Pod Meets Twirl'd: Totally '90s House 101 & 102

Pod Meets World

Will Friedle and Ryder Strong from 'Pod Meets Twirled' dive into HGTV's 'Totally 90s House,' a renovation show where '90s TV stars update ho

Key takeaways

• The 90s aesthetic is both a nostalgic time capsule and an architectural challenge to modernize without erasing its essence.

Main topics

• 90s home renovation trends

Notable quotes

"Were the 90s actually cool, or are we just old enough to miss them?"

Conclusion

Will and Ryder conclude that while the '90s aesthetic may be over-the-

Transcript preview

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Listen to the NFL Report podcast on the iHeartRadio app. Speaker 1 (2:44) Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Podmeets Twirled, a podcast that has taken two men from ballroom dancing to murder mysteries to tropical islands to watching strangers get married. But finally, we've arrived at a reality show we are uniquely qualified to discuss because this time, it's the 90s. Specifically, Totally 90s House, a home renovation show dedicated to answering the question, what happens when you take... Speaker 1 (3:24) the decade of inflatable furniture, sponge-painted walls, seedy towers, and enormous entertainment centers, and try to make it work in today's world. We are Will Friedle and Ryder Strong, two men who didn't just live through the 90s. We contributed to them. We had the hair. We wore the clothes. We were on the set. We helped create the very cultural debris now being lovingly excavated and called aesthetic. And for once, this is a reality show we actually could have been on. So, join us. as we revisit the taste trends and deeply questionable design choices of the decade that made us, and ask the terrifying question, were the 90s actually cool, or are we just old enough to miss them? This is Pod Meets Twirled. Thank God it's fixed. How you doing, Will? I got a lot of things going through my head right now. I'm doing well. I'm doing well. Speaker 1 (4:17) This is an interesting little side quest we've taken. It is. I feel like in D&D terms, I feel like we rolled a 12. What is it? Okay. Meaning it's not bad. It's not bad. It's not great. It's really going to be up to the DM to see whether or not we survive this. That's kind of what it means when you roll a 12. So neither of us watch these kind of home improvement shows. This is our first one. Nope. So to start with one where we know everybody on the cast. I had watched. There was a home improvement show. years ago called monster house oh wait a second monster house was the greatest that's where they did like crazy themed houses yes that you know what you knew were gonna fall apart four minutes after the crew walked maybe but they would do like a roller coaster through their front yard or whatever i loved that and like Speaker 1 (5:03) That was a takeoff. That was a spinoff of Monster Garage. Oh, okay. Because Monster Garage started where they did that with cars. Where you've got to take this car today and you've got to turn it into a robot. That kind of thing. For whatever reason, I think I was like living, I was visiting my brother. I was staying at Shiloh's house in West Hollywood for a summer, like from New York. Like I came out from New York for like a month or so. And we watched that show like the entire time. So for whatever, I have very positive memories of that show. And I think it was just the idea of like what, you know, what kind of crazy theme would people want their houses to be? Well, I'm surprised you did not recognize that one of the women that we were with at the con two weeks ago, or however long we were there, was one of the women that had her house redone. She had hookah house. Speaker 1 (5:46) was one of the ones done on Monster House. There's two episodes of Monster House I will always remember. One is, I don't know if you remember, the guy who was one of the construction guys who hated the rest of the crew and got caught on a hot mic saying, like, I hate this, I'm not going to do any work, but I'm just going to stay till the end so I can get the tools. And they called him in and they were like, kiss my ass, get the hell out, and they almost got into a fist fight with the host. Wow. And the other one I remember was Santa Claus House where the woman walked in, burst into tears, and said, I hate this. Speaker 1 (6:15) And they had to rip the entire thing out. Yeah. I remember those two things. I remember those two things. But yeah, Monster House was great. But you're right. So I've seen that too. And I think I saw original episodes of Bob Vila's This Old House back in the day. Like back in the day. Yeah. I never watched. What was the really big hit one where they like did like a re-dump, like re-vamp somebody's house without them knowing it or like move them out? Speaker 1 (6:41) Oh, uh, there was one at like ABC where then like the truck would move aside and they would see the whole house they built. Oh my God. Their whole house was like, and it was always like for people who needed it or yeah. This is why I love us as experts that we were like that show that everybody watched that we did. And then there's like, it wasn't there like a trading places kind of show where people like trading spaces, which they talk about, I think on this show, that's the only way I've heard of it, but I've never actually seen it. Speaker 1 (7:08) All right. I don't understand this show. I don't know what we're watching. I don't either. It is interesting. Here's my big takeaway. It is very interesting to investigate the 90s aesthetic. Yeah. Because I don't think I quite understood what the 90s looked like or felt like. I had a ton of it in my house. Still have some. Yep. Seeing these houses, it did bring it back. It was like, oh, I see. Let's get a little background on Totally 90s House. It airs on HGTV and then on HBO. This is the first season. It is hosted by Jaleel White, best known as Urkel from Family Matters. And the goal is that two teams of 90s television stars compete to modernize homes that are stuck in the 90s. And already I was a little, like, confused. Is the idea to de-90-fy it? No. Speaker 1 (7:59) No, because they get points for having a nod to the 90s. Nod to the 90s. So I was already a little confused once I got into it. I was like, are we just supposed to make these better houses? No, the idea is to update them, but also keep them in the 90s a little bit. Yeah. So adding some nostalgia to updated, you know, layouts and updated taking out. I mean, my house was all glass block at times. So it's like that stuff. But to me, I don't know. Cause I'm already, I'm confused. Cause like, I would want to either go like, let's make it full nineties, like embrace it and like make it over the top. But they are already kind of are that way. So then I'm like, what are we doing? I'm not quite clear. You're updating it while still keeping a touch of the nineties. Okay. So what I would do is I would make just the greatest kitchen I possibly could and just hang up a Boy Meets World poster. Speaker 1 (8:52) Well, that's kind of basically what the one team does. Right. It's pretty much, that's what I mean. It's like, that's kind of it. All right. Well, the prizes, the winning team will win $25,000 for their favorite charity. The teams are made up of exclusively our friends. Everyone on this show has been on Podmeets World except for Keisha. Yeah. Team one is Brian Austin Green from Beverly Hills 90210, Beverly Mitchell from Seventh Heaven, and Jodi Sweetin of Full House. Team two, Melissa Joan Hart from Clarissa Explains It All and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Keisha Knight Pulliam from The Cosby Show, which you've pointed out off mic is an 80s show. Although it went into the 90s, right? It must have gone into the 90s. Well, I guess what I think, the show that she's on now, but I think she's on a show now or was on a show now, I don't know what she was doing in the 90s. Speaker 1 (9:42) Okay. She's a big 80 star. And I think she's a big star again. I think she's on a Tyler Perry show or something. She mentioned something she's been on for like 10 or 11 seasons. She's like, she's legit working all the time, but I think the nineties were kind of a gap. Cause we show aired for, okay. So it aired till nine into the nineties. Yeah. There you go. I guess that's a guy named Matthew Lawrence who was on some show called boy meets world. I didn't recognize. And he gets help from his brother, Joey Lawrence, who was on blossom. Don't recognize him either. Speaker 1 (10:11) All right. Which team do you want to be on just off this list? I'd want to be with Max. I know we would be having a ton of fun. I know we'd just be laughing the whole time. Also, you've been friends with Melissa Joan Hart forever. So being on her team makes sense. We dated when we were 13. I would definitely be on Jodi Sweetin's team. I just, I love Jodi. Yeah, you and Jodi get along. I do too, but you guys get along real well. She's so freaking funny. She's hysterical. And she just makes me laugh. And she gives me a lot of shit. She does not hesitate to mock me mercilessly. And I love her for that. Yep. All right. Well, there's also mentors in this show. Team one, they get interior designer and HGTV icon Sabrina Soto. Team two has home renovation pioneer and HGTV staple Carter Osterhaus. Let's get into our recap, my friend. All right. Speaker 1 (10:59) begin the show with a tech montage of different technology of, uh, it brings you back. Doesn't it? It does. Just how many of these things do you still have somewhere in your house? No, nowhere. My parents probably do at their house, but like, you couldn't grab a pager. You couldn't grab an old cell phone. You couldn't grab a VCR because I bought one when I did red weather. Okay. Um, so I wanted to have a pager. Um, so I have an actual page that is the, you know, the supposedly Anna's pager that I found in weather. Um, Speaker 1 (11:27) But no, I don't have a CD player. The CD, the portable CD player is the one that got to me because I still got him for that thing. You still have us. Oh yeah. And I'm Gary. I will guarantee you the couple that I have was still work too. And you still have all your CDs. Yeah. In a folder, like in a several folders, several big folders. I have several big folders, but they're in a storage unit. I don't keep my house. Yeah. Still got all that stuff. Still have. my original Game Boys. I have original CD players. I have my original portable DVD player, the tiny one I would bring on a plane when I was a rock star. It cost me, it's got a four-inch screen, a giant battery that lasted like... Speaker 1 (12:06) 45 minutes. Yep. And it cost me $1,100. Yep. It was the, now they like, when they became bigger DVD players, they were like, give them away with a bowl of soup somewhere. Yep. And it was, I was the guy who bought the first one ever. No, I remember, wasn't it Jason that had the first one? I feel like Jason Marsden told you the key, because he was traveling with that, because I bought the same one. Speaker 1 (12:26) I still have mine. I still have it. Does it still work? I imagine it would. I have the charger. I have everything. I just remember having to load it with so many batteries because they weren't rechargeable. It was like D batteries or something. No, I have the connector in the back where it's the big battery pack that you have to load. Oh my God. So it's, yeah, no, I have, I still have every, I still have a working Walkman. I still have everything. My laser disc player, you name it, I've still got it. All right, well, after we get to see all this nostalgic technology, we get the story of what the show's going to be, which, as I've already described, they're going to choose a 90s house and then redesign it with help from experts and then get judged. Speaker 1 (13:05) First house. They all walk up to a front yard, a tall house in a canyon. Jaleel welcomes them. People have submitted they're stuck in the 90s house. It was interesting to me that they pick their house that wasn't picked for them because it seems like a big, like an easy way to kind of get an advantage over the other team. You know what I mean? That's part of the game. It's like you're going to get a choice and your first thing that's going to determine if you're going to win or not is which one you pick. It's which house you pick. But again, I'm not clear on what my goal would be. Like, because, all right, whatever. Well, they're going to get $200,000 each for their upgrade, which seems like kind of a lot. Each team gets crates of... Speaker 1 (13:48) Technology from the 90s that they must communicate and capture. So there's like PCRs and I don't know what kind of camera. I don't know. Cell phone. There was a like car phones and all that kind of stuff. Right. Car phones are awesome. All right. In Philly, a 90s McMansion. Brian is filming with their crappy technology. So we get the very 90s looking video footage from him. And they bring the doorbell of this 90s McMansion. The family comes out, introduces themselves. They need a redesign. So what is 90s about this place? Mauve carpeting on the staircase. Some crazy drapery. And this is where I was like, this is an interesting part of the show. Like, I don't know if before I saw this, I could have described what makes a 90s house. Speaker 1 (14:41) I would have just said glass block, but that's also 80s. And the scallop. So, I mean, I had all the stuff like the scallop sinks. Really? Yeah. Don't you remember the cocaine bathroom I had in my house? So I should probably now say what that is. We've never done cocaine in there.