By Becca Roth & Lani Harms
Hosts Becca Roth and Lani Harms revisit their childhood obsessions with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, analyzing their work, examining their impact on pop culture, and talking with the people who work
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The podcast currently has 106 episodes available.
The scores have been tallied... and today they are finally revealed.
In this episode, we continue our scoring starting with Switching Goals and go through New York Minute, and we end up with a final ranking (sub category wins will be announced on our Instagram). Today we decide once and for all what is the BEST Mary-Kate and Ashley movie (proven by science).
You can watch the video version of this ep, fill out your own score sheet, and get more bonus content by subscribing to our Patreon here.
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Lani: @laniharms
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Since the beginning of this podcast, we knew this day would eventually have to come. We have spent the past 3 years becoming Mary-Kate and Ashley scholars, dissecting every movie front to back, talking to writers, talking to costars, talking to fellow Mary-Kate and Ashley fans, and leaving no stone unturned. And all that work has made us the most qualified two people on the planet to create the definitive ranking of every Mary-Kate and Ashley movie ever made. So we do what must be done.
And because we are who we are, we do it in two parts. Since we knew this would be contentious, we approach this incredibly subjective task in the most objective way humanly possible: we score each movie in 10 categories (story, execution, characters, location, boys, fashion, music, vibes, lasting impression & overall), we add up our results, and the movie with the highest scores win. Science would be so proud of us.
In this episode, we breakdown their first six movies from To Grandmother's House We Go through Passport to Paris. Next week, we'll give our results of the final 8 movies and reveal our definitive ranking, once and for all.
You can watch the video version of this ep, fill out your own score sheet, and get more bonus content by subscribing to our Patreon here.
The unfortunate Vogue Ranking
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Continuing our trend of talking to people the internet introduced us to, our guest today is a fellow millennial content creator whose viral Mary-Kate and Ashley-related videos constantly pop up on our feeds. When we reached out to her, we learned that she also listens to our podcast, and we felt like we found our long lost doppelgänger at summer camp. We are so thrilled to be joined today by Mary-Kate and Ashley superfan and TikTok/Instagram influencer Madeleine Byrne!
We ask Madeleine how she became a Mary-Kate and Ashley fan, which of their movies was her favorite, and which fashion era was the most influential to her. We also talk about Mary-Kate and Ashley's influence on our generation, how much different teen media is now compared to the 2000s, and why Mary-Kate and Ashley were so aspirational to millennials.
Madeleine also drops a bombshell about the Mary-Kate and Ashley onscreen boyfriends that she dated IRL (fulfilling every MKA superfan's dreams), and we introduce her to our classic, unhinged game: Mary-Kate or Ashley.
You can watch the video version of this ep and get more bonus content by subscribing to our Patreon here.
Follow Madeleine!
TikTok: @MadeleineByrne
Instagram: @MadeleineByrne
Follow us!
Instagram: @theythoughtiwasyou
TikTok: @theythoughtiwasyou
Becca: @beccaroth
Lani: @laniharms
Email us at: [email protected]
Support the show
A few episodes ago, we talked about Mary-Kate and Ashley’s visit to TRL in 2004 to promote their upcoming film, New York Minute. In that TRL appearance, they were interviewed by a VJ who thought a picture they were in with Robert DeNiro was creepy. We were very confused by this, so we found that VJ on Instagram to get to the bottom of the story, which is why today we are joined by TRL VJ himself, Damien Fahey!
We talk to Damien about how he became a VJ on MTV at such a young age, what made him dry heave every morning when he woke up to go to work, and how he became known as the guy who would refuse to go to Jennifer Aniston's birthday party. We of course dig into what he remembers about that fateful interview with Mary-Kate and Ashley in 2004 and why he made that weird comment about Robert Deniro. We also indulge our teenage hearts and ask what a typical day looked like in the life of a 2004 TRL VJ. Spoiler alert: we were not disappointed.
We hope this interview sings to your inner pop-culture loving 2000s teenager like it did for us. Sending a HUGE thank you to Damien for coming on our show and not hating us for calling him creepy two months ago <3
You can watch the video version of this ep and get more bonus content by subscribing to our Patreon here.
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Instagram: @theythoughtiwasyou
TikTok: @theythoughtiwasyou
Becca: @beccaroth
Lani: @laniharms
Damien: @damienfahey
Email us at: [email protected]
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This is it. The final episode of our final two-part review of a film starring Mary-Kate and Ashley. This journey has gone faster than a New York Minute.
Today we finish our review of the second half of the film and get a little bit deeper into how we felt about it. We unfortunately have to address the incredible misstep of Andy Richter's entire character, the uselessness of both Mary-Kate and Ashley's "love" interests, the awkwardness of the House of Bling, the incredibly well acted yet woefully unearned final fight between Mary-Kate and Ashley, and the palpable creepiness of Darrell Hammond. Of course, we also offer our own punch ups that we think could have saved this movie (except for Andy Richter's whole storyline, that just needed to go).
Despite our misgivings, we (mostly Lani) still find parts of this movie that we genuinely loved. The fashion, the one-liners, the iconic Mary-Kate faces, and the perfect Bob Saget cameo ❤️ And at long last we finally figure out where New York Minute fits in the Mary-Kate and Ashley Universe... kind of.
So put on your low rise jeans, hold your day planner close, and for the love of God, don't do any offensive accents, because it's 2024 and today is our last episode revisiting the 2004 classic, New York Minute.
You can watch the video version of this ep and get more bonus content by subscribing to our Patreon here.
Find us on Social Media!
Instagram: @theythoughtiwasyou
TikTok: @theythoughtiwasyou
Becca: @beccaroth
Lani: @laniharms
Email us at: [email protected]
Support the show
We can't believe we're finally here. Our final Mary-Kate and Ashley movie review. And just like we suspected: it's a two part episode.
On May 7th, 2004 (exactly 20 years ago today), Mary-Kate and Ashley's final film together, New York Minute, was released in theaters. The movie had an impressive cast including Eugene Levy, Andy Richter, Jared Padalecki, Andrea Martin, Darrell Hammond, and the most 2004 cast member of all: Jack Osbourne. The movie follows Jane Ryan (Ashley) and her twin sister Roxy (Mary-Kate) as they venture into New York City on separate missions, bickering the entire way. Roxy is a rocker, and Ashley is a Republican, so they couldn't be more different! Chaos ensues.
For today's episode, we start by remembering where we were 20 years ago when this movie came out and how we felt about it back then. We discuss what it meant for Mary-Kate and Ashley to have this kind of wide spread movie release and what we remembered about watching it for the first time. And since neither Becca nor Lani has seen this movie in the 20 years since, we talk about why we felt so nervous before pressing play.
Then, we dive in deep. We get through about half of the movie in this review before going on a tangent about where New York Minute fits in the Mary-Kate and Ashley Universe, so make sure to tune in next week for part two! We hope you enjoy this beginning to the end of an era, and HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO NEW YORK MINUTE!
You can watch the video version of this ep and get more bonus content by subscribing to our Patreon here.
Find us on Social Media!
Instagram: @theythoughtiwasyou
TikTok: @theythoughtiwasyou
Becca: @beccaroth
Lani: @laniharms
Email us at: [email protected]
Support the show
On Saturday, May 15th, 2004, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen had a decision to make: they could either attend their senior prom or host the season finale of Saturday Night Live. As you probably guessed, they chose SNL.
And as a consolation for missing their high school prom, Jimmy Fallon, Will Forte, Maya Rudolf, and Amy Poehler gave Mary-Kate and Ashley a miniature prom during their 5 minute monologue on the stage of Studio 8H. The rest of the night featured Mary-Kate and Ashley playing paparazzi, selling perfume, selling backpacks, spoofing The Swan, enduring Jimmy Fallon, and playing as angsty teens on home video.
So today, Becca and Lani give their review of the episode sketch by sketch* and discuss what the significance was of Mary-Kate and Ashley hosting Saturday Night Live. We are also painfully reminded of just how long ago 2004 was with how wildly racist, sexist, and homophobic so many of the jokes are. At least there was one sketch in this episode that we both agree was utter perfection (can you guess which one?)
We hope you enjoy this deep dive into this culturally significant moment in television and allow us to geek out over the construction of sketch scene (it's our expertise, after all). But most of all, we hope you join us in celebrating Mary-Kate and Ashley for successfully accomplishing the enormous feat of hosting this insanely difficult show on live television.
You can watch the video version of this ep and get more bonus content by subscribing to our Patreon here.
If you don't have Peacock, watch (most of) the SNL episode here:
Mary-Kate and Ashley Host SNL part 1
Mary-Kate and Ashley Host SNL part 2
Mary-Kate and Ashley Host SNL part 3
Mary-Kate and Ashley Host SNL part 4
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Instagram: @theythoughtiwasyou
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Becca: @beccaroth
Lani: @laniharms
Email us at: [email protected]
*We just learned that we missed the "Bloater Brothers" sketch during our review so here it is: bad sketch, but Mary-Kate and Ashley do a great job. And they look SO cute in 70s clothes & hair, OMG!
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We're counting down the days to New York Minute's 20th anniversary, but before we get there, we have to talk about another countdown that is unfortunately a touchstone of this era in Mary-Kate and Ashley's careers: the countdown to their 18th birthday.
During the press tour for New York Minute in 2004, which opened just one month before the girls turned 18, the media became fascinated with a new trend of websites dedicated entirely to counting down the days, hours, minutes & seconds to when Mary-Kate and Ashley would become "legal." This type of discourse has been around since Hollywood has had child stars and 40-something creeps have had air to breathe, but one thing was different about 2004: the internet. As many of our sources mention, only a little over a dozen Mary-Kate and Ashley "countdown" sites were created, which by today's standards would hardly warrant a thought, let alone a news segment. But during the early days of the internet and with the world's most famous twins at the center of the story, this became a cultural fixation.
Mary-Kate and Ashley even had to address this fixation themselves when they hosted SNL, with Mary-Kate signing off the show saying, "and remember, we're legal in 4 weeks!" So today, we're talking about what we remember about this time, how we feel about it now, and why why WHY does stuff like this happen? There are times when this topic gets difficult to talk about, so like for many of our podcasts during this time, please take care while listening.
As promised, here are the links we talk about in this episode:
Quick tiktok
Another tiktok
An old countdown website
A gross forum from 2003
Eminiem song "Ass like that" (MK&A part starts at 2:21)
E! Online blurb from 2004
Article written for The Pool in 2018 with a lot of research on the history of celebrity women's "countdown"s
Non-countdown related videos:
Regis and Kelly 2004
The Today Show 2004
Access Hollywood 2004
Entertainment Tonight 2004
MTV "Home Video" 2004
You can watch the video version of this ep and get more bonus content by subscribing to our Patreon here.
Find us on Social Media!
Instagram: @theythoughtiwasyou
TikTok: @theythoughtiwasyou
Becca: @beccaroth
Lani: @laniharms
Email us at: [email protected]
Support the show
Today we reckon with one of the most infamous Mary-Kate and Ashley interviews of all time. On April 28th, 2004, Oprah invited Mary-Kate and Ashley onto The Oprah Winfrey Show to discuss their upcoming film New York Minute, to ask about their plans after graduation, and to address the rumors that had been hounding them in the tabloids.
And it's that last point that made this interview infamous. While Mary-Kate and Ashley calmly tried to cool the temperature on the tabloids' relentless speculations over Mary-Kate, Oprah bluntly asks the seventeen year olds their dress size. It's painful and uncomfortable, so much so that the clipped resurfaced on TikTok in 2021 and created such an uproar, that the full video of the interview is nearly impossible to find online anymore.
So for this episode, we piece together the scraps of this interview we could still find and discuss them in depth. We discuss the weird parts of the interview aside from "the moment," the difference between tacos in 2004 and 2024, and the cultural significance of Oprah in the early '00s (with a surprise guest appearance by our good friend, Jessica Charles).
We also touch on Mary-Kate and Ashley's followup interview with Oprah in 2008, and the remarkable rate at which Mary-Kate and Ashley became two wise women in four short years.
Here are the links we discuss:
2004
"Opening": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQn68nu_BbM&t=22s
How to tell them apart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eucwHCNimY
College: https://youtu.be/5wbJfnbyjE4?si=hdnMNp65XUCMaU_q
Allowance: https://youtu.be/bwG_zh2XWKU?si=Pc70FpuDrviR8XXR
Favorite tacos: https://youtu.be/YKgSNRi-Ck8?si=bTDmOdnD4EhSv3Bv
Two different people: https://youtu.be/r4_bX1ttaFg?si=35l0SYHcnZgf9YX0
THE moment: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRTUTbUW/
Another NY Minute interview just for fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Koa4jVoX0Nk
2008
Video of MKA interviewing each other: https://www.oprah.com/own-oprahshow/the-olsen-twins-interview-each-other
Oprah article summarizing the interview: https://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/millionaire-moguls/all
You can watch the video version of this ep and get more bonus content by subscribing to our Patreon here.
Find us on Social Media!
Instagram: @theythoughtiwasyou
TikTok: @theythoughtiwasyou
Becca: @beccaroth
Lani: @laniharms
Email us at: [email protected]
Support the show
The countdown to New York Minute continues! And today, we're examining all the late night interviews and talk show appearances that Mary-Kate and Ashley did to promote their action comedy feature, New York Minute (excluding their appearance on Oprah, that will be its whole own episode).
Many of these interviews happened just days apart, but watching them all in sequence feels like watching a lifetime go by. In their first interview with Letterman, they're poised, well trained, and eager to promote their SNL episode and upcoming film. The next day at their TRL appearance, they're goofier, loose, and casual, clearly trying to relate to their fellow teens. Then, while hosting "25 hottest under 25," we see them hollow, bored, and aloof, seemingly trying to fit into the '"sexy" MTV aesthetic of the 00's.
All of these appearances seem to demand something different from them, and on top of that they're also in the throes of graduating from high school, getting ready to host SNL, and somehow trying to celebrate an 18th birthday that the world keeps counting down to. To say they were under pressure would be a wild understatement.
We discuss each of these appearances and what stood out to us, and also try to figure out if they knew before this press tour if they were going to be firing their team as soon as they turned 18, or if this grueling schedule brought them to that decision.
We hope you enjoy, and if you'd like to follow along with the videos we discuss, here are the links:
You can watch the video version of this ep and get more bonus content by subscribing to our Patreon here.
Find us on Social Media!
Instagram: @theythoughtiwasyou
TikTok: @theythoughtiwasyou
Becca: @beccaroth
Lani: @laniharms
Email us at: [email protected]
Support the show
The podcast currently has 106 episodes available.
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