This is Why We're Like This

10/11/2022

Spaceballs! DoppelJulias! Chess jokes! This ep has everything!

Listen to "Spaceballs the Podcast with Julia and JJ from Chessfeels" on Spreaker. Buckle up, because we're in for a WILD ride with not just one, but TWO Julias Rios! Julia's name twin, Julia Rios (AKA Dr. Chess Julia) and her cohost JJ Lang from the Chessfeels podcast join us

11/05/2022

Because this was the 70s, this turned out not to be the first installment of the Richard Peck Cinematic Universe.

https://thisiswhywerelikethis.substack.com/p/child-of-glass-with-chia-and-dan?s=r

Listen now (76 min) | Friends of the pod, Chia and Dan, join us to discuss a movie Chia remembered as VERY ROMANTIC! Child of Glass is an adaptation of the first Blossom Culp novel, The Ghost Belonged to Me. This episode is a wild ride that takes us into explorations of Richard Peck’s work, Disney...

18/03/2022

Just in time for your St. Patrick's hangover, it's Hobo Kelly the Irish clown
https://thisiswhywerelikethis.substack.com/p/after-these-messages-hobo-kelly-with?s=r

Listen now (32 min) | Happy St. Patrick’s Day! To celebrate, Gwynne Garfinkle is back with us to talk about obscure children’s shows from her youth. Specifically, we talk about Hobo Kelly, the magical hobo clown who has a leprechaun fly her around and drop her off at Hobo Junction. Sure and bego...

11/03/2022

Zoom! Not the video call thing!
https://thisiswhywerelikethis.substack.com/p/zoom-with-gwynne-garfinkle?s=r

Listen now (80 min) | 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of a PBS show beloved by kids in the 1970s: Zoom! No, it is not the video conferencing tool… Our guest this time is Gwynne Garfinkle, who wrote a letter to Zoom that was read on the air in 1974! Gwynne grew up to become a writer of novels, stor...

07/01/2022

If you have trouble with animal death in films, this episode - and this movie - are not for you.

If this movie holds a beloved place in your heart, this episode may also not be for you - but we'd love to hear from you.

https://thisiswhywerelikethis.substack.com/p/the-dog-who-stopped-the-warla-guerre

Listen now (59 min) | Hey! It’s a new year! And we are starting it off on a super downer note with a movie about a dog dying… Uh. Sorry? But possibly our suffering is your joy, in which case, you’re welcome! We also have a new feature at long last: transcripts! You can get

13/12/2021

In this episode, we learn about Greek television, murderous vegetable puppets, sad weird uncles, and magic doorways.

Listen now (70 min) | Eugenia Triantafyllou joins us again from Greece to talk about Greek television and a very specific episode of Storybook International: The Forbidden Door! If you aren’t familiar with Eugenia, be sure to check out her awesome stories! You can watch The Forbidden Door here

19/11/2021

Kate Hardly, our guest for the unforgettable and terrifying The Adventures of Mark Twain, has a new album coming out Sunday. Here's a teaser:
https://youtu.be/_Jwhb-VtDRc

Grogu know's what's good

09/11/2021

If you subscribed to our podcast on your podcatcher, you already have this one!
https://thisiswhywerelikethis.substack.com/p/halloween-treat-goosebumps-welcome

Listen now (82 min) | Happy Halloween! We have a special spooky tree for you! Eugenia Triantafyllou joins us from Greece to talk about Goosebumps! Eugenia has written a lot of great stories, and you can find them at her website, but if you are wondering where to begin, you might try listening to

19/10/2021

What if Macario, but muppets?

https://thisiswhywerelikethis.substack.com/p/jim-hensens-the-storyteller-the-soldier

Listen now (29 min) | We’re back for our second Spooktober episode with another adaptation of Godfather Death, this time with Muppets! We think we would have found the devil puppets a little scary as kids. What about you? Here’s Geoffrey’s summary: This has some similar story elements as Macar...

12/10/2021

Spooky season continues with a Dia de los Mu***os theme in this classic from the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema, Macario. I won't keep you in suspense, this movie rocks and you should watch it.

Listen now (60 min) | It’s October, and you know what that means: time to meditate on spookiness, skeletons, and death! To get us going, Geoffrey brought us a Mexican film from 1960, which he once watched in Spanish class. Here’s Geoffrey’s summary: “Macario is about a woodcutter who is supe...

15/09/2021

Scaretember continues with backwards-talking Peter O'Toole and a variety of haunts! And clowns!

Listen now (37 min) | After watching High Spirits, we went all in on the silly and spooky combos. This episode goes many places, but one of them is to the Clown Motel in Tonopah, Nevada. Here’s a picture from the visit Julia made back in 2018. For more pictures from that visit, check out

05/09/2021

Sometimes, the only explanation is "It was the 80's." Exhibit N, the movie High Spirits. If you need some listening enjoyment for the long weekend, we're here.

Listen now (99 min) | Julia brings us something … unexpected. It’s a 1988 s*x farce with ghosts, both real and fake. Also Peter O’Toole. What? Yes, really. Here’s Julia’s summary: Steve Guttenberg and his wife(?) who I think is blonde? Go to a castle … in Scotland or Ireland maybe? And t...

11/08/2021

By the power of Greyskull...
We ... did ... a podcast!
https://thisiswhywerelikethis.substack.com/p/he-man-and-the-masters-of-the-universe

06/08/2021

Hate at first sight is possible, and his name is Glomer.
We also went deep into some 'only true 80's kids know' commercials territory.

Listen now (39 min) | Flash fiction writer Kayleigh Shoen (or as we like to call her: Princess of Soup) joined us again to talk about all things P***y Brewster related after we watched The Perils of P***y! We started by watching this commercial for a P***y doll. This commercial is super freaky becau...

28/07/2021

P***y Brewster's dirtbag friend gets monster teeth.

Listen now (75 min) | For the first time in a year and a half we actually met in person to record this one! Flash fiction writer Kayleigh Shoen joined us to talk about an episode of P***y Brewster that scared her as a child: The Perils of P***y!Cherie, Margaux, and Allan stuck in giant spiderweb in....

13/07/2021

Garfield in Paradise. Alternate title: Garfield's Perplexing 50's Nostalgia

Listen now (68 min) | After a long break we return just in time for Summer Vacation with a travel themed episode! It’s Garfield in Paradise! Paradise World, to be exact. Which is definitely not Hawaii. Garfield sings “Hello Hawaii” in a dream sequence while traveling third class on a plane to ...

26/04/2021

When a movie is as much of a commercial and artistic success as The Buttercream Gang, you know there's going to be a sequel. We did not watch it, but we watched the trailer.

Listen now (43 min) | Julia’s sister Kat is back to talk Buttercream related things. Truly a noble deed, since, in Kat’s own words, “I’d rather watch a movie about butt cream.” We started with The Buttercream Gang in 30 seconds We did not find this particularly representative of the whole ...

15/04/2021

Part 2 of the Sibling Spectacular! We're still talking about The Buttercream Gang, because there's just so much to unpack here:

https://thisiswhywerelikethis.substack.com/p/the-buttercream-gang-part-2-with

Listen now (44 min) | Julia’s sister Kat joins us to talk about a weird Christian movie that she watched in school and later begged her mom to buy for her: The Buttercream Gang. There’s so much to discuss about this movie that we had to break the show into two parts, and this is Part 2.

07/04/2021

It's part one of a SIBLING SPECTACULAR and Julia's sister Kat brought us a doozy.

https://thisiswhywerelikethis.substack.com/p/the-buttercream-gang-part-1-with

Listen now (73 min) | Content Note: We talk a lot about our experiences growing up in an area with a lot of conservative Christians and LDS church members. We also briefly touch on real gang violence and mention the death of one of Julia’s high school classmates. We don’t dwell on that for long,...

09/02/2021

We sort of went all over the place for this After These Messages. Our attempts to keep it light were somewhat foiled by dark subject matter and by the ongoing existence of These Times.
https://thisiswhywerelikethis.substack.com/p/after-these-messages-legend-and-d

Listen now (44 min) | Evan joined us to watch stuff related to Legend and D&D, since he played a lot of D&D around the time he also watched Legend as a teen. First we watched Lily’s Song, which is one of the Jerry Goldsmith songs that didn’t end up in the US release of Legend, but which IS in th...

04/02/2021

We were joined by Evan Dawley to watch Legend, featuring Tim Curry as you've never seen him before unless you've seen Legend. Also, baby Tom Cruise.

https://thisiswhywerelikethis.substack.com/p/legend-with-evan-dawley

Listen now (75 min) | Geoffrey’s friend Evan Dawley, author of Becoming Taiwanese: Ethnogenesis in a Colonial City, 1880s-1950s, joins us to talk about a movie he watched like ten times as a D&D-loving teenager: Legend. This movie was directed by Ridley Scott (what!?) and stars a pre-Top Gun Tom C...

03/02/2021

Remember when Julia was a wizard? If you don't, check out episodes 2 and 3 of Wizard seeking Wizard. And while you're there, check out the new episode 4, where Geoffrey is a wizard. TIWWLT is now 100% hosted by wizards.

A dating show by wizards, for wizards, featuring personal ads from the magical community.

19/01/2021

In this After These Messages, we encourage you to be like the farting wombat. It ... it kind of makes sense in context.

https://thisiswhywerelikethis.substack.com/p/after-these-messages-y2k

Listen now (24 min) | Hot on the heels of the Futurama pilot episode, we decided to check out some Y2K related videos. First up, we watched this Y2K survival kit commercial. We followed that up with a news broadcast about people working overtime on New Year’s Eve in 1999.

13/01/2021

Happy New Year!

But weren't Geoffrey and Julia already young adults by the time Futurama debuted?

Yes! But somehow this episode gets even more in-depth into memory and formative experience than some others we've done. Also, Futurama!

Listen now (72 min) | Hello! Wow, it’s 2021 and already things have gotten even more bonkers than they were in 2020. This future we’re living in can be pretty disorienting, so we thought this would be a great time to revisit a story about someone else having a pretty bonkers new year: Philip J. ...

24/12/2020

Gillian's back, and this time we're talking about the only version of How The Grinch Stole Christmas ever committed to film.

Listen now (67 min) | Content warning: we end up talking about racist WWII propaganda, 9/11, and internment camps for a while around the 30 minute mark in this episode. If you want to skip that, we resume our talk about the Grinch at the 36 minute mark. We’d also like to apologize for the sound qu...

16/12/2020

Happy Chanukah! We had Gillian on to talk about a show she liked that actually did a holiday special that was relevant to her.

Also, Rugrats babies would probably think a podcast is when you use peas to go fishing or something dumb like that. They weren't very worldly!

Listen now (83 min) | Gillian Daniels joins us to talk about A Rugrats Chanukah! Gillian is a fantasy and horror writer, and you can find her at gilliandaniels.com, on twitter as , and on instagram as . Image Description: The Rugrats (Chuckie, Tommy, Phil, and Lillian)...

10/12/2020

Following up on the horror of Red Wind, Gwendolyn exposed us to the horror of Cabbage Patch Kid live birth and Hills Department Store Christmas ads. We then soothed ourselves with oddly entrancing footage of random stuff being shredded.

Listen now (30 min) | Gwendolyn Kiste joins us again to talk about stuff related to Red Wind, and stuff she remembers from her childood. Hills Department Store: Where the toys are. This commercial from 1986 inspired some unease. Perhaps, dare we say, terror? But Gwendolyn SWEARS Hills was actually r...

25/11/2020

More podguesting! Julia Rios, aka Flora Bunnyhop, is on the latest episode of Wizard Seeking Wizard on a rivals date to the Big Wiz.

https://wiz4wiz.carrd.co/

A dating show by wizards, for wizards, featuring personal ads from the magical community.

20/11/2020

We watched Red Wind, and people, this made-for-TV movie has it all*: bad psychiatry, boring s*x clubs, woodchipper murders, you name it, this movie has it**.

*Actual movie contains significantly less than all.
** Unless you name something like "Anything resembling a good reason to exist."

Listen now (50 min) | Gwendolyn Kiste, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Rust Maidens and Boneset and Feathers (among other things), joins us to talk about a movie she somehow saw as a seven or eight year old: Red Wind. Gwendolyn is awesome, and we encourage you to check out her work!

18/11/2020

TIWWLT host Julia is starting a new project and YOU yes YOU have a chance to be a backer!

A magazine about mermaid stuff