Ryan Lagod hails from the Bay Area and now lives in Los Angeles with his wife Tiffany and their two rad boys. A Willamette University grad with a degree in Sociology, he’s always been fascinated by human connection and the power of storytelling.
As an actor, you might see him on your TV screen from time to time—but his favorite role by far is being a dad (except at 4:30am…those early wake-ups are ROUGH!)
Before co-creating Storytime with Ryan & Craig, Ryan volunteered as a guest reader in elementary classrooms across L.A., where he saw just how powerful a funny voice, a silly face, and a good story could be for kids & teachers!
Inspired by his childhood and the influence of his parents and brother (a lifelong teacher), Ryan channels his creativity into content that entertains, educates, and makes kids laugh out loud. His work is fueled by his own kids, his partnership with his wife Tiffany (who perfectly balances encouragement with well-timed eye rolls), and a belief that laughter isn’t just the key to life—it’s the best way to learn.
A former basketball player, Ryan is a huge NBA fan and tries to catch games whenever he can, but often resorts to listening to podcasts about the NBA, usually when he gets woken up at 4:30AM…IT’S SO EARLY!
A writer, director, and actor originally from Paradise, CA, Craig Tovey now lives in Los Angeles with his daughter, Everly. His commitment to education led him to earn an M.A. in Communication from the University of Utah. His filmmaking began with his master's thesis, the 2013 documentary Our Mobile Lives, which examined the influence of cell phones on culture and relationships.
Craig honed his comedic talents at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, studying improv and sketch writing, and performed on stage for several years with his musical, rap improv team “Kaboombox.” He had a “blink-and-you’ll miss it” role opposite Amy Poehler on Parks & Rec S07 E01. He has directed and produced numerous short films and sketches that have been featured in various film festivals. As a commercial director at Omaze for over five years, he directed content featuring celebrities, comedy, and cars. His commercial portfolio includes work with notable figures such as Natalie Portman, Paul Rudd, Will Ferrell, and J.J. Watt, as well as brands like Old El Paso, Stove Top, Zelle, and IHOP.
Craig co-created Storytime with Ryan & Craig as a means of sharing stories and connecting with his fifteen nieces and nephews living scattered across the western United States. He is excited and passionate about music, education, and comedy and feels like his work with Ryan is a perfect fit.
Beyond his professional endeavors, Craig describes himself as an “entirely adequate” musical improviser, skateboarder, photographer, and guitarist. With an undefeated amateur boxing record (1–0) he chose to “quit while he was ahead,” and now spends his free time with friends and his daughter and is known for his dry humor, creative spirit, and the embarrassing use of a shoehorn.
Although that sounds like a party and we would love to, we just aren’t able to travel right now. We are busy shooting and editing new videos constantly and our families and young kids need us around! Maybe someday our situation will change and we can hit the road. Until then we suggest getting your school principal and gym teacher to dress up and do their best impression of us. They’re probably really good, give ‘em a shot!!!
Yes! We absolutely LOVE to see artwork, notes or whatever else your child wants to show us! Please send us a message through our contact us page and we’ll give you an address. (Because we currently don’t have a P.O. Box we don’t want to publish our addresses on our website)
Yes and No! Confused? We’ll explain. We are so flattered by the amount of messages we receive from parents, families and teachers who want Ryan & Craig to create a video for their special occasion. While we would love to be able to say “yes” to everyone, we unfortunately receive too many of these requests to be able to accommodate them fairly. Lots of people would get left out and that wouldn’t feel good. But all hope is not lost… read on!
If you want a personalized video message we have SuperShouts™ that you can book through our store! These are 60+ sec videos that can be customized to your liking! Check it out!
We love books so much! And a book from you would warm our hearts, but we can’t accept books right now. Permission and copyright is a huge challenge and when we had the Book Loan Program several years ago we got so immediately overwhelmed with books that the wait became 6+ months to get your book read. We just can’t handle it. But if we had three wishes from a genie, the third would be that we could read any children’s book that anyone wanted to send us. (The first and second being ending war/famine and curing cancer. Priorities!)
No, but we wish you heaps and piles of success! The truth is that it’s been shown through our past experience that our read-alouds of your book won’t result in book sales, a publishing deal, or a guest spot on Oprah. (Also because her show went off the air in 2011.) Also, we as a channel survive off of topics and book titles that are frequently searched for on YouTube. Keep going, we believe in you, and your ideas are rad!
It’s one of our favorite things to give shout-outs! It’s fun getting to know our fans and make them feel appreciated and seen.However, we are not doing shout-outs at the end of read-aloud episodes anymore. The list got above 1,000 very quickly and just kept growing and we simply cannot get through them all. And it feels crummy to be favoring some people with a shout-out and not others. They feel left out and that is the opposite of appreciated and seen. But…
If you want a personalized video message we have SuperShouts™ that you can book through our store! Trust us, these are WAY better than a regular “end-of-the-episode” shout-out.These are 60+ sec videos that can be customized and tailored directly to YOU! Check it out!
We think so! Did you enter your email address correctly? If so, then YES, we got it. We are still at the point thankfully where we can read all our emails!But we’re also at the point where we can’t respond to every single one the way we’d like to. But know this, no joke, your email literally keeps us going. They make us laugh, make us cry, and if it weren’t for our fans reaching out we would have given up a long time ago, so… THANK YOU! And please keep writing to us! We need it. It’s just the two of us managing it all so either Ryan or Craig or BOTH of us are reading your email.
Yes! We are doing Classic Stories that are read-alouds of traditional fairytales, fables and myths. Our Book Reviews offer engaging, detailed retellings of popular stories accompanied by our review. And for our Patreon subscribers, the “Ryan & Craig Reading Crew” we do exclusive monthly read-alouds. So head over there and join to get access to our library of these bonus videos AND our archive of ALL our read-alouds that have ever been on YouTube
Yes! We read every message sent from our Contact page. Looking forward to hearing from you!
