December 4, 2025 • 21 mins
Delishees, there's an important announcement to make about the future of the podcast.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:03):
Delicious grab a plate and feaston this very, I'm going to say
vulnerable episode of the delicious culture.
I am your host John Francois andit is just me here and I will
get into that in just a second. So I have been doing this
(00:26):
podcast with you all for I'm going to say 5 1/2 years.
I believe it was June of 2020 when you first started seeing
this podcast feed active. Let's just sort of reflect for a
moment because if we go back to June of 2020, this podcast
started as the Anything Show with John Francois.
(00:46):
I'm John Francois. At the time, I was working in
commercial radio here in Vermont, and I was hosting shows
where it was more music heavy than talk personality heavy.
And I've always envied morning radio shows for being very talk,
conversation personality heavy. So I thought to myself, all
right, I don't have a morning radio show of my own, so let me
(01:09):
create a podcast that reflects that.
You know what I mean? Just that fun banter between me
and someone that I have really good chemistry with.
So we had started recording episodes of this anything show
in I think February of 2020. This might have been Super Bowl
weekend of that year. And this was like a month before
(01:30):
the world went crazy during the pandemic.
And we were doing this show at acommunity radio station in
Burlington, Vt to start off withbefore it became a podcast.
Later that June, I decided to dothis then radio show with a good
friend of mine, Mary Vanderhoop,who on the air was known as Main
Squeeze Mary. We just kind of ran through some
(01:52):
headlines that amused us enough to talk about it.
We ran through some entertainment news that Mary
mostly did not care about because she's definitely not
tuned to pop culture like I am. Occasionally you might have
heard from a special guest or two.
If you wondered why the likes ofbig celebrities like, I don't
know, Lance Bass, why was Lance Bass from *NSYNC on your
(02:16):
podcast, John? Well, it's because my radio
station that I used to work for at the time, they were connected
with something called Premiere Radio Networks, this big large
syndicate responsible for thingslike Elvis Turin in the morning
show. They would send out emails to
radio stations like the one I was working at saying, hey,
like, here are these big actors and politicians and authors and
(02:38):
musicians and whatnot that wouldlove 10 minutes of your time to,
to promote their, your, your stuff or their stuff.
And I was like, all right, sure,I'm going to respond to this
e-mail and give them. And they give me 10 minutes of
their time. So that's why you would hear
randomly people like Lance Bass on my podcast for 10 minutes.
It's not because they knew who Iwas and I was a big name or
(03:01):
anything like that. It's because I'm one of a
billion broadcasting people throughout the country that
would give them 10 minutes to promote whatever project that
they want to promote. So that's why that was Mary and
I, we carried on for I think about a year and a half doing
the Anything show with John Francois again, first as a
community radio show and then itbecame a, a podcast starting in
(03:23):
June of 2020. It was, I think it's spring of
2021 that I decided that it was best for Mary and I to go our
separate ways. Because while Mary and I did
have a lot of fun, engaging moments on the podcast, there
were moments where we didn't. And what I did know was that
(03:44):
Mary and I's energy and determination toward.
Pushing this podcast. Forward, we're different.
Hers wasn't as consistent as mines.
And I thought, all right. This is not.
Sustainable so. For the sake of the podcast.
And especially for the sake of me and Mary's friendship outside
of the. Podcast.
I decided, all right, we've got to go.
(04:04):
Our separate ways and Mary and I.
Respected that and we are still friends to.
This day so I I definitely wish well with with whatever she's up
to these days. So main squeeze Mary is done.
Around the spring of 2021 I think.
But I will say. That early in 2021, January,
(04:25):
February roughly. Is when a.
Little someone called. Andrew AJ Vandertunt.
I will call him AJ Vandertunt because AJ is how he likes to go
by on the podcast. His actual.
Name is Andrew. But it.
Came into my life early 2021 because I was promoting the
podcast with me and Mary on Facebook and going through all
(04:45):
these podcast Facebook groups and AJ responded to one of the
promotional posts about this podcast and he had very
complimentary kind things to sayabout an episode that he heard
with me and Mary and. Because I'm always getting to
know more people, always getting.
The opportunity I like. I always want the.
Opportunity to network with as many people as possible for this
podcast. I looked into AJ, found that at
(05:08):
the time he was hosting the lifestyle.
Of a gay black boy podcast and Ijust found him to be an
interesting enough personality where I thought all right, but
come on as a guest Co host. Sometime because periodically
Mary would not be able to do thepodcast.
For personal reasons. And AJ came on that first time
as a guest Co host back in January, February of 2021.
(05:29):
You'll see it on the podcast feed.
Our audio quality is absolutely horrible as I.
Listen to that. Episode not too long ago, a few
weeks ago for the first time in quite a while, I mean, I believe
at the time and AJ were connecting by Skype to really
show you the time we were livingin because Zoom was just hitting
during the pandemic. And I mean, maybe this was me
(05:50):
just being a little slow of things, but even like 1/2 a year
or so into the pandemic, almost a year into the pandemic, I
still wasn't hip to Zoom yet. Like there would be guests where
I'd be like, hey, like you want to connect via Skype and then
we'll record it so that. Shows you how.
Long it's been since AJ and I first did a podcast together.
(06:10):
So AJ, when he he and I did thatpodcast together that first
episode back in 2021, he was very engaging, very fun.
We traded a lot of jokes, a lot of witty banter.
I came away thinking wow this was a fun guy to work with on
the air and I would love to havehim again on as a guest.
And I believe he made some return appearances here and
there like when Mary wasn't available and eventually when
(06:33):
Mary officially was no longer myregular Co host.
I know along the way around the 2021-2022 ish period is when
Maciel Hernandez, Maciel Hernandez, this wonderful
actress from New York City. I, I think somehow we got
connected through podcaster Facebook groups of sorts.
She also hosts the podcast and it's called the Black Hole Sun
(06:54):
podcast. So go check it out.
And she was actually recently onwith me and AJ to talk about the
Charlie Kirk stuff. So definitely listen to that
episode if you can. But Maciel was.
A wonderful personality, just like.
Aji felt like we clicked and shestarted as just a guest and then
sort of became my official Co host replacement after Mary
(07:17):
departed and we went on that wayfor I.
Mean a good amount. Of time.
Not too long though, probably. A few months in, or maybe about
a year in, Maciel understandablydecided that she had a lot going
on in her world and she wasn't able to do the regular Co host
thing with me anymore. So she had that honest
conversation with me and I respected it and we went our
(07:40):
separate ways. And Maciel and I, as you can
tell from the recent episode that she appeared on, we're
still on good terms. So I, I wish her well in
everything that she does and is continuing to do.
And when Maciel left, I, you know, I gravitated toward AJ
being the regular Co host. I don't know if we ever had a
official episode where it was like, AJ, you've been crowned
(08:02):
the regular Co host of the anything show.
I don't remember. They might have been later
during 2021, it might have been some point in 2022.
So we kept that going with the Anything Show for quite some
time. I do remember along the way
thinking that I maybe should rebrand it as like the Anything
show with John and Andrew because, you know, Andrew was
clearly becoming a vocal part ofthe podcast.
And then in fall 2023, we decided to make a big revamp of
(08:27):
the podcast. AJ and I had a off air
discussion about sort of the fascination that I had with
rewatch podcasting because at the time it was becoming really
big with the Boy Meets World rewatch podcast, Pod Meets
World, for example, I would I was also listening to other
podcasts like The West Wing Weekly and I know that full
house, some of the cast members,they have a podcast as well.
(08:49):
Rewatch podcasting was somethingthat interested me, and I took
note of that while I was kind ofgetting wary and tired of the
anything show content grinds thekind of content that we were
doing, and so I'm used about it.With Andrew, I said, hey, like,
what do you think about this as a concept?
What do you think about taking ashow from our childhood,
(09:09):
Recapping episodes, talking withpeople who've worked on the
show? And he was down for the idea and
thus birthed the delicious recap, which we launched in like
late fall of 2023. We both decided that Family
Matters was a show in our childhood that we loved and
connected with so deeply. It has such a full library of
(09:30):
episodes. It has such an interesting arc,
going from originally being about the Winslows to being
about Steve Urkel. So we decided to take a leap on
that and we covered the first two seasons.
As you can tell, we have not come back publicly with a third
season recap process. The first two seasons we did and
(09:52):
we talked to a variety of guest stars, crew members who've
worked on the show. So please check out our podcast
feed. Everything still exists up
there. It was a great two years.
It was late in the summer of this year, 2025, where I just
had this feeling of I don't knowif this Family Matters recap
thing is going to be sustainablebecause nine seasons, all nine
(10:14):
seasons of the show is what we're striving to go through.
And it's a show that's definitely not consistent with
quality. It's definitely a show that has
a lot of problematic parts to itthat doesn't hold up well.
And I was kind of wondering, would we just turn into a
podcast that just became a very like PC, so-called woke critical
(10:36):
analysis of family matters, rather than sort of a balance of
like, hey, like we have a lot offun watching this show that we
love growing up. And then maybe every now and
then, we'll get critical. Here and there.
We did record in private 6 I believe season 3 recaps, 5 or 6
season 3 recaps and just startedto get that feeling of like oh
wow this is very irritable. The character of Steve Urkel,
(10:58):
while funny, certainly have as. Many problematic moments.
I did find myself increasingly as episodes became more
inconsistent with quality, just this, this, this sort of
dramatic thinking of like, Oh myGod, season 3.
And then how many seasons do we have left until we get to season
9? So not really enjoying the
presence so much, but but, but really more so just like
(11:21):
dreading like how long it would take for us to complete this
rewatch of Family Matters. I mean, Andrew and I are both in
our 30s and to think that we would be somewhere in our 40s by
the time we finished this based on the time commitment we were
able to give to it. It was just like what the, the,
the, the, the, the content of the show itself, the longevity
(11:43):
of the project. I mean, there was just a lot of
factors that allowed us to come to the conclusion that maybe
this is not going to be long term sustainable.
So we decided late in the summerof 2025 that we wanted to revamp
the podcasts by going back to our modern pop culture roots.
And this is where we come to ourcurrent era, which is the.
(12:04):
Delicious culture. And by pop culture, it's a broad
scope. I mean, we've talked about TV,
we've talked about movies, We'vecertainly talked about politics.
We will have plenty to say to you about.
That and it's up to you if you're.
Annoyed by? That or not, but we, we, we've.
Run the we we kind of looked at the.
Spread of what? Is the national conversation
(12:25):
what pop culture are? People talking about and we
decided that would be the focus of our podcast and from I think
mid to late August till about now, just before Thanksgiving is
when you is when we produced ourlast episode, which you can see
right now wherever you get your podcast, the Thanksgiving
episode. Content wise, chemistry wise,
(12:46):
everything was fine. But for quite some time, going
back to our delicious recap era,sort of similar to why me and
Mary had to go our separate ways, AJ and I were just not
aligned in the networking and promoting of this podcast.
Now for those of you who either know a lot about podcasts or
(13:07):
have a podcast yourself, you know that more than half the
battle is getting people to knowyour podcast, subscribe to it,
listen to it, yadda yadda ya. And along the way, as we were
continuing our podcasting, AJ was really finding his own way
with his own, with his own content on TikTok and YouTube.
And I'm sure you know of it if you've obviously been listening
(13:28):
to our episodes because he does promote it at the end of each
episode. And I'm happy for him, I really
am. I've, I've always been happy
that he's thriving, that he's found not only personal
fulfilment, but also financial success with his own content.
And I'm happy for him. But I also realized that that
(13:48):
content, in addition to whateverpersonal things could be going
on in his world, were taking up a lot of space.
And the podcast that we do together was not taking up as
much space in terms of getting it out there, finding guests,
consistently promoting on socialmedia, things like that.
And that was very important to me.
(14:09):
When we begin our partnership, it was very clear that I was the
one handling all the production promotion aspect of things.
And he was just a Co host that was here to give me some
entertaining conversation once Ipress record.
And then along the way, I decided to give up control of
some of the production and promotion elements to him.
(14:29):
And you know, it it, it, it worked out fine at 1st and then
suddenly it just didn't work outso much.
We were just weren't on the samelevel.
And so we weren't on the same level in terms of how each of us
was devoting time, effort and energy into the production and
promotional parts of making thispodcast.
(14:50):
So after a while of dealing withthe inconsistency of how we deal
with that aspect, I had to have a conversation with him.
And I said, OK, I think it's time that we go our separate
ways. I'm happy for the success that
you found with your content. I wish you all the best.
And he wished me the best as well.
And what I will say is that whenyou have a partnership with
(15:13):
somebody for almost five years and then suddenly it ends, it's
a lot. It's gonna take some time to
grieve. It's gonna take some time to
process that long running partnership ending.
So bear with me. It is gonna feel weird being a
solo act with guests coming in here and there because that's
(15:34):
essentially what it is. I having gone through three Co
hosts, I'm in a space right now where I'm like, all right, maybe
I should just try doing this as a solo act me as the focal point
and we'll see how that works. So you may be asking yourself
like John, or you may be asking me, you know, through your
(15:56):
podcast speakers, John, what is this podcast going to be now?
Like you're revamping it for like what seems like the
millionth time. What is it going to be?
And that's a good question. That is something that I am
finding out as I go along, figuring out as I go along.
That's certainly something that I've been figuring out these
past five years, as you can tellfrom the various revamps that
we've already had. So bear with me.
(16:17):
Bear with me. I mean, I have ideas.
For example, you may have a balance of lifestyle and pop
culture topics. You will probably have, if it's
just me on episodes lengthwise it'll probably be a lot shorter
than you're used to. You're you're used to 1/2 hour
episodes. Well if it's just me talking
about a lifestyle topic or pop culture topic, I probably won't
(16:38):
go for no more than 10/15/20 minutes.
Maybe 5 minutes if I really don't have much to say about it.
So there's ideas. I certainly want to have guests
on the podcast. Like I said, every now and then
maybe a guest Co host as we're interviewing somebody else.
I don't know. So bear with me as we close out
2025 and going to 2026 because Idid not expect that this big
(16:59):
change to the podcast would be coming.
But it's here and I will. I would like to make myself open
to whatever change development could happen.
Does that make sense? Maybe, maybe not.
If you have any questions, you can always just e-mail me at
thedeliciousculture@gmail.com and I will try to make more
sense of it for you. In the meantime, what I will
(17:20):
say, the name of the podcast will still be The Delicious
Culture. If you notice, the title does
reflect my name, The Delicious Culture with John Francois.
We do have other sorts of content out there not related to
this podcast, also called The Delicious Culture.
So I think it's good to have my name on there to establish that
this is a specific different kind of delicious culture.
(17:40):
You may see a new logo. The logo that we previously had
was a beautiful one made by AJ. And I decided because I wanted
to protect his creativity and not benefit off of that when
he's not here, like I'm going tonot use that anymore.
Just please thank you. I I want to say from the bottom
of my heart, thank you so much for your patience.
Anybody who's been listening from day one, who's been
(18:02):
watching from day one and who isstill here, thank you.
I appreciate you. This podcast clearly has been a
five year work, good progress and I promise you it will
eventually if as long as I'm persistent with it and keep
giving you content, it will get to a point where it will seem
like I have my shit together andwe'll have a clear sustainable
(18:23):
long term vision for it. So that's it, that's it.
I just want to get on here and just kind of give you a heads
up. That's from here on out.
The podcasts will not be going forward with AJ Vander Tant.
I thank him for his time. My God, we had a lot of fun
memories together. Great creating, great
conversation, especially on the political spectrum.
(18:43):
So I will miss that. I will miss him.
I will wish him the best and I hope that those of you that may
have liked AJ more than me or just a really, really big fan of
him, understandable. He's such a great guy, great
personality. I miss him.
This podcast was all the better for him being on it.
I hope that's good enough for you to stick around.
(19:08):
That's what I can say. Please, please.
Let me be good enough. For you to stick around as
always, delicious. Culture on Apple.
Spotify, I Heart, Amazon, SiriusXM, wherever.
You get your podcasts. Search The Delicious Culture
with John Francois and you will find me.
Hey, look, I mean there's five years of podcast content there.
So if you have loved what you have heard, even if it's one
(19:30):
episode, 10 episodes, whatever, give me a five star rating on
that Spotify. That helps a lot.
I believe that helps the algorithm with helping people
find the podcast more. Does that make sense?
It probably doesn't. So if I start writing on
Spotify, if you love it, if you want to leave a review on Apple
Podcasts, I think you can still do that.
Please go ahead and do that. That would mean the world to me
(19:53):
again, Things that will maybe help people find
thepodcastlikeisaidthedeliciousculture@gmail.com.Any questions, comments,
concerns, feedback, I'm open to all of that.
At the delicious culture it's still at the delicious culture
on Instagram YouTube, TikTok follow subscribe comment, like
share all of it really really helps.
(20:16):
I've been trying things out withmy personal TikTok.
If you want to see me post clipsabout anything from not buying
gifts for anybody on Christmas to pumpkin and sweet potato pie
being the same thing at John Francois presents once again
following me. You can follow me on TikTok at
John Francois presents at John Francois presents on TikTok.
(20:36):
All right, this is usually AJ sign off.
I would like to continue it because I think why it can
consistency in any form with this podcast is much needed as
we're going through another revamp and a JS ending was
great. I'm not going to give the
specific improv creativity that he gave to it, but I will give
the slogan that he ended off things with, which is let
(21:00):
deliciousness ring.
Delicious grab a plate and feaston this very, I'm going to say
vulnerable episode of the delicious culture.
I am your host John Francois andit is just me here and I will
get into that in just a second. So I have been doing this
(00:26):
podcast with you all for I'm going to say 5 1/2 years.
I believe it was June of 2020 when you first started seeing
this podcast feed active. Let's just sort of reflect for a
moment because if we go back to June of 2020, this podcast
started as the Anything Show with John Francois.
(00:46):
I'm John Francois. At the time, I was working in
commercial radio here in Vermont, and I was hosting shows
where it was more music heavy than talk personality heavy.
And I've always envied morning radio shows for being very talk,
conversation personality heavy. So I thought to myself, all
right, I don't have a morning radio show of my own, so let me
(01:09):
create a podcast that reflects that.
You know what I mean? Just that fun banter between me
and someone that I have really good chemistry with.
So we had started recording episodes of this anything show
in I think February of 2020. This might have been Super Bowl
weekend of that year. And this was like a month before
(01:30):
the world went crazy during the pandemic.
And we were doing this show at acommunity radio station in
Burlington, Vt to start off withbefore it became a podcast.
Later that June, I decided to dothis then radio show with a good
friend of mine, Mary Vanderhoop,who on the air was known as Main
Squeeze Mary. We just kind of ran through some
(01:52):
headlines that amused us enough to talk about it.
We ran through some entertainment news that Mary
mostly did not care about because she's definitely not
tuned to pop culture like I am. Occasionally you might have
heard from a special guest or two.
If you wondered why the likes ofbig celebrities like, I don't
know, Lance Bass, why was Lance Bass from *NSYNC on your
(02:16):
podcast, John? Well, it's because my radio
station that I used to work for at the time, they were connected
with something called Premiere Radio Networks, this big large
syndicate responsible for thingslike Elvis Turin in the morning
show. They would send out emails to
radio stations like the one I was working at saying, hey,
like, here are these big actors and politicians and authors and
(02:38):
musicians and whatnot that wouldlove 10 minutes of your time to,
to promote their, your, your stuff or their stuff.
And I was like, all right, sure,I'm going to respond to this
e-mail and give them. And they give me 10 minutes of
their time. So that's why you would hear
randomly people like Lance Bass on my podcast for 10 minutes.
It's not because they knew who Iwas and I was a big name or
(03:01):
anything like that. It's because I'm one of a
billion broadcasting people throughout the country that
would give them 10 minutes to promote whatever project that
they want to promote. So that's why that was Mary and
I, we carried on for I think about a year and a half doing
the Anything show with John Francois again, first as a
community radio show and then itbecame a, a podcast starting in
(03:23):
June of 2020. It was, I think it's spring of
2021 that I decided that it was best for Mary and I to go our
separate ways. Because while Mary and I did
have a lot of fun, engaging moments on the podcast, there
were moments where we didn't. And what I did know was that
(03:44):
Mary and I's energy and determination toward.
Pushing this podcast. Forward, we're different.
Hers wasn't as consistent as mines.
And I thought, all right. This is not.
Sustainable so. For the sake of the podcast.
And especially for the sake of me and Mary's friendship outside
of the. Podcast.
I decided, all right, we've got to go.
(04:04):
Our separate ways and Mary and I.
Respected that and we are still friends to.
This day so I I definitely wish well with with whatever she's up
to these days. So main squeeze Mary is done.
Around the spring of 2021 I think.
But I will say. That early in 2021, January,
(04:25):
February roughly. Is when a.
Little someone called. Andrew AJ Vandertunt.
I will call him AJ Vandertunt because AJ is how he likes to go
by on the podcast. His actual.
Name is Andrew. But it.
Came into my life early 2021 because I was promoting the
podcast with me and Mary on Facebook and going through all
(04:45):
these podcast Facebook groups and AJ responded to one of the
promotional posts about this podcast and he had very
complimentary kind things to sayabout an episode that he heard
with me and Mary and. Because I'm always getting to
know more people, always getting.
The opportunity I like. I always want the.
Opportunity to network with as many people as possible for this
podcast. I looked into AJ, found that at
(05:08):
the time he was hosting the lifestyle.
Of a gay black boy podcast and Ijust found him to be an
interesting enough personality where I thought all right, but
come on as a guest Co host. Sometime because periodically
Mary would not be able to do thepodcast.
For personal reasons. And AJ came on that first time
as a guest Co host back in January, February of 2021.
(05:29):
You'll see it on the podcast feed.
Our audio quality is absolutely horrible as I.
Listen to that. Episode not too long ago, a few
weeks ago for the first time in quite a while, I mean, I believe
at the time and AJ were connecting by Skype to really
show you the time we were livingin because Zoom was just hitting
during the pandemic. And I mean, maybe this was me
(05:50):
just being a little slow of things, but even like 1/2 a year
or so into the pandemic, almost a year into the pandemic, I
still wasn't hip to Zoom yet. Like there would be guests where
I'd be like, hey, like you want to connect via Skype and then
we'll record it so that. Shows you how.
Long it's been since AJ and I first did a podcast together.
(06:10):
So AJ, when he he and I did thatpodcast together that first
episode back in 2021, he was very engaging, very fun.
We traded a lot of jokes, a lot of witty banter.
I came away thinking wow this was a fun guy to work with on
the air and I would love to havehim again on as a guest.
And I believe he made some return appearances here and
there like when Mary wasn't available and eventually when
(06:33):
Mary officially was no longer myregular Co host.
I know along the way around the 2021-2022 ish period is when
Maciel Hernandez, Maciel Hernandez, this wonderful
actress from New York City. I, I think somehow we got
connected through podcaster Facebook groups of sorts.
She also hosts the podcast and it's called the Black Hole Sun
(06:54):
podcast. So go check it out.
And she was actually recently onwith me and AJ to talk about the
Charlie Kirk stuff. So definitely listen to that
episode if you can. But Maciel was.
A wonderful personality, just like.
Aji felt like we clicked and shestarted as just a guest and then
sort of became my official Co host replacement after Mary
(07:17):
departed and we went on that wayfor I.
Mean a good amount. Of time.
Not too long though, probably. A few months in, or maybe about
a year in, Maciel understandablydecided that she had a lot going
on in her world and she wasn't able to do the regular Co host
thing with me anymore. So she had that honest
conversation with me and I respected it and we went our
(07:40):
separate ways. And Maciel and I, as you can
tell from the recent episode that she appeared on, we're
still on good terms. So I, I wish her well in
everything that she does and is continuing to do.
And when Maciel left, I, you know, I gravitated toward AJ
being the regular Co host. I don't know if we ever had a
official episode where it was like, AJ, you've been crowned
(08:02):
the regular Co host of the anything show.
I don't remember. They might have been later
during 2021, it might have been some point in 2022.
So we kept that going with the Anything Show for quite some
time. I do remember along the way
thinking that I maybe should rebrand it as like the Anything
show with John and Andrew because, you know, Andrew was
clearly becoming a vocal part ofthe podcast.
And then in fall 2023, we decided to make a big revamp of
(08:27):
the podcast. AJ and I had a off air
discussion about sort of the fascination that I had with
rewatch podcasting because at the time it was becoming really
big with the Boy Meets World rewatch podcast, Pod Meets
World, for example, I would I was also listening to other
podcasts like The West Wing Weekly and I know that full
house, some of the cast members,they have a podcast as well.
(08:49):
Rewatch podcasting was somethingthat interested me, and I took
note of that while I was kind ofgetting wary and tired of the
anything show content grinds thekind of content that we were
doing, and so I'm used about it.With Andrew, I said, hey, like,
what do you think about this as a concept?
What do you think about taking ashow from our childhood,
(09:09):
Recapping episodes, talking withpeople who've worked on the
show? And he was down for the idea and
thus birthed the delicious recap, which we launched in like
late fall of 2023. We both decided that Family
Matters was a show in our childhood that we loved and
connected with so deeply. It has such a full library of
(09:30):
episodes. It has such an interesting arc,
going from originally being about the Winslows to being
about Steve Urkel. So we decided to take a leap on
that and we covered the first two seasons.
As you can tell, we have not come back publicly with a third
season recap process. The first two seasons we did and
(09:52):
we talked to a variety of guest stars, crew members who've
worked on the show. So please check out our podcast
feed. Everything still exists up
there. It was a great two years.
It was late in the summer of this year, 2025, where I just
had this feeling of I don't knowif this Family Matters recap
thing is going to be sustainablebecause nine seasons, all nine
(10:14):
seasons of the show is what we're striving to go through.
And it's a show that's definitely not consistent with
quality. It's definitely a show that has
a lot of problematic parts to itthat doesn't hold up well.
And I was kind of wondering, would we just turn into a
podcast that just became a very like PC, so-called woke critical
(10:36):
analysis of family matters, rather than sort of a balance of
like, hey, like we have a lot offun watching this show that we
love growing up. And then maybe every now and
then, we'll get critical. Here and there.
We did record in private 6 I believe season 3 recaps, 5 or 6
season 3 recaps and just startedto get that feeling of like oh
wow this is very irritable. The character of Steve Urkel,
(10:58):
while funny, certainly have as. Many problematic moments.
I did find myself increasingly as episodes became more
inconsistent with quality, just this, this, this sort of
dramatic thinking of like, Oh myGod, season 3.
And then how many seasons do we have left until we get to season
9? So not really enjoying the
presence so much, but but, but really more so just like
(11:21):
dreading like how long it would take for us to complete this
rewatch of Family Matters. I mean, Andrew and I are both in
our 30s and to think that we would be somewhere in our 40s by
the time we finished this based on the time commitment we were
able to give to it. It was just like what the, the,
the, the, the, the content of the show itself, the longevity
(11:43):
of the project. I mean, there was just a lot of
factors that allowed us to come to the conclusion that maybe
this is not going to be long term sustainable.
So we decided late in the summerof 2025 that we wanted to revamp
the podcasts by going back to our modern pop culture roots.
And this is where we come to ourcurrent era, which is the.
(12:04):
Delicious culture. And by pop culture, it's a broad
scope. I mean, we've talked about TV,
we've talked about movies, We'vecertainly talked about politics.
We will have plenty to say to you about.
That and it's up to you if you're.
Annoyed by? That or not, but we, we, we've.
Run the we we kind of looked at the.
Spread of what? Is the national conversation
(12:25):
what pop culture are? People talking about and we
decided that would be the focus of our podcast and from I think
mid to late August till about now, just before Thanksgiving is
when you is when we produced ourlast episode, which you can see
right now wherever you get your podcast, the Thanksgiving
episode. Content wise, chemistry wise,
(12:46):
everything was fine. But for quite some time, going
back to our delicious recap era,sort of similar to why me and
Mary had to go our separate ways, AJ and I were just not
aligned in the networking and promoting of this podcast.
Now for those of you who either know a lot about podcasts or
(13:07):
have a podcast yourself, you know that more than half the
battle is getting people to knowyour podcast, subscribe to it,
listen to it, yadda yadda ya. And along the way, as we were
continuing our podcasting, AJ was really finding his own way
with his own, with his own content on TikTok and YouTube.
And I'm sure you know of it if you've obviously been listening
(13:28):
to our episodes because he does promote it at the end of each
episode. And I'm happy for him, I really
am. I've, I've always been happy
that he's thriving, that he's found not only personal
fulfilment, but also financial success with his own content.
And I'm happy for him. But I also realized that that
(13:48):
content, in addition to whateverpersonal things could be going
on in his world, were taking up a lot of space.
And the podcast that we do together was not taking up as
much space in terms of getting it out there, finding guests,
consistently promoting on socialmedia, things like that.
And that was very important to me.
(14:09):
When we begin our partnership, it was very clear that I was the
one handling all the production promotion aspect of things.
And he was just a Co host that was here to give me some
entertaining conversation once Ipress record.
And then along the way, I decided to give up control of
some of the production and promotion elements to him.
(14:29):
And you know, it it, it, it worked out fine at 1st and then
suddenly it just didn't work outso much.
We were just weren't on the samelevel.
And so we weren't on the same level in terms of how each of us
was devoting time, effort and energy into the production and
promotional parts of making thispodcast.
(14:50):
So after a while of dealing withthe inconsistency of how we deal
with that aspect, I had to have a conversation with him.
And I said, OK, I think it's time that we go our separate
ways. I'm happy for the success that
you found with your content. I wish you all the best.
And he wished me the best as well.
And what I will say is that whenyou have a partnership with
(15:13):
somebody for almost five years and then suddenly it ends, it's
a lot. It's gonna take some time to
grieve. It's gonna take some time to
process that long running partnership ending.
So bear with me. It is gonna feel weird being a
solo act with guests coming in here and there because that's
(15:34):
essentially what it is. I having gone through three Co
hosts, I'm in a space right now where I'm like, all right, maybe
I should just try doing this as a solo act me as the focal point
and we'll see how that works. So you may be asking yourself
like John, or you may be asking me, you know, through your
(15:56):
podcast speakers, John, what is this podcast going to be now?
Like you're revamping it for like what seems like the
millionth time. What is it going to be?
And that's a good question. That is something that I am
finding out as I go along, figuring out as I go along.
That's certainly something that I've been figuring out these
past five years, as you can tellfrom the various revamps that
we've already had. So bear with me.
(16:17):
Bear with me. I mean, I have ideas.
For example, you may have a balance of lifestyle and pop
culture topics. You will probably have, if it's
just me on episodes lengthwise it'll probably be a lot shorter
than you're used to. You're you're used to 1/2 hour
episodes. Well if it's just me talking
about a lifestyle topic or pop culture topic, I probably won't
(16:38):
go for no more than 10/15/20 minutes.
Maybe 5 minutes if I really don't have much to say about it.
So there's ideas. I certainly want to have guests
on the podcast. Like I said, every now and then
maybe a guest Co host as we're interviewing somebody else.
I don't know. So bear with me as we close out
2025 and going to 2026 because Idid not expect that this big
(16:59):
change to the podcast would be coming.
But it's here and I will. I would like to make myself open
to whatever change development could happen.
Does that make sense? Maybe, maybe not.
If you have any questions, you can always just e-mail me at
thedeliciousculture@gmail.com and I will try to make more
sense of it for you. In the meantime, what I will
(17:20):
say, the name of the podcast will still be The Delicious
Culture. If you notice, the title does
reflect my name, The Delicious Culture with John Francois.
We do have other sorts of content out there not related to
this podcast, also called The Delicious Culture.
So I think it's good to have my name on there to establish that
this is a specific different kind of delicious culture.
(17:40):
You may see a new logo. The logo that we previously had
was a beautiful one made by AJ. And I decided because I wanted
to protect his creativity and not benefit off of that when
he's not here, like I'm going tonot use that anymore.
Just please thank you. I I want to say from the bottom
of my heart, thank you so much for your patience.
Anybody who's been listening from day one, who's been
(18:02):
watching from day one and who isstill here, thank you.
I appreciate you. This podcast clearly has been a
five year work, good progress and I promise you it will
eventually if as long as I'm persistent with it and keep
giving you content, it will get to a point where it will seem
like I have my shit together andwe'll have a clear sustainable
(18:23):
long term vision for it. So that's it, that's it.
I just want to get on here and just kind of give you a heads
up. That's from here on out.
The podcasts will not be going forward with AJ Vander Tant.
I thank him for his time. My God, we had a lot of fun
memories together. Great creating, great
conversation, especially on the political spectrum.
(18:43):
So I will miss that. I will miss him.
I will wish him the best and I hope that those of you that may
have liked AJ more than me or just a really, really big fan of
him, understandable. He's such a great guy, great
personality. I miss him.
This podcast was all the better for him being on it.
I hope that's good enough for you to stick around.
(19:08):
That's what I can say. Please, please.
Let me be good enough. For you to stick around as
always, delicious. Culture on Apple.
Spotify, I Heart, Amazon, SiriusXM, wherever.
You get your podcasts. Search The Delicious Culture
with John Francois and you will find me.
Hey, look, I mean there's five years of podcast content there.
So if you have loved what you have heard, even if it's one
(19:30):
episode, 10 episodes, whatever, give me a five star rating on
that Spotify. That helps a lot.
I believe that helps the algorithm with helping people
find the podcast more. Does that make sense?
It probably doesn't. So if I start writing on
Spotify, if you love it, if you want to leave a review on Apple
Podcasts, I think you can still do that.
Please go ahead and do that. That would mean the world to me
(19:53):
again, Things that will maybe help people find
thepodcastlikeisaidthedeliciousculture@gmail.com.Any questions, comments,
concerns, feedback, I'm open to all of that.
At the delicious culture it's still at the delicious culture
on Instagram YouTube, TikTok follow subscribe comment, like
share all of it really really helps.
(20:16):
I've been trying things out withmy personal TikTok.
If you want to see me post clipsabout anything from not buying
gifts for anybody on Christmas to pumpkin and sweet potato pie
being the same thing at John Francois presents once again
following me. You can follow me on TikTok at
John Francois presents at John Francois presents on TikTok.
(20:36):
All right, this is usually AJ sign off.
I would like to continue it because I think why it can
consistency in any form with this podcast is much needed as
we're going through another revamp and a JS ending was
great. I'm not going to give the
specific improv creativity that he gave to it, but I will give
the slogan that he ended off things with, which is let
(21:00):
deliciousness ring.
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