Podcast Summary: You, Me & Mike

Episode: 119 – Q&A with M&J - Part One
Date: October 27, 2022
Hosts: Jenn Todryk (@theramblingredhead, HGTV’s No Demo Reno) & Mike Todryk
Produced by: Thirteen Media

Episode Overview

This episode marks a fun and lighthearted return after the couple’s recent, more serious “marriage series.” Jenn and Mike tackle a slew of quirky, thought-provoking, and sometimes downright silly questions—in a rapid-fire, off-the-cuff style intended to reveal more about their personalities, relationship, and sense of humor.

Listeners are encouraged to use these questions as conversation starters for their own friends, dates, or significant others.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Tone: A Playful, Relaxed Vibe

• Jenn and Mike joke about their intro and the importance of the “you” (the audience) in the podcast equation.
• Jenn: “We love sharing our life with all of you on Instagram and HGTV, but here we get to dive deeper...” (00:23)

2. Quirky Q&A Segment

Favorite Smell

• Jenn: She prefers “a masculine, woodsy candle—like a clean, burly man who just showered and put on cologne. That’s what I like” (03:06).
• Also enjoys the smell of garlic and onions cooking in olive oil (“you know dinner’s about to be homemade and delicious”; 03:43).
• Mike riffs on using scent, music, and cookies for staging homes.

The Male Ladybug Question (06:02)

• Both puzzle over what you call a male ladybug—land on “male ladybug,” noting the oddness of the naming convention.

Eat or Drink Soup? (07:09)

• Lively debate:
  • Jenn: “You eat soup if you use a spoon; if you tip the bowl, you’re drinking.” (07:34)
  • Mike: “So if I take a bowl of chili...and tip the bowl into my mouth?” (08:58)
  • Discussion broadens into whether eating or drinking depends entirely on utensils.
  • Classic banter about semantics and misused words (“proclamate”; 09:13).

Most Creative Insult

• Jenn recounts being told, “You have a crazy ability of making really ugly clothes look cute. It’s just crazy. You’re so good at it” (09:48).
  • “It was one of those ones where I was like, oh, thank you so much. And then when I turned and walked away, it hit me like a ton of bricks.” (10:24)
  • Mike: “Anytime you wrap an insult into a compliment...creative way to insult people by smiling through it.” (10:30)

Childhood Prophecies and High School Journalism

• Jenn remembers a (somewhat rude-but-accurate) class prophecy that she and her friend would still be “on TV thinking they're funny—jokes on you, suckers.” (11:36)
• Mike details faking sports news in high school journalism: “We would literally make everything up. Everything. ... Fake news was real because we were just—we would know the scores, but the rest was superlatives and things that never happened.” (13:01)

Sexiest Name

• Jenn jokingly responds “Mike,” before admitting more seriously she liked “Brock”—a name Mike finds amusing (16:12–16:42).
• Discussion over name popularity and the couple’s own debates about naming their children.

If You Could Remove a Color from the World

• Jenn, self-deprecatingly: “I’m gonna say light purple because I look like garbage in it. It’s very self-serving.” (22:30)
• Both debate the ramifications of eliminating certain colors, especially primary ones, turning it into a mini color theory lesson (23:09).

Do Aliens Exist?

• Mike: “You cannot disprove that they don’t exist. ... There are things happening that we can’t explain.” (24:52)
• Jenn is much more skeptical: “I can say definitively no one’s seen an alien on Earth.” (25:32)
• Spirited, friendly argument about government cover-ups, UAPs, and who believes what about extraterrestrials (26:13–28:01).

Mermaids: Live Birth or Eggs?

• Mike proposes mermaids are “the only gilled mammal”; Jenn muses about mermaid anatomy with comic exasperation (29:47–31:33).

Starting Rumors About Yourself

• Mike: “No, I can’t say I have.”
• Jenn discusses how tabloids repeatedly get everything wrong about her: “Nothing is right about them. They’re just Internet scrapers...Only one [article] has been written with everything being accurate.” (32:20)
• Both laugh over the internet's errors about Mike’s supposed previous role as a coffee shop manager (33:10).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Jenn on favorite smell:
  "A clean, burly man who just showered but also put on cologne that smells really nice. That’s what I like." (03:06)
• Mike on homemade aromas & home sales:
  "You want to make sure your home smells like an Italian kitchen...then when you walk into the bathroom, it smells like a man." (04:10)
• Jenn, passive-aggressive high school memory:
  “You have a crazy ability of making really ugly clothes look cute.” (09:48)
• Mike, on high school journalism:
  “Fake news was real because...we would literally make everything up. Everything.” (13:01)
• Jenn on internet misinformation:
  “Nothing is right about them. They’re just Internet scrapers...Only one has been written with everything being accurate.” (32:20)
• Mike summarizes the web:
  “Basically, the Internet is in-your-face sports.” (33:32)
• Mike, tongue-in-cheek on podcasting:
  “People are gonna be talking...Did you hear? At 32 minutes in...the Todryks are talking about mermaids having babies.” (31:06)

Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment / Topic | |-----------|---------------------------------------------------------| | 00:53 | Announcing fun Q&A episode format | | 02:41 | “What’s your favorite smell?” | | 06:02 | Male ladybug debate | | 07:09 | “Do you eat or drink soup?” argument | | 09:27 | Most creative insult | | 11:08 | High school journalism & fake news stories | | 15:38 | Sexiest first names discussion | | 18:33 | Baby naming debates & business naming journeys | | 22:19 | “What color would you remove?” | | 24:40 | “Do aliens exist?” friendly debate | | 29:43 | Mermaids: live birth or lay eggs? | | 31:38 | Have you ever started a rumor about yourself? | | 32:20 | Jenn and Mike on internet misinformation & bad articles |

Tone & Banter

• The overall tone is warm, irreverent, and playful—often veering into inside-joke territory and friendly spousal teasing.
• The conversation is quick-witted, with frequent gentle ribbing (“You’re an orange head”; 24:31), vulnerable admissions, and refusal to take even the silliest topics too seriously.

Final Takeaways

• This Q&A episode is less about delivering information and more about providing listeners with insight into Jenn and Mike’s dynamic, as well as serving up big laughs and relatable content.
• They encourage listeners to use similar questions for fun, low-stakes conversations in their own lives.
• Part Two of the Q&A is teased for immediate listening.

For more Jenn and Mike, follow @theramblingredhead and @miketodryk on Instagram, and check out future episodes of "You, Me & Mike."