Episode 3: Babysitters Club Meeting with Hannah and Maisie Holbert

• Babysitters Club Original Books
• Babysitters Club Graphic Novels
• Babysitters Club TV Show 1990s
• Babysitters Club TV Show 2020s
• Babysitters Club Movie

[theme music plays]

Nathan:
Haeny, how are you?

Haeny:
I'm good.

Nathan:
This is how normal people talk to each other, right?

Haeny:
Yes, I'm good.

Nathan:
Hi, how are you? We're talking a little bit about reboots this week. We're talking about specifically the Baby-Sitters Club, which is...

Haeny:
Do you know a lot about the Baby-Sitters Club?

Nathan:
One might say, I'm a Baby-Sitters Club expert.

Haeny:
Are you really?

Nathan:
Yeah, I'm widely read in the Baby-Sitters Club. I've seen the books.

Haeny:
You've seen the books.

Nathan:
Yeah. I've cracked a cover or two. I never read the Baby-Sitters Club whenever I was a kid because those were a "girl books." I'm quoting myself as a child, and so I never read them. I told you in a previous episode that I've read a lot of Hardy Boys, and so it was like when you go to the library, you could read the Baby-Sitter's Club...

Haeny:
They're close to each other.

Nathan:
Yeah. I went to the Hardy Boys primarily, but I've gotten into the Baby-Sitters Club a little bit lately because my daughter is obsessed with the Baby-Sitters Club, and one reason I thought this topic would be worth spending some time on is because it crosses all this different media. We have the old books that you and I found in the library. We have a TV series on Netflix that started a couple of years ago, and we also have these graphic novels that are rewrites of the original stories. It's crossing in all these different media.

Haeny:
All they need to do is make toys.

Nathan:
Right. Are there like...

Haeny:
They just need to make action figures...

Nathan:
Chrissy action figures.

Haeny:
...of BSC.

Nathan:
BSC.

Haeny:
Baby-Sitters Club.

Nathan:
You're so cool.

Haeny:
I know. I know all the lingo.

Nathan:
What is the Baby-Sitters Club? Honestly, I feel like you should explain a little bit about what the Baby-Sitters Club is, because I've told you I'm getting exposed to it now...

Haeny:
Sure.

Nathan:
...but I'm not an expert.

Haeny:
Okay. I'm not really an expert either, but I'll just go through the old school Baby-Sitters Club from my childhood. Ann M Martin, she's the author. She had a series of Baby-Sitters Club books. I don't know how many there are.

Nathan:
There are 200 and something I think I saw in the Wikipedia.

Haeny:
Is that what your Google, Is that what your research skills do?

Nathan:
That's what my research has shown me.

Haeny:
Yeah, something like that. I think you're right. It started off with only being a four book contract or something, and it just got really popular. It centers around four original members. Kristy, Claudia, Stacey, and Mary Anne and they all have very distinct personalities. I think they're supposed to represent archetypes. Kristy is the president of the club and she's more, I describe her as normcore, as someone who just likes to be comfortable with her clothes. She's the president. She likes to take charge. I think she's bossy in a good way. I feel like we should just reclaim the term bossy.

Nathan:
Absolutely.

Haeny:
She just has ideas. She takes charge. She knows how to organize people and so that's who Kristy is and Kristy is, I think her father left. Her father left them.

Nathan:
Yeah, I think that's right.

Haeny:
Her and her mom.

Nathan:
Yeah, I think that's right.

Haeny:
Yeah. That's her ongoing struggle is she always has this personal issue about her father leaving, and so her mom is about to get remarried and she's going through the difficulties of all of that. Then we have Claudia, who is Japanese and she's an artist and she's eccentric and her fashion style is awesome. Stuff that other people could never wear.

Nathan:
No one else could pull it off.

Haeny:
Only she can pull it off and she's really artsy and just a little bit more free spirited. Then we have Stacey, and she's from New York, so she's supposed to be the glamorous one who's from the big city. She's dressed like a very...

Nathan:
Just like us.

Haeny:
Dressed just like us.

Nathan:
Super glamorous, big city.

Haeny:
Yeah. I wouldn't call her fashion glamor. She's more preppy.

Nathan:
Yeah.

Haeny:
Preppy. She's like Charlotte from Sex in the City is how I'd describe her.

Nathan:
I feel like there's a star that's just exploded somewhere in the galaxy when you've just brought the Baby-Sitters Club and Sex and the City together. Some cosmic catastrophe occurs.

Haeny:
Okay. Last is Mary Anne. Mary Anne's mother passes away when she was a child and she's really, she's a little bit of a nerd and she is just very responsible and she always struggles with not stepping out of the boundaries or rules and stuff like that. But, she's also really great and I actually saw an interview with the actor that plays Mary Anne and she has Claudia's style.

Nathan:
Really?

Haeny:
Yes.

Nathan:
What a twist.

Haeny:
What a twist. Yes. Okay.

Nathan:
These kids have some real trauma in their lives.

Haeny:
Yeah.

Nathan:
Lord.

Haeny:
Yeah. Then we have Dawn who comes in later. Tell us about Dawn.

Nathan:
Dawn is...

Haeny:
Do you know Dawn? Do you even know Dawn?

Nathan:
... a babysitter. I don't know much about Dawn. I've read a little bit about, in book five, I think it is, where Dawn enters the picture and she was very organized and she was very helpful to Mary Anne to organize her new room, to be her own room, her cool room. That's what I knew about Dawn.

Haeny:
Dawn is also from LA and she has a West Coast vibe to her. She's not as high strung as everybody else. I don't know. She's more like hippie-ish because her mom is. That's Dawn. She's also very into social justice.

Nathan:
Nice.

Haeny:
Yeah, that's what she did at Camp Moosehead is she organized a protest, which was very cool.

Nathan:
Camp Moosehead. Just tossing Camp Moosehead out there like it's part of conversation that we all have all the time.

Haeny:
Camp Moosehead is their summer camp that they go to at the end of the season and that's all I have to say about that.

Nathan:
That's a lot. Wow. Okay. This is fantastic. That was a very thorough overview of the Baby-Sitters Club. I feel like I know more. One of the reasons we really wanted to talk about this is in addition to you finally getting to just reveal your passion of the Baby-Sitters Club is because it exists in all these different media. It exists as an old book. It exists as this television show now streaming on Netflix. It exists in other older television show forms and it also now exists in this graphic novel format.
And that is particularly interesting when we think about media as being this sort of intergenerational experience, and so you have your really rich experience with Baby-Sitters Club when you were younger and so now a new generation of kids are also being exposed to the Baby-Sitters Club and they're getting to encounter it in all these different places like the television show and the graphic novel. Being able to think about how people appreciate this, how it connects with their childhood, how people, like my wife, who is a huge fan of the Baby-Sitters Club and also my daughter who is just now coming to experience it and they get to experience it together and experience it in these different forms.

Haeny:
Yeah. I think a lot of media and play scholars would call that the play ecology. There are things that all of these artifacts and platforms bring together people across generations and across every platform that it gets introduced on garners a different audience and that audience multiplies and grows and new people get exposed to it. I think that happens in everything. Star Wars has an ecology.

Nathan:
Yeah, huge ecology. One might say a whole galaxy.

Haeny:
Media has a built-in ecology because there are so many different things that are happening in that platform.

Nathan:
Thinking about the ways in which we experience these things with the different media is an interesting thing to think about. What is it like to encounter the Baby-Sitters Club from the television show first as opposed to from the books?

Haeny:
Yeah. I don't know actually. Okay, so that brings up a good point because I felt like when I was a kid, the main introduction to building an ecology around something were books and then the next thing is TV, and the next thing was maybe toys. I feel like there's this progression, and I think what's interesting in this digital age is that entrance can be so different. I'm guessing your daughter, Maisie, might have watched the television show first.

Nathan:
Yeah, for sure.

Haeny:
And then moved on to other sorts of things if it becomes an interest, if it becomes a passion for them.

Nathan:
Yeah, totally. As she became more comfortable with reading as a skill, then what does she want to read? She wanted to read Baby-Sitters Club because she already had this relationship with the characters and with the story and the world.

Haeny:
Right. I think about myself now, how it's really hard for me to read something first. I like to watch it first.

Nathan:
Before you watch it? I would say 80 percent of the time, I'm a read the book first. As I've gotten older and busier, I just don't have as much time to do that and so finally I'm just like, "I'll just watch it."

Haeny:
Yeah. I used to be a read the book first person, and then I came into academia. I was like, "Watch it first. Definitely."

Nathan:
I'll take the Cliffs Notes, please.

Haeny:
Exactly. Is this part of my literature review?

Nathan:
I'm totally a, annoying nerd like that or at least I have been in the past where, for example, when the Lord of the Rings movies came out, I have been a Lord of the Rings nerd for my whole life. When those came out, I was very much like, "Well, actually, I don't know how I feel about this first movie because they changed this and there's no Tom Bombadil," but then I watched it again and it was actually, this is a different media. It's a different experience and it's really neat to see the way the story can change to fit this media. I've started to really appreciate that.

Haeny:
Yeah, that's such a good point because we always say, "They didn't do it justice," or "It's wrong," or whatever, but who's to say that rendition of it is wrong? It's just an interpretation and a different way of saying something.

Nathan:
Yeah. Also, I'm curious, to take us in a slightly different direction, with this particular media, with this particular, I should say world, the Baby-Sitters cinematic. No, the Baby-Sitter's Universe, cinematic and otherwise and print. The television show tells the same stories. This is one thing I find super fascinating about this is that you can go pick up Baby-Sitters Club one and then you go watch Netflix Baby-Sitters Club episode one. It's the same story, which is mind blowing to me. Then episode two, it's the same story as book two and on and on.
But, in the Netflix version, it's updated to today. It's the same issues. The kids are still dealing with the same trauma, the same difficulties of being a kid, but they're encountering it in the late 2010s as opposed to the 1980s. As somebody who's encountered both of these things, you've read the books, you've watched the shows. How do they handle that difference in time period? Does that, does that change the stories at all or are they the same stories?

Haeny:
That's a great question.

Nathan:
Thank you. I'm a professional.

Haeny:
Yeah, I feel like it works. And I think one of the things that we were thinking about is what is the appeal of Baby-Sitters and why do, using Nathan's terms, why do we find it delightful and also sad and whatever? I feel like some of the issues are timeless. It's about friendship, it's about dealing with illness, it's about death. That's a spoiler.

Nathan:
Spoilers.

Haeny:
It's about death. It's about death and marriage and remarriage and all of that so I feel like the issues transcend whatever time period it is because it takes me back to being a middle schooler and struggling with those same issues. Who are my friends? How am I going to spark community with people? What is it that I really am going to do and everything that happens in your life is so serious.

Nathan:
Oh my God, yes.

Haeny:
It takes me back to that and transports me back. I do feel like the way they tell it is different and I find that to be really delightful. They can text each other when something's wrong or that they talk about TikTok celebrities. I just feel like the updates are really nice, just to see how today's kids handle different situations. I also feel like I appreciate the way that they bring in the ingenuity of this generation and not making them seem like they're idiots or children or whatever, but that they're doing something really cool in the world, which I really appreciate.

Nathan:
I like that. I like that sentiment. That's really nice. I'll say that when I watch the show, I get very sentimental very easily on this show.

Haeny:
I know, you told me. You said you cried.

Nathan:
I didn't cry.

Haeny:
Yeah, you did. You cried.

Nathan:
I got misty eyed. It's different. It's totally different.

Haeny:
Totally the same.

Nathan:
It's so ridiculous because it's not like a sad thing happens. It's friends being friends and taking care of one another and it's nice to see and then being an old man, it makes me want to get weepy about it. To think about my daughter enjoying it, my daughter getting excited, talking about the different characters and thinking about the context in which that's happening and this really deep friendship I think is really nice.

Haeny:
Yeah.

Nathan:
Doing it all with a landline. Just like in the eighties.

Haeny:
Or the olden days.

Nathan:
The olden days.

Haeny:
That's a spoiler.

Nathan:
Spoiler. Speaking of spoilers, I think we should in introduce our guests.

Haeny:
Nathan.

Nathan:
Yeah.

Haeny:
Do you want to introduce our guests for today?

Nathan:
We should and thank you for letting me do the introduction because these are some of my favorite people in all the world. First we have Hannah Holbert. It's not an accident that we share a last name. Hannah is my partner. She's brilliant. She's an actress, she's hilarious. She's also super, super, super knowledgeable about the Baby-Sitters Club so I thought it was really important to bring on somebody who actually has done their research as opposed to you and I.

Haeny:
Definitely.

Nathan:
The other guest that we have with us today is Maisie Holbert. Also not an accident that we share a last name. She is my daughter, the great Maisie Holbert, eight years old, third grade. Brilliant when it comes to making headbands with poké balls on them or cutting out cardboard or telling me all there is that she could possibly tell me about the Baby-Sitters Club.

Haeny:
Let's get started.

Nathan:
Let's get into it.

Maisie:
Also it's fun to talk into a microphone.

Nathan:
I don't disagree. That's pretty fun.

Maisie:
Dad sounds like a nerd when he talks into a microphone.

Haeny:
You know why he sounds like a nerd, because he is a nerd.

Nathan:
With or without the microphone, actually.

Maisie:
You are a nerd.

Hannah:
Actually, it's with or without a microphone, Maisie.

Maisie:
Has to kick [inaudible]

Nathan:
This is something we've been wanting to talk about for a while and it's something that's a really big deal in my household and that's the Baby-Sitters Club.

Haeny:
Why did we want to talk about the Baby-Sitters Club?

Nathan:
Other than the fact that I'm a huge fan of the Baby-Sitter Club, I have been a huge fan for years.

Hannah:
He hasn't watched it.

Maisie:
No, you're not.

Haeny:
I think your family is outing you and saying you are not a Baby-Sitters Club fan.

Nathan:
I am a regular Kristy. Listen, Haeny, maybe I shouldn't be co-hosting this episode. Maybe our two guests...

Maisie:
I should be co-hosting.

Haeny:
Oh my gosh.

Hannah:
I'll let her co-host. She might know more about it than me right now.

Haeny:
Okay. Can I tell you, Hannah, though, why I might know more about it than you right now?

Hannah:
Because you researched it just in the past two weeks and...

Haeny:
Yeah.

Hannah:
...you'd never watched the TV show before then?

Haeny:
I did watch. I watched two episodes.

Hannah:
Did you ever read the books when you were young?

Haeny:
I did.

Hannah:
Okay.

Haeny:
Not an avid fan like you have been. Hannah, did you read Baby-Sitters Club when you were growing up?

Hannah:
I did. I got to it a little late. I read better books and then I started reading teenager books after everybody else had stopped reading the pre-teen books and then I got really into them. I Benjamin Buttoned it. The super specials were my favorite and I like Stacey the best.

Haeny:
Why?

Hannah:
She lived in New York City and then she was super glamorous and now I live in New York City. I'm like...

Nathan:
You're super glamorous?

Hannah:
...it's not that glamorous, but I live with Nathan.

Maisie:
My favorite character...

Nathan:
Super glamorous lifestyle we have.

Maisie:
My favorite character is Kristy because she's the boss.

Hannah:
Nice.

Maisie:
I would not like to wear any of the other people's clothes.

Nathan:
Wait, wait, wait. Say more about that.

Haeny:
Even Claudia's clothes?

Maisie:
Claudia's clothes are so uncomfortable.

Hannah:
No.

Maisie:
Stacey's clothes are so uncomfortable.

Hannah:
Yeah, I agree with you on that one.

Haeny:
Yeah, definitely.

Hannah:
Way too much tailored stuff.

Maisie:
Once Mary Anne does the... Kristy sticks... She has a sweatshirt and things. It's much better.

Haeny:
Maisie's style is normcore to the max.

Maisie:
Wait, what?

Haeny:
Wait, what?

Hannah:
She does like to accessorize a little like Claudia sometimes.

Haeny:
I also liked Stacey the best, too, but I wonder why, too, because as an adult...

Hannah:
When you were a kid.

Haeny:
Yeah. Why is it that we liked Stacey when we were kids?

Hannah:
Because, she seems glamorous and you're like, "Oh wow," and then Kristy's older brother, Sam, and they have crushes on each other and he's 15.

Nathan:
Wow.

Hannah:
You're like, "I want to be like her and I want to kiss Sam." Then I watched the TV show, I'm like, "How did I ever want to kiss Sam?" I was like, "I guess I'm 40 now," but I really want to kiss Watson Brewer now.

Haeny:
Oh my gosh, that's hilarious.

Maisie:
Gross. This isn't hilarious. It's gross.

Haeny:
I also wanted to be Stacey, too. I don't know why because I feel like I should have wanted to be Claudia because she's...

Hannah:
Asian.

Haeny:
Asian.

Hannah:
Sorry, I shouldn't have said that.

Haeny:
No, that's what I was going to say. You read my mind. I always want to be the blonde, uptight one because that always seemed like the desirable one for some reason. Stacey to me felt like, I remember when I was growing up, I wanted to change my name to Stacey, and partly because of Fergie, too, because...

Hannah:
She was on

Hannah:
On Kids Incorporated.

Haeny:
Yes. You totally get me, Hannah.

Maisie:
What?

Hannah:
She was on Kids Incorporated with Jennifer Love Hewitt and then everybody else was Mickey Mouse Club...

Haeny:
Yeah. Yeah.

Hannah:
...from that time.

Haeny:
Totally. They were on this separate show that was amazing.

Hannah:
Kids Incorporated. K-I-D-S.

Haeny:
K-I-D-S.

Hannah:
Looks like we made it. We're...

Maisie:
What's happening?

Hannah:
...Kids Incorporated.

Nathan:
I don't know, Maisie. We need to give them a moment.

Haeny:
Basically, Stacey was the cute blonde, pretty one that, I don't think she was uptight then either, but it was a genre of person that I liked.

Nathan:
A genre of person. I wanted to ask, what are the different ways in which we can encounter Baby-Sitters Club? We can encounter it in books. We've got the old series, we have a new series, we have the graphic novel books. Can we start though, maybe with the show? Can you describe what an episode of the Baby-Sitters Club is like?

Haeny:
Great question.

Hannah:
Yeah. Each one is based on one baby-sitter. The books are...

Maisie:
It's talking in their head also. Mom, what?

Hannah:
It's like they write in a diary about their babysitting jobs and so Stacey puts little hearts over her "I's" and so I used to do that, too. It's a problem they're having, but everybody else is in it, but it's more like in their head. The super specials is in all the baby-sitters heads.

Nathan:
Okay. I didn't come to the Baby-Sitters Club until recently. I don't have a childhood experience with it, so I'm curious. The two of you and also you Maisie, can you say a little bit about your first memories with the Baby-Sitters Club? Hannah, why don't you start out? What's your first memory with the Baby-Sitters Club?

Hannah:
I don't remember.

Haeny:
I mean she was like 18.

Hannah:
Shut up.

Maisie:
I have one.

Nathan:
Yeah, Maisie, what's your first memory of the Baby-Sitters Club?

Maisie:
It's not the first one, but it's a good one. It's not the first one. Mom and me watched the whole first season of the Baby-Sitters Club in one day for some reason.

Hannah:
We did.

Nathan:
The whole season in one day?

Maisie:
Yeah.

Hannah:
It was our first binge together. Maybe our only binge.

Maisie:
I wanted to watch it with Mom and then we got so into it that we just watched the whole season. Also, this is my childhood memory. I am a child.

Haeny:
That is really profound. I love that. Maisie.

Maisie:
It's true.

Haeny:
Yeah. It is true. She gets to experience a memory in the present.

Hannah:
Yeah, it's true. She is a child.

Nathan:
It's true.

Maisie:
Also, I finished the fifth book today.

Haeny:
Today you did?

Maisie:
Yes.

Haeny:
What was the fifth book?

Maisie:
It was...

Haeny:
Dawn and the Impossible Three?

Maisie:
Yes.

Haeny:
What was that about?

Maisie:
It was about Dawn because in the one before, Mary Anne met Dawn, and in this one she's babysitting for the Barretts and they're the impossible three and every time she comes in, the place looks a mess. She has this game where she times the kids to see how fast they can pick up all of their toys and they're trying to break their record.

Hannah:
It doesn't work with my kids.

Nathan:
All right. We're going to ask you a couple of questions and we want you to give your first answer. Okay?

Haeny:
The first one...

Nathan:
Should we do this?

Haeny:
Yeah. You have to pick one of the baby-sitters in the BSC.

Maisie:
For what?

Haeny:
Kristy, Dawn, Mary Anne, Claudia...

Maisie:
Kristy.

Haeny:
...or Stacey. Okay. Your brother or sister is being annoying and bothering you. Who are you going to call to prank him or her?

Maisie:
Can you go first? You go first.

Hannah:
I don't know. They're all goody two shoes. I'm not sure if any of them would be fun to prank with.

Maisie:
Kristy. She wouldn't really care if she gets in trouble. She gets in trouble all the time.

Hannah:
Maybe Claudia and it could have to do with paint.

Haeny:
Good one.

Hannah:
Then it would become art. Prank art.

Haeny:
Nice.

Maisie:
Kristy because she would be fine with getting in trouble. She gets in trouble all the time and she doesn't even care.

Nathan:
Of all the baby-sitters, she's the one that doesn't care about getting in trouble. That makes sense. Okay, your parents decide to go on a trip and they're going to let you invite one of your friends from the Baby-Sitters Club. Only one though. Who do you invite to come on the trip with you?

Maisie:
This is just asking me your favorite character so that would be Kristy.

Nathan:
Okay.

Hannah:
You think she would be the most fun on a trip though?

Maisie:
That's a point.

Hannah:
I know it is a point.

Haeny:
I don't know if she would be the most fun on a trip. I feel like she would have a schedule and an agenda and make you do things at 5:05 and 5.:6.

Maisie:
When it's four, you do this. When it's 4:30, we have to do that.

Haeny:
Yeah.

Maisie:
Dawn. Dawn, Dawn/

Hannah:
I think Dawn.

Haeny:
Why Dawn?

Maisie:
That's a hard question.

Nathan:
I feel like Mary Anne would just really enjoy it though. She really enjoyed being part of the fun. Don't you think?

Haeny:
Yeah.

Maisie:
Mary Anne would be scared of some things?

Hannah:
Yeah. So now I like Dawn and Claudia the best.

Maisie:
Okay, Dawn.

Hannah:
Dawn for both of us, I think. She's a free spirit. Maybe we'd do some fun late night tarot readings.

Haeny:
That would be great.

Hannah:
Yeah.

Nathan:
I like it.

Haeny:
Excellent.

Hannah:
You hate that stuff, Nathan.

Nathan:
Yeah.

Maisie:
I didn't know what you said.

Hannah:
"It's not science, Hannah."

Nathan:
All right. We wanted to hear your thoughts on the Baby-Sitters Club as a collection of media. There is the books, the original books. There was a movie, I think.

Hannah:
There was a TV series before, too and they actually use the same theme song as the new TV series does. I can sing it for you if you enjoyed Kids Incorporated.

Haeny:
Please. Yes. Can you?

Nathan:
I think so.

Hannah:
Say hello to your friends, Baby-Sitters Club. Say hello to the people who care. Nothing's better than friends. Baby-Sitters Club. That's all you're getting.

Maisie:
There's not a theme song in the new one that I watched.

Hannah:
Yeah, it's that one. It's that.

Maisie:
No, they don't because when they just put on a...

Haeny:
I think it's that song, though, without the words.

Nathan:
Without the words.

Hannah:
I know the words.

Nathan:
Okay. I'm trying to get us going on the conversation part.

Hannah:
Yeah, please do.

Maisie:
Okay.

Nathan:
What's your favorite episode of the show or the books?

Hannah:
I like the one when Kristy gets her period.

Haeny:
Kristy?

Hannah:
Yeah, at her mom's wedding.

Haeny:
That's a good one.

Hannah:
She's been really the B word the whole time and all the other babysits are there and they open their purses and hand her maxi pads and...

Hayne:
And tell her how to put it on.

Hannah:
Yeah, and they're like such good friends.

Haeny:
Yeah, that's a good one.

Nathan:
We've got a couple more questions. You mentioned that you guys watched the Baby-Sitters Club show together all at once and you had a binge session. I'm curious about that. What do you like about the show? What do you like about watching it together?

Hannah:
I don't know. It was one of the first shows that Maisie watched with me that I think we both enjoyed the same amount.

Maisie:
Yeah, because sometimes I can't really find a show that she wants.

Hannah:
Yeah.

Maisie:
It's hard to be like, "Hey Mom, come and watch Pokémon with me."

Hannah:
Yeah, that's most of the shows and there's 15 of them.

Maisie:
Once she sits down and watches it, she's good with it. She just sits down and watches it. Sometimes gets a snack, but good.

Hannah:
Did we eat a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips when we binged the show?

Haeny:
That sounds fabulous.

Hannah:
I think we did.

Maisie:
I think so.

Hannah:
I think we did.

Haeny:
That sounds great.

Hannah:
That was nice.

Nathan:
Hey, thank you guys for being here today. Thank you for helping us think about and talk about all that is the Baby-Sitters Club.

Haeny:
Do you want to ask them what's popping?

Nathan:
Yeah, what's popping for you guys? What's something you're really into right now? We're going to start with Hannah. Hannah, what's popping?

Hannah:
I don't know.

Haeny:
Something you're into right now.

Hannah:
I'm really into cutting up my T-shirts.

Haeny:
I could see that.

Nathan:
Yeah.

Haeny:
You're wearing that right now. That's awesome.

Hannah:
I found some YouTube videos about the perfect way to cut a crew-neck.

Haeny:
I just watched some TikTok videos on cutting T-shirts.

Hannah:
You cut out the hem and...

Haeny:
Nice.

Hannah:
...that's what Maisie's actually wearing one of the sleeves of this T-shirt around her head as a headband right now.

Haeny:
That's awesome. Fashion pro tip. Cutting up your T-shirts. Poppin.

Nathan:
Maisie, what's popping and it can't be Pokémon?

Maisie:
Oh man.

Haeny:
What's something you're really into right now that you think other people need to know about?

Maisie:
Okay, let's think what I've been... I got it.

Hannah:
Baby-Sitter's Club.

Maisie:
No, Astro's Playroom.

Nathan:
Say it again.

Maisie:
Astro's Playroom.

Nathan:
Astro's Playroom.

Maisie:
Also, Fall Guys.

Haeny:
What's Astro's Playroom?

Maisie:
It's a game in the PS5 that makes you get used to the controls of the PS5 and then Fall Guys, it's where you try to get past these challenges that are impossible.

Haeny:
Nice.

Nathan:
Both fun games, both very fun games. Highly recommended.

Maisie:
I almost won last round, but I was right next to the fish but the end, the rat, it ended.

Nathan:
All right. Thank you guys for being here. Thanks for talking Baby-Sitters Club.

Hannah:
Thanks for having us. Maybe she's got all her talking out of her, before bedtime.

Maisie:
And also, you.

Nathan:
All right, crazies, I'll see you at home.

Hannah:
Okay, we love you guys.

Maisie:
No, we'll see you like after we get off.

Nathan:
Love you, too. First guest I've said I love you to.

[theme music plays]

Nathan Holbert:
This season of Pop and Play was produced by Haeny Yoon, Nathan Holbert, Lalitha Vasudevan, Billy Collins, and Joe Riina-Ferrie, and assistant produced by Lucius Von Joo at Teachers College, Columbia University with the Digital Futures Institute. Audio editing and production by Billy Collins.

Haeny Yoon:
For transcripts, and to learn more about our guests, visit tc.edu/popandplay. Our music is selections from Leaf Eaters by Podington Bear. Pop and Play, of course, would not be possible without the fabulous team that helps put this together. Thanks to Oluwaseun Animashaun for running the Pop and Play social media accounts where you should follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok under @popandplaypod. You can also follow us on Twitch under popandplay. Special thanks to Drew Reynolds, Jen Lee, Blake Danzig, Brianne Minaudo, Moira McCavana, and Lucius Von Joo who all helped with our outreach and or website support. Shout out to Ioana Literat for the Trashies, watch on Instagram and TikTok. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.