A Pop Culture Heir

Published Jan 6, 2024, 8:00 PM

Teddi Mellencamp, daughter of John Mellencamp, joins us to talk about a reference about her dad from Season 6, Episode 13 ‘Friday Night’s Alright for Fighting.’
 

I am all in. Let's you.

I Am all in with Scott Patterson, an iHeartRadio podcast.

Hey guys, an extra special pop culture minisode for you. Today, we've got Teddy Mellencamp, daughter of John Mellencamp. We heard her dad's reference a few weeks ago in season six, episode thirteen Friday Nights all Right for Fighting, when Luke and Laurel I awkwardly bump into each.

Other in the morning.

So we have to talk to her about it. See if she knows of this mention about her dad. Let's get her on.

Hi guys, Hey Teddy, how you doing?

Welcome?

Hi Teddy, Hi, so good to see everybody.

Welcome to our mandness. Oh look how professional?

Yo?

Get that?

I have one of those and it's too bright. I can't have it in my office. I got to figure out a way to use mine.

I mean, it's the chaos this morning with four kids needing to be out the door at nine ten. But I was like, I love Gilmore Girls so much.

I have a couple of minutes to zip in.

Oh, thank you so much, thank you. When did you first discover Gilmore Girls?

I discovered Gilmore Girls during the pandemic. My daughter had actually, right before the pandemic, she had amputated the tip of her finger, which sounds like a very like traumatic story. But there was very few shows that we could watch together and really, you know, like all it didn't seem too mature for her, but it also was mature enough that it opened up so many good conversations for us, and so like, I'm not kidding, we I mean, we couldn't have watched more episodes are healing?

How old was she at the time?

She was ten?

Oh gosh, yeah, did.

You get to the episode where your dad is mentioned?

I did, But now once you guys texted me, I was like, I remember being excited when I heard it, but now you guys have to refresh my memory.

We will, but I just think that would be so so when they mentioned, you know, Mark Ballast from Dancing with the Stars. Yes, so there's a moment where his parents are mentioned, same exact thing, and we like kind of lost our minds and immediately called him and got him on, Like, I wonder what would be more weird of you being mentioned in pop culture or your parents, because that's.

Sort of more iconic. You're like, my dad just got a shout out.

Well.

I mean, I'm pretty sure I'll never get a shout out on a show like Gilmour Girls, so they'll be like and then that really crazy housewife that.

Caused a lot of problems. But no, it's really cool.

And it's also like, you know, I think that's a beautiful thing about music, as it will bring you back to a memory no matter where you are in your life. Like I can barely remember anything I learned in school, but I can remember the words to like ninety percent of the songs that I learned in grade school and high school, you know, throughout my life. So it's like you just retain those that information in those.

Liar, you sure do?

You sure do.

The other day, I was watching Caream reunion videos Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker in two thousand and five they went Royal Albert Hall and did played all those great songs, and I was just like flooded with memoris. It was just bizarre. It's all of this old waves of emotion coming just from that music. It's amazing how it triggers it, isn't it.

Yeah, I mean, you can you find that emotion immediately, how you felt in that moment when you first heard it, or like that relationship you were in during it, or I mean, like every time I even hear like Casey and Jojo, I'm like, oh, that was my song with my boyfriend in the tenth grade. If I would have actually listened to what those words.

Meant or said, it's so inappropriate.

It's so funny you say that because we'll read you the line about your dad, but it refers to hurt so good. But when we immediately, when we're talking about it, you literally all you have to say is little ditty, and all of us knew exactly what we were talking about, Like Scott was immediately laughing, and we're all like, oh my god, like two words from your dad's song, and every single one of us knew exactly what we were talking about.

And it's pretty cool. There's a couple of those like it little Ditty, Chili Dog. Yeah, Yeah, it's so good.

I mean, I mean, the most Banana's part is that after you hear something like little Ditty or any of that, is then you go and you watch the music video and I watch sit with my kids because at this point I realized they've never seen it, and it's my mom and dad, Like my mom and dad are.

Jack and Diane so crazy?

I want to depart too much from what we're doing here. Did you go on tour with him back in the day.

I did, but I was so young that, like I bear, it wasn't like I knew, you know.

And also I didn't grow up in La.

I wasn't an La kid, so it wasn't like there was like this element of fame and paparazzi's chasing you down. Like I just thought, like the same way that like my friend's dad was an accountant and went to his office every day, this was my dad's office.

I mean.

The only time where it really like hit me in a different kind of way was you know, still to this day, when I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus comes on and I see my like seven year old self like trying to shake the tambourine in the video, and I'm like, how do I I can remember all the songs to everything, but I don't remember that moment. I don't remember feeling like I was filming a music video.

I thought that was just our life.

And did your dad have a recording studio on the property? Is that where they recorded the songs, so they go to LA or New York and record.

No, he never went to LA in New York. No, I mean he was born in a small town.

He still lives in that same small town, no he.

I mean you have to also.

Remember when I was born, was before his birth, Like his first hit was nineteen eighty one, which is the year I was born. So I mean we could say that I was his you know, mus not just kidding. The differences and where you know, we lived, what like how our life progressed in the eighties was huge. But he always and still does has the same recording studio which is also his office, which is it's called like a Belmont, which is in like this near Seymour, Indiana. So it's like forty minutes from the house. And I mean I think it still looks exactly the same as the way it did back then.

I mean, tell me once, like that you were when you were born, you were in like a small house in the town or like kind of an average house, and then suddenly you.

Lived in the biggest house in town.

Oh yeah, Like it was all my pictures from you know, being a little kid.

It like a baby.

I mean, we I still drive by this house to get to my dad's house, and it is like you barely.

Even can see it. It's off in the corner, like kind of in the woods.

Like I all I really remember about that house is that there was to get down to it, you had to go down a really steep drive and then like there was a piano in the middle, and then there was like steep stairs and that was like the basement, like just it. That's really my only memory and then all of a sudden all my other like childhood photos.

We live in a house that like will never be able to be sold.

In Bloomington, Indiana because a is going to buy it. Were their little pink houses, but we painted the pink house in that music video.

We went and painted the pink houses. But that's Seymour where my dad grew up, which is you know Seymour as of ours. That so Bloomington is like where IU is.

So people kind of know Bloomington now because that that college is so in lack of a better word, like everybody knows that college because of sports and fun and like people love going to school there.

Actually, one of my producers on Two Teas.

And Indiana and so and we all know that, but Seymour is about forty five minutes outside of Bloomington, And I mean that is the epitio. Like the biggest shopping center is like a J. C. Penney and like it is small.

Wow.

I was just about to say, you think like it's random that you're from Indiana, But in our small group of people that all work together, you're from Indiana. Our producer Kendall and Ben Higgins from the Bachelor.

Is also from Indiana. So Indiana represents.

Indiana represents Wait will you read to the line, Yeah, read the line it's so Laura I says it hurts so good as mister Mellencamp said, is it bleeding?

Oh yeah, what happened right before? Somebody?

Right before they Luke and Laurel I just bump into.

Each other's right acting from Yeah.

I mean because that line, taking out of context, souths.

That sounds like it's not really family friendly.

But I I'll just talk about that being a family friendly show.

Wait, Teddy, I have a question though. So we were watching this episode the scene that Rory says that her dad is hot, like, soay was like, oh, I have a hot Yeah. If someone says to you like, oh my god, like your dad's so hot, or I have a crush on your dad. Does it make you cringe?

Or are you like, oh do it all the time? To Teddy, she doesn't.

Well, you have to also remember my dad's dated a lot of my friends at this point, so like I have gotten pretty calloused when it comes to that.

But I think, I mean, I don't know, Like just.

You have to understand my dad is the kind of guy that it's like he's always like, you know, you kind of think of him and he's like reserved, pulled back and you know, like mister cool guy. But like when the grandkids are there for the holidays, like he's the one that's like gonna come in his like dorky tidy whities and like jump in the pool with his socks on, and like he's just always as much as he is reserved in an introvert, he's always an entertainer, whether it's your family or whatever. Like he knows how to bring the excitement and make you feel special, whether it's his music or his paintings, or his relationship with his grandkids or texting me all in caps when I tell him that's yelling and it hurts.

I told I love when I text Teddy pe Pauw's looking good and she just sends the barf emojis. Like I told the story how people like on a breakfast morning near around Christmas is like like all dress like he's got his like cool vibe. He just always has that cool I'm John Mellencamp, I'm a rock star.

Well, when you only wear three outfits, it's like pretty easy, Like he really.

Just And now I realized it. I'm like, have I married my husband? Like my husband?

I'm like, you wear the same thing all of the time, and yet you act I should be surprised.

Do you do that as well?

Now I have a question before you go, how does your dad feel that you often refer to him and I think call him the koogs.

I think I'm probably one of the only people that could get away with it. And I didn't even think of it really myself. But when I started in California. When I first came to California, my parents were like, listen, if you want to not go to college and go to California at seventeen, you're on your own, babe, Like, we'll help you get your car out there. But then like figure it out. So I worked in the mailroom at CIA, and everybody, you know, everybody are like these you know, they graduate from Harvard.

They're just you know, like super smart.

And I'm like the seventeen year old kid, like just trying to like hustle around and figure it out, shucking mail and you know, doing the ice cream cart. And everybody started coining me as because I have very similar man, I don't have the most you know, that dainty flower of a walk, those types of things.

So everybody would always be like, You're like little cogs, little caugs, little coogs.

So then I started calling him the Coogs. And like for his whatever his last I'm gonna probably stay wrong, was it sixty to seventieth.

Whatever his last big birthday was.

I just wrote everywhere it was Koogs, like happy birthday to the Coogs.

And he walked in.

He was like, goddamn it, teddy Teddy Joe not Alick wouldn't call him that, but.

Well, Gilmore Girls has changed so many lives for so many people, And the same way that a little ditty brings people together to a memory is your show. And I hope that you feel so incredible and knowing that because I know, even for him, sometimes talking about the past or talking about things in your life can feel like, oh, like I hate watching myself or I hate doing this, or I you know, but you've changed so many of our lives.

You've just described the existential situation I find myself in a lot of the times when I'm like, right now, I'm like, god, man, John Cougar, that's so fanboying over that.

And then you know, I'll do a comic con or something, and I realized, wait a minute, I kind I don't. I wouldn't say I'm on their level, but I kind of achieved similar. You know that the brand that the Gilmour Girls is out there and the world has been out there for twenty three years, and it's affecting people in a very deep emotional level the same way a hit album could, right and and helping people, and it's and they associate that with me and it's not me. I'm getting all this credit for it, and it feels wonderful, but it's like, I don't know that I deserve it as much as like your dad, No, but you do put together a band because I didn't produce the show and I didn't write the show. I'm just in a sort of interpretive art, so I kind.

Of put it apart. And we always want to lie to choose.

You, And I wanted you to get mad when she asked for coffee and pretend that it bugged you.

You loved every second of it, Like.

These are the things like we and the fact that I watched it in twenty twenty, like that's the first time I've ever seen it, and you change. My daughter's like we still talk about it, like we'll watch new shows and say it'll be like I liked it, mom, but not as not like Gilmore girls, you know, like.

Is it is.

It's the thing about the show that it just has life after life after life.

It's just so amazing you're discovering it. Yeah, just same because your dad's songs.

Yeah, they meet me and there's this their six year old daughter and they Luke and the babies say it and it's like, what is happening? They watch it all the time. These children know the characters. They the theme song makes them stop whatever they're doing and just stare. Oh, it's amazing.

I mean we had opera versions of it, like we sung it like no other than I'm sorry. In my head, you will always be Luke with your baseball cap on. I remember the one time you had to wear a suit and you didn't want to do it, like that was, but like I can't remember, Like I almost forgot that I was supposed to come on the pod today, Like my memory is so bad. But the fact that I can remember those moments and like that shows the impact that you have on so many people.

So we are so grateful to you, and we love gilmore girls, and.

We love thank you so much. And I loved meeting you in Vegas and hanging out with you and your guy and it's just really a great Yeah you guys, you were very welcoming and more Yeah I do too.

Yeah, it will all right, Well keep on, We love you, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. We love you.

Thank you, little ditty about.

Bie guys, best of your father.

Thank you.

All right.

I almost think it's cooler to have a relative being pop culture than yourself, Like.

So cool that was, She's brilliant, she's awesome. She's awesome.

Wow man oh man, oh man.

Well all right, that's uh so that'll be its own little thing.

God him getting all emotional.

Oh that's so sweet. I know, isn't.

She's so nice, she's so yeah, she just hit me right in the heart.

Oh so sweet.

Wow, everybody, and don't forget Follow us on Instagram at I Am All In podcast and email us at Gilmore at iHeartRadio dot com.