing though, Stephanie. That’s amazing.

JoAnn love that.

Stephanie Drake So yeah.Hahaha! Well, you know, yeah, yeah, wish us luck. mean, we know it’s going to be tough, but we also like we’re very concerned about the potty training too, and that ended up going so well. So we’re hoping for the same outcome with this. But we’ll see. We’ll see. But we are going to like make it the most exciting thing ever. And staying in your room is the best.

Brie Tucker You have some entertaining times coming up.

JoAnn That is something that definitely needs to be reinforced.

Arthur Meyer Hehehehehe! Hehehehehe!

Brie Tucker Wow, and I can see like right before, right before you guys like introduced the bed, you like go in the kitchen and are like, okay, black cup of coffee. I need as much caffeine as I can to be yammed up for this.

JoAnn my gosh.

Arthur Meyer  Yes.

Stephanie Drake my God, absolutely. But it works for him. Like he, when we show excitement, he gets excited. And he…

Brie Tucker That’s great!

I think that you and Arthur picked up, like that’s the, right? Like every kid has a different type of motivation, different things that get them going. when you can, and sometimes it’ll shift as they get older, but like, yeah, when you can find it, wow, it’s like that magic wand.

JoAnn Yeah.

Stephanie Drake Mm -hmm.

JoAnn It is great. It’s great. Well, what’s coming up for both of you that you’re excited about? And Stephanie, I’ll ask you first. What are you excited about that’s coming up?

Arthur Meyer Exactly. Yeah.

Stephanie Drake Yeah.

Sure, I’m in post -production on a short film that I produced back in March. Yeah, yeah, it stars this lovely actress, Claire McNulty, if you guys ever watched the show Search Party. She’s wonderful, she directed it, wrote it, and is starring in it, and my writing partner and I produced it for her, so we’re working on that. It should be done soon.

JoAnn That’s exciting.

Brie Tucker Yeah. Yeah.

Stephanie Drake do the festival circuit with that and hopefully it’ll be out for everyone to see next year.

Brie Tucker That’s awesome!

JoAnn That’s exciting. That’s a huge thing. And Arthur?

Arthur Meyer Yeah, so, well, I mean, I’m like, we’ve been gaining a lot of traction with this whole ABC parenting thing. So, you know, I am working on writing a second season of it, which is very exciting. And also, my friend, this isn’t really official yet, but maybe by the time this airs, it will be. we’re talking about, there’s a, I used to collaborate with my friends on a fake takeout menu called FUDS. And we have a book that we wrote.

Stephanie Drake Yay!

Arthur Meyer called FUDS, a complete encyclopedia. And it’s basically that I would say sort of satirizes the world of food and cooking. And I think that we’re going to try to come out with a of a week, a monthly menu via sub stack, like a fake menu that we could email to people. Yeah, so, but if you look up, there is a book called FUDS that you can buy on Amazon and maybe other websites and stuff. But that’s all that I have coming up right now.

Stephanie Drake Yeah.

Brie Tucker Nice.

JoAnn That’d be funny.

Brie Tucker Nice. I’m making a note, man, I’m looking that up.

JoAnn We will put that in our show notes. And thank you both for being here with us today. please listening right now, you know, go check out ABC parenting on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. And we will talk to you both later.

Arthur Meyer Mm -hmm. Awesome. Thank you so much.

Stephanie Drake Thank you! 

JoAnn So Brie, it’s funny because right after we stopped recording on this episode, we had like more hilarity coming through. Everything from how Arthur’s son pronounces ABC parenting as ABC penis to Stephanie’s son not liking ABC parenting, the two and a half year old.

Brie Tucker Yeah, her son was like, no, every time it would come on. just, yeah, yeah. And then I went, and right now we’re recording this before we’ve done editing. I’m not sure. I think we’re gonna keep the peanut butter jar scene in there, but it was, yeah, so.

JoAnn yeah, definitely. Definitely the peanut butter jar scene needs to go in there. Totally relatable having to make sure your dog is occupied so they won’t bother you. Looking over at my couch right now at my Adilusius. But yeah, it was just delightful. 

Brie Tucker I love how they both have kids that are in the toddlerhood because there is so much material in the toddlerhood. There’s so much material period with parenting, but in toddlerhood, he,

JoAnn Well, it’s superficial being a good thing in this case. Superficial being a good thing, yes.

Brie Tucker Like in the interview, Arthur talked about how it’s like, you feel like everything is a make or break moment with your kids. Like, gosh, they’re having nightmares. I better not screw this up or they’re going to have night terrors for the rest of their life. my God, they’re potty training. better not screw this up or they’re going to have like issues with blah, blah, blah the rest of their life. Like there’s so much in there that I love the satire of it and taking it for a moment and letting yourself look at it from another perspective and be like, okay, okay, this really isn’t make or break.

JoAnn That way. Yeah. It’ll definitely be okay. It’s really funny all these things like you think you do as parents and you have no idea what’s going to affect your children. Like for example, my son, he’s afraid of kidnapping right now. And we were talking yesterday and I thought it was because his sister had a preoccupation with kidnapper vans and they still have this preoccupation with kidnapper vans. You know those white cargo vans with no windows? Yeah.

Brie Tucker It’ll be okay! Yo, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was gonna say like, we point them out all the time. that’s definitely the candy car.

JoAnn yeah, there’s the kidnapper van right there. But I thought it was that. And then he mentioned that my dad is very interesting person and I love him to pieces. But I told you I was afraid of flying and I didn’t fly until I was 13 years old, 14 years old because my dad told me over and over again that planes are unsafe and they really have to up their safety measures and you

Brie Tucker Okay? Mm -hmm. Yeah.

JoAnn people would die on planes, those kind of things. He’s thinking of it a completely different way. So it was my dad again that got my son and he’s thinking of it different way. My dad was fascinated by this technology where you could see crime maps in your area. And so he had this crime map fascination for a while. Yeah. And being like, there’s a sex abuser. there’s that. And that’s, and all my son mentioned was, yeah, with the crime maps. I’m like,

Brie Tucker And he’s thinking of it in a completely different way than the way it’s impacting you. Yeah.Those are never good. Those are never good.

Yeah, you don’t wanna, no, no, no. I mean, it’s.

JoAnn and like everything suddenly made sense. And I’m like, now I know where this came from. But it’s you don’t know. You don’t know what’s going to affect your kids long term. Because I didn’t think anything of it then. I was just like, there’s my dad going over.

Brie Tucker Yep.You don’t know what you don’t know until you know, it’s a little weird. It’s a little scary. But that’s why there are things like ABC Paratheem to let you have some humor and have that step back and to be able to enjoy things. we had it. have a clip of them at the beginning of this episode, but we also have a link in the show notes. Go check out their YouTube channel. It is freaking hilarious. And they’re getting ready to do a season two, which I cannot wait to see. So definitely.

JoAnn Yeah.

Brie Tucker Definitely check out ABC Parenting.

JoAnn  Yep, go check them out. And until next time, remember, the best mom’s a happy mom. Take care of you, and we’ll talk to you later.

Brie Tucker Thanks for stopping by.