If you’re a podcast-lover, chances are you’ve been blasting the Toni & Ryan Podcast in your earholes for the better part of four years.
Since launching in 2021, the irresistibly charismatic hosts, Ryan Jon Dunn and Toni Lodge, have built a huge following off the back of their hilarious BFF dynamic — bringing listeners along as they dive deep into dating horror stories, share their hottest pop culture takes, and invite us into their long-running personal jokes.
If you feel a certain parasocial connection with the podcasting pair, as if you’re listening in on a personal gasbag, that’s because their IRL friendship really is that palpable. “We both find the same things funny. I think that we’re both really similar makes it so much easier,” Ryan told PEDESTRIAN.TV.
Toni agreed, saying the bestie vibes that emanate whenever they’re in front of the mic were built over time. “We genuinely didn’t know each other that well at the beginning. It’s been fun getting to know each other through that time,” she said, adding — like a true friend — that the real relationship began when they learned “what pisses each other off”.
While it might be a well-oiled machine now — boasting millions of monthly downloads and its very own fandom name of “TARPers” — the road to getting the Toni & Ryan Podcast off the ground wasn’t all easy-breezy. The COVID-borne podcast began as a side-hustle while the pair both worked in radio, but the nine-to-five grind left little room for the project to flourish.
Ryan told PEDESTRIAN.TV that they both knew the podcast would become “our main squeeze”, so they quit their day jobs and became their own bosses while pursuing the podcast. Now with a global audience and a recent win at the Webby Awards, the gambit clearly paid off.
“At the beginning I’d never not had several layers of bosses. It was hard to trust my own instincts. But we’ve been lucky that the choices we’ve made, we’ve been able to back ourselves rather than someone trying to control it,” Toni said.
But the shift outside of office hours at the same time as the podcast’s surging popularity came with growing pains. “It was really weird going from just friends to co-hosts, and now we’re business partners and have to do tax. Changing hats all the time was hard, but we’ve just gotten closer and I reckon you can tell,” Toni said.
Surfing what Toni called “the rising tide” of the podcast scene led the pair to this year’s Australian Open, where the podcast will have its very own M&M pop-up store despite neither of them being tennis players themselves. But don’t count Toni out just yet.
“I believed initially I was joining [the AO] as a player. Someone told me they have wildcards and I was like ‘that’s going to be me’,” Toni said, while Ryan joked she “did all the training to be a ball girl, even though we did not have to do that”.
So they’re not tennis stans, sure — but Toni and Ryan do know a thing or two about chocolate, and they’ll be giving it out (for free!) as part of the AO appearance.
“I do love a Peanut M&M, however they’ve just announced a Crunchy Cookie M&M. It is so new and so exclusive that I haven’t even had it yet,” Toni said.
On top of the treats, Toni and Ryan hosted a meet-and-greet at the AO, allowing TARPers to finally take the pair out of their earholes into the real world, all while basking in the courtside heat and trying (and failing) to recreate an ace.
“Remember to wear sunscreen when you’re at the AO and also stretch. You don’t want to pull anything,” Ryan said.
Watch PEDESTRIAN.TV’s full interview with the Toni & Ryan Podcast hosts below.
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