Watch What Crappens Live: The Bravo Podcast You Love Now On Tour
Bravo fans know that there is an intense, opinionated, and vocal community when it comes to our beloved shows. When you run out of friends to chat about Real Housewives, Below Deck, and more…there are the podcasts.
One of the OG podcasts of the reality TV and Bravo podcast genres is Watch What Crappens hosted by Ben Mandelker & Ronnie Karam. The hilarious duo revels in all things Bravo making listeners laugh along as they praise, ridicule, and eviscerate some of our favorite “characters” and TV shows. Now celebrating ten years of Watch What Crappens they are on the road for their Hunky Dory Tour.
I was invited to the duo’s live awards show: the 2022 Golden Crappies live from The Town Hall theater in New York City. During this live show, Mandelker & Karam celebrated the best and worst of all things Bravo. The show opened with a Broadway-inspired homage to Bravo. I wasn’t ready!!! Why was this so good?!
There were surprise Bravolebs in the house. VIPs included Dorinda Medley (RHONY), Jackie Goldshneider (RHONJ), Luke Gulbranson (Summer House), Taylor Strecker, Dave Quinn, Matt Marr, Jake Anthony, Katie Cazorla and Walter Afanasieff. With special appearances by Amy Phillips (Reality Checked), Heather Gay (RHOSLC), and Aileen Santiago (Seeing Red).
After the show, I spoke with Mandelker & Karam to find out how they took their love of pop culture and turned it into one of the top podcasts.
ESP: What did you expect to come out of podcasting when you first started ten years ago?
Mandelker: When we started the podcast, I was unemployed. I was driving Uber at one point. It was just something that gave us positive feedback. We were both living in LA at that time, and I was trying to make it as a writer. When you try to make it as a writer, you hear many "no." No, we're not going to hire you. No, we don't like your scripts. The podcast is the one thing that was giving us a "yes." We thought it would be cool to do well with the podcast, but we never thought it would turn into this. We never thought we'd be on Broadway and that our podcast would be getting over a million listeners a week. We look at the Apple Podcast charts, and in TV and film, it's Jon Stewart, NPR, and then us! That's just so surreal for us.
ESP: Did you imagine your podcast would be as successful as it is today?
Karam: We were both TV bloggers that when we started was like no one listens to podcasts. When I had just started, I was like, that's the dumbest thing ever. Then we would hang out and laugh so hard together, so we did it for free forever. Eventually, we made enough to work one day a week. It was just so gradual, and we were and are completely shocked and, of course, happy as hell.
ESP: What advice do you have for aspiring podcasters?
Mandelker: Aspiring podcasters should start right now. The longer you wait, that's more time for other podcasts to get going. You're not going to have your voice in the first ten episodes. So don't worry about it sounding like crap because it will sound like crap. But start doing it and start getting the practice. And make sure that once you start releasing episodes, release them consistently and become part of people's routines.
You can listen to the entire Watch What Crappens: 2022 Golden Crappies episode HERE and even watch the highlights and see for yourself.
Remember: We mock because we love. Ypu can find Watch What Crappens anywhere you get podcasts.