Episode 104: My Infamous Radio Program; Beanie Babies 30th Birthday; Top 5 Creature Feature B-Movies; Madawaska, ME(7-19-2023)

Episode 104 is a return to the full-length format. It begins with a story that needed to be told.
For a time, a very brief time, I was part of a show on a college radio station. That was ten years ago. What was the show about? Who was a part of it? Why did it only last a short time? All of that will be revealed in hilarious detail.
Wanna get away? Well this week's Road Trip will take you to the furthest reaches of New England. We will escape the crowds and visit the beautiful small town of Madawaska, Maine located right on the Canadian border. It is not the middle of nowhere, but you do have to go through the middle of nowhere to get there. 
Investments involve risk. Some investments like Apple, Google, Microsoft, and others look like can't miss with hindsight. Beanie Babies were thought to be a similar investment opportunity. Cute, plush, affordable, and collectible. Beanie Babies were the first internet sensation. Incredibly it was 30 years ago when the pellet-filled stuffed animals first debuted. We go way Back In the Day to look at the Beanie fad and whether any of them actually ended up being valuable.
This week's Top 5 is near and dear to my 80s Child's heart. We will look at some of the greatest Creature Feature B-Movies. Legendary monsters, iconic special effects, maybe not completely, but these films have a special place in my heart and likely many people my age.
There is also a brand new This Week In History and Time Capsule featuring the grand opening of Disneyland.
Find more content on YouTube, support the podcast if you want and Buy Me A Coffee!

Helpful Links from this Episode

• The Lady of the Dunes.com
• Purchase My New Book Cape Cod Beyond the Dunes!
• Kiwi's Kustoms - Etsy
• DJ Williams Music
• KeeKee's Cape Cod Kitchen
• Christopher Setterlund's YouTube Channel
• Christopher Setterlund.com
• The In My Footsteps Podcast Blog
• Town of Madawaska

Listen to Episode 103 here.

Transcript

Intro

Hello world and welcome to the in my footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod Massachusetts.
This is episode 104, the first full-length episode back since the hiatus of the podcast.
And we've got a lot of fun stuff to talk about this week.
We're going to go back 10 years as I do a little story time sharing that brief moment
in history when I was part of a college radio show. Some names have been changed to protect the innocent. We're going to take a road trip as far north as we can go into England to the small town of Madawaska Maine on the Canadian border.
We're going to go way, way back in the day and look at what it was like when the beanie
babies were created and released 30 years ago and the fad that came from them.
There's going to be a brand new top five that are the top five creature feature B movies.
And of course, there'll be a brand new this week in history and time capsule all coming
up right now on episode 104 of the in my footsteps podcast.
Welcome in everybody. We are firmly in the throes of summer hot and humid.
The podcast is back up and running. I hope wherever you are the weather is great and you're getting to enjoy some summer and hopefully you're taking the podcast with you as well. Thank you to everybody who tuned in last week to episode 103.
That was the return episode. It's a great companion to episode 102.
If you listen to them back to back, I basically explained why I was putting the podcast on
hiatus and then why I was bringing it back. And they both have aloha in the subtitle because in Hawaiian that can mean hello or goodbye.
So as I mentioned last week on the podcast and I'll kind of reiterate it again. I don't know if there's going to be any imminent changes to the podcast. There may be slight little ones here and there. I mentioned possibly doing some kind of a Facebook fan group if that ever becomes a thing. Also, my hosting platform buzz sprout they're starting to do subscriptions for podcasts. I'm debating that as I already have the buy me a coffee site. But if people are interested in subscriptions kind of like Patreon, let me know because then I'll have to start to think of bonus content and such that I can create because as great as it would be to get people to subscribe and donate whatever amount monthly. I don't want to do that without having something I can give in return.
One thing I've thought about and maybe this will happen is during the hiatus I re-edited
several of my original ebooks. These were from 2008 to 2011 before I had an actual book deal and my writing has evolved quite a bit in those years. But what I was thinking of doing was possibly turning those into audiobooks, especially the shorter ebooks, and maybe having those as subscriber-only things I don't know. That's something new to me that and sponsors and advertisers and such for the podcast. That's all stuff I'm starting to look into. But I'm in no rush for any of that. I just am enjoying kind of getting back on the horse when it comes to the podcast. But if anyone out there has ideas and such you can always message me through whatever social media or email Christopher Setterlund at gmail.com. I really appreciate all of you that have stuck with the podcast, listened from the beginning, or come along during the hiatus. And I've got a lot of fun stuff coming up in the weeks and months ahead. So why don't we start it off right now and kick off the first full-length episode of the podcast since January. We're going to do it with some fun storytime. I've never told this story in full before. So forgive me if it's not really well organized, but it's full of laughs and it's all reality. Let's dive right on into 10 years ago and my brief very brief college radio show coming up right now on episode 104 of the in my footsteps podcast.

My Infamous Radio Show

All right, it's story time everybody. I figured what better way to kick off the first full-length episode of the podcast in six months than by sharing a crazy story.
And this here for you folks, this is probably the first time that I've ever gone in-depth
about this story. You might find me rambling. I may have to pause a few times to laugh.
Starting off, so podcasts for all intents and purposes, they're radio shows, unless you do
video as well, but you still have audio when I was a kid growing up in the early 1990s,
my friends and I made our own radio shows. We tried to make them like variety shows.
And the whole thing with making those radio shows, that's another podcast segment in its own. I'll go into detail about that some other time. Needless to say from the time I was 13, I liked doing radio programs, expressing my creativity, hence why the podcast is here. This story is about the one time that I was part of a radio show that I didn't create
and kind of have control over it like I do with the podcast. Flashback 10 years to 2013.
This story stars two other friends. Those of you that know me might know them, but we'll call them Ro and Mo. And if they're listening, yeah, I'm talking about you.
Ro had a radio show on the local college station Cape Cod Community College.
Her show was Sunday nights, I believe, from 6 to 8, and it was called Somos to Mundo, or we are your world. Ro was a friend of ours. We all knew each other through a little gym click that we had. There were a whole bunch of cool people in that, the 500 mafia we called ourselves. At one point there were probably a dozen members of that group, but we would all hang out, and at some point, I don't know how it came up, but Ro asked us to think about maybe doing a special segment on one of her shows.
I think it would help kind of take the pressure off her from doing two hours on her own.
I believe we all got together at a local 99 restaurant or something to discuss show prep,
what we would do, because it had to be something that we enjoyed talking about, but that also would fit in with Ro's show. I believe it came up that Mo and I were both single at the time, so we decided to talk about relationships. We figured it would be a fun and lighthearted type of way to look at relationships in general because we also figured it would be a way to stir up a conversation to maybe get people to call into the show if we ask questions about relationships and such. So it was settled that our segment of the show would be seven to seven thirty, and it was Sunday nights. The three of us would be in the studio and we would just do our thing. When trying to come up with a name for our show, our segment, we were trying to think of something fun and catchy that would also describe what we were going to talk about and that did not end up happening.
I think we came up with the name of the show while we were out at a bar having some drinks, and we just started talking about bad experiences with dating and/or relationships. And as it did so many times with Mo and myself, because we had very similar personalities, it devolved into just foolish jokes. So we talked about getting drunk and waking up next to someone the next morning and just shaking your head like, "Oh God, that's why I don't usually drink." That ended up at the beginning being the name of our segment. You tell me if that sounds like about lighthearted with relationships. That's why I don't usually drink. It makes it sound like we were going to talk about horrible dating and sex stories. I believe that ended up becoming the subtitle of our show, which we called "Beer Goggles," which is not that much different.
Because the whole term "Beer Goggles" is that the more you drink, the more attractive
someone looks to you because you're just inebriated. So it's like a kinder way of saying the same thing. We decided we also needed theme music to intro ourselves, and Rose said we had our pick of any song we wanted. I don't know how the hell we ended up with "Heaven" by Sugar Ray as our lead-in song. I can't play you any because of copyright, but if you pause this and go listen, it's not that it's a bad song. I guess it's just not what I would have picked. So we had our topic, our name, and our theme music.
You'd think we'd be ready to go on day one, but when I tell you this was chaos every week, I'm not kidding. I don't know if Ro assumed that Mo and I just knew what we were doing with radio shows, or if she was just focusing on her own stuff and throwing us to the wolves, but we had to figure a lot of stuff out on the fly. Ro was in control of the control panel and such, but Mo and I were the ones that had to put everything together.
We had to take our notes, get our intros ready. I was definitely not as polished as I sound right now. We put together an ad that I shared all over social media.
I would share it on Facebook to have people call in with the phone number and such.
I was nicknamed CJ, Mo was nicknamed Maya, and Ro, she was just herself.
I believe all in all we did four episodes. That'll tell you how well this went.
There was one episode on why a gentleman is an endangered species, one on the history of romance, one on what women wished men knew and one on what men wished women knew. So it all sounds pretty good. We were not well organized as much as I'm trying to put a positive spin on it. There was at least one time when the Sugar Ray song was playing us in that Mo and Ro were arguing and yelling at each other.
And I can't even remember what it was about, but I'm sitting there with my notes and Sugar Ray is playing and they're yelling at each other and I'm just holding my head in my hands like God, what have I gotten into? Mo and I had some good banter back and forth because we were good friends and we got along well. But because Ro didn't take it as seriously I think as Mo had hoped, it started devolving into more of a comedy routine.
I can remember one time that Mo, I don't know if she bought a CD of sound effects or if
it was there. But we were doing one of our episodes and she was more concerned with playing sound effects during the episode. We're talking about a laugh track, toilets flushing, sirens going by and I'm thinking to myself, God, I hope that nobody's listening because it sounds like either a bunch of 13-year-olds, like stuff I would have made when I was a kid or it sounds like they've got a live hookup at a nut house. I apologize to anyone who listened if they took any advice we gave on the show. We would always ask for people to call in, I think we got one phone call in one episode and I wish I could remember who that person was. There'd be commercial breaks during the show and in those breaks, Mo and Ro just argue. They were really good friends but they butted heads a lot. A couple of times we had other friends from our 500 mafia click they'd come into the studio and just sit there. I've been trying to get in touch with the people at Cape Cod Community College to see if there were any recordings of those shows.
I don't know if they were so bad that the people just deleted them right after or if it's
just something that a college radio station talk show they don't save the archives.
It was definitely a learning experience when it comes to working with others on a project. I think that's part of the reason why this podcast is typically me by myself and if I do any interviews I choose who it is. There's no relying on anyone else because Mo and I had a good idea for the lighthearted relationship show but when it became obvious that it wasn't going to be taken as seriously as we wanted we both kind of lost interest.
We didn't go over the top and start swearing on the air. I know Ro said that to us.
Please don't swear on the air because I'll get in trouble. I don't know if we ever use that as a threat. Like you better do a better job promoting us or we'll just start swearing.
I'd like to say that show Beer Goggles was an influence on this podcast but God that
would be a terrible thing to say for me now. Looking back 10 years on it. I've got so many fond memories I just laughed thinking about the fact that we actually were
on the radio producing our own show. I don't know what our audience was but the idea that the show came through a night of drinking that we'd argue right up until show time sounds actually like a real radio show drama behind the scenes and then it was just over Mo and I just decided now that's it and we I don't think we ghosted row we told her we weren't going to do it anymore so it wasn't like we were supposed to be there and we just didn't show up. It ended up becoming more of a hassle than it was fun. But did any of you out there ever hear any of those episodes or do you listen to college radio and those shows like what's the audience for that? If sometime I find the archives for that show I will post them but as of right now there's nothing left of that beer goggle show but my memories and a couple of photos of us in the studio and I laugh at it when I look at it.

Road Trip: Madawaska, Maine

Want to get away?
It's the middle of summer, tourist season. I know in Cape Cod we are filled to the brim with people and it's fun as it is to have that busy summer season at times.
Sometimes you want to just go far off the beaten path and this week's road trip we're
going to go as far north as we can while still staying in New England. We're going to go all the way up to the Canadian border and the small town of Madawaska, Maine.
Madowaska is part of Aroostook County in northern Maine as of the 2020 census.
It had a population of 3,867 people and I'm not saying Madowaska is in the middle of
nowhere but I will say driving north through Maine you have to go through the middle of nowhere to get to it. So just how far north is Madawaska? Let me put it to you like this. If you were in Boston it would take you longer to drive to Madawaska Maine than it would take you to drive to Washington DC. DC is closer to Boston than Madawaska.
DC is 440 miles south of Boston. Madowaska is 450 miles north of Boston. It is so far north that is 200 miles southeast of Quebec City Canada. So if you go to Madawaska drive west you're going to go right into Canada. So bring your passport just in case.
So much of northern Maine is uninhabited and just forest filled with moose and other animals that you can feel like you're in a whole other time and place if you're driving north to Madawaska. And naturally being in far far northern New England the winters there can be long and brutal. They average 96 inches of snow annually and if you love snow and traveling through snow that's great you can go up there any time of year but if you want to drive into northern Maine and feel safe and confident that your vehicle is going to make it you might want to go this time of year, summer, July, August.
And you would think being the furthest north point in New England that they would have the record coldest temperature for the region but that's actually not true.
That belongs to the town of Allagash which is an hour west of Madawaska. They had a record low temperature of 50 degrees below zero and that was on the big black river
which is about 20 miles south of the center of town and that temperature occurred in January of 2009. But like those old southwest airlines commercials used to say you want to get away. Well if you go to Madawaska you're going to get away you're going to be so far removed from city life. A big attraction in Madawaska and maybe the first thing you should check out when you go there is Four Corners Park. It's at 213 West Main Street and Madawaska Four Corners dot org. The park is dedicated to long-distance motorcycle rides and it's Four Corners because it's one of the Four Corners of the United States. The other three corners of the United States according to the sign at the park are Key West Florida to the south, San Ysidro, California, and Blaine Washington. So if you want to visit all Four Corners of the United States. Madawaska is known for a thriving paper industry along the St. John River. Interestingly I said a minute ago that Northern Maine is highly uninhabited. Well, the Upper St. John River passes 130 miles without passing one single settlement. So you imagine kayaking on that and getting in trouble. The big mill is the Twin Rivers Paper Company at 82 Bridge Avenue. They have several other locations as well throughout the United States and they're also at Twin Rivers Paper dot com. I have no idea if they do tours or anything when you go up there or if the best you're going to get is standing outside the factory taking pictures of it. If you do have a passport and you go all the way up to Madawaska since you're right on the St. John River you're going to be able to see across to Canada.
The town directly across the bridge is Edmondston not to be confused with Edmonton and that's in the province of New Brunswick. I always find it interesting that in these little towns that are way removed from the bigger city life I guess you're still always going to find a Family Dollar store there. I think they just must be cheap to open and have high profits because everything they sell is low cost. But if you open up Google Maps and look at Madawaska there's Family Dollar. There was a time a few years ago I was driving around Central New Hampshire. Another kind of in the middle of nowhere area. Beautiful rural rolling hills and green and all of a sudden coming up on the right on
this little rural road was a Family Dollar and it was interesting because it was just this
family dollar by itself in amongst the rural trees and such not even part of a strip mall
or part of a business district. I don't know why that always sticks out to me but if you're going to drive all the way north to Madawaska main you're probably not going to do a day trip. I know that if I was to drive from where I am now on Cape Cod up to the center of Madawaska Maine I'm looking at almost eight and a half hours so yeah I'm going to look to stay overnight. There are a few options in town but probably the best one to check out is the Inn of Acadia at 384 St. Thomas Street. They've got all the comforts of a big-time hotel but they're nestled right there in a rural area right on the Canadian border. They're at Inn of Acadia.com as well so you can see what I'm talking about.
There are beautiful views of the St. John Valley when you get there. The hotel itself it's a mix of luxury and comfort. There are 21 rooms including four kitchen suites.
You can dine at the Inn of Acadia restaurant and lounge and because they're so far north right on the Canadian border they have a bilingual staff that speaks English and French. Of course, they have wifi and a gym, and like I said they have their own restaurant in the hotel but if you're looking to get out and explore Madawaska and I think it's a very walkable town specifically in the summer when it's warmer.
You can grab a bite at Big Ricks Burgers and Wings. They're at 284 Main Street.
It's basically a five-minute walk from the Inn of Acadia. It overlooks Bridge Street which then overlooks the St. John River into Canada. Check out Big Rick's Facebook page.
That's what you think it is Burgers and Wings great comfort food. They've got classic soup and salad appetizers like corn dogs and mac and cheese bites, build your own burgers, subs sandwiches all that stuff. And like I've said so many times with these road trip segments when you get to a place whether it's Madawaska whether it's somewhere else let your car or let your feet take you because I may mention some places to visit but there's no better feeling than you going somewhere driving and finding some out of the way place. Whether it's looking for mom-and-pop shops walking along Main Street trying to find little secret paths to the water at the St. John River or even driving a little bit south into that untamed wilderness and just seeing kind of what this country was long before civilization. So while so many places in New England in this country along the coast are just flooded with people this time of year and I know Cape Cod is if you're looking for something different a chance to enjoy yourself but also get away from huge crowds take a drive up north through that untamed main wilderness to the town of Madawaska. Visit townofmadawaska.com it's got everything you could possibly need to know about this town and why you should go there even though it's far away from most places. Like I said it's 8 and a half hours from me but sometimes those trips are the ones that are the most memorable and if you still want to get away I've got so many more places and on my next road trip I will share one of the hundreds and hundreds of beautiful cities and towns and villages that are in the 6 New England states and beyond so get out there and enjoy and explore.

This Week In History/Time Capsule

This week in history we are going back 68 years to July 17th 1955 and the opening of Disneyland in Anaheim, California. Amusement parks and summertime go hand in hand but back in 1955 Walt Disney's combination of fantasy in the future and nostalgia it was something that people hadn't seen before. The park was built on 160 acres that were formerly orange groves and cost a total of $17 million adjusted for inflation to 2023 that's about $193 million. Disney is one of the largest and most beloved companies in the world today. Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy and countless movies, Snow White, Pinocchio, Bambee, Dumbo. When Walt Disney got the idea for a theme park in the early 1950s he wanted it to be educational as well as fun.
Interestingly when it first opened the park was not ready for how popular it was going to be so there were special passes sent out to people for that opening day on July 17th but some people counterfeited those tickets so thousands of extra people ended up showing up. There was not enough food or drinks and the Mark Twain steamboat nearly capsized from having too many people on board so it wasn't a total disaster but it was definitely not how Disney wanted to open his park. Some of the initial rides and attractions from Disneyland when it opened were Snow White's Adventures, Mr Toads, Wild Ride, the Castle, Jungle Cruise, Stage Coach, Space Station X1 and so many special attractions and events that kept drawing people back over and over again.
Then after that, the success of Disneyland prompted the construction of Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Plans were started in 1965 and Walt Disney died the following year. It was eventually opened in 1971 and is easily Florida's biggest tourist attraction. In 1983 there was Disneyland Tokyo, 1992 there was Euro Disney which was mixed results and then Disneyland in Hong Kong in 2005. Today Disney Land is unbelievably popular. It hosts an average of more than 18 million visitors every year who spend about $3 billion so despite that rough opening day it's safe to say Disneyland has been a huge success. And the theme park empire of Disney began 68 years ago this week in history.
And now it's time for a brand new time capsule. We're gonna go forward a few years to July 18th, 1960, 63 years ago. Let's see what was happening in the world of pop culture.
The number one song was "I'm Sorry" by Brenda Lee. This song was off of Brenda Lee's self-titled album and she was only 15 years old when this song went to number one.
The song was actually held back for several months by her record company because they worried that a 15-year-old girl might not be mature enough to sing about unrequited love. And even when it was finally released it was considered to be the B side to the more up-tempo song 'that's all you gotta do'. But nothing could stop the success of "I'm Sorry" and it ended up going all the way to number one.
The number one movie was "The Bellboy" and a ticket would get you in for 51 cents.
This is a slapstick comedy starring Jerry Lewis who is a mute bellboy at a luxurious Miami beach hotel and he's constantly causing trouble with his clumsy mistakes.
The film is 73% fresh on rotten tomatoes and also served as Jerry Lewis's directorial
debut. It made more than $10 million at the box office though I don't know what the budget was so I don't know how huge of a success it was.
The number one TV show was "The Democratic National Convention". This was where Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy received the nomination with Lyndon B. Johnson as his vice president and running mate. It was watched by more than 16 million people or about 37% of American homes. And interestingly the following week it was the Republican National Convention that was the number one TV show, watched by just over 35% of American homes so just slightly less but still number one.
And if you were around back then, July 18th, 1960 driving around on Cape Cod heading through Falmouth and you needed some milk you could stop at Cumberland Farms before it was a famed convenience store. It was a dairy store, jug milk and you could get a half gallon of milk from Cumberland Farms for 41 cents or a full gallon for 79 cents.
I just find it fascinating that Cumberland Farms used to be a jug milk store. And as you know, drinking milk on a hot summer day is sure great for you if Will Ferrell taught us anything in Anchorman. That will wrap up another time capsule, another this week in history. Now it's time for a new top five that is near and dear to my heart.
As we look at classic creature feature B movies, boys that were growing up that were around my age maybe a little older. You'll remember all of these. So let's dive into a brand new top five right now.

Top 5: Creature Feature B-Movies

This week's top five is going to be something that gets me right in the feels. Yeah, I know I choose these topics, but I don't think I could have picked a better one to start back up with. Then a look at the top five creature feature B movies.
Ah yes, creature features. As a child of the 80s, I grew up on Svengoolie and the creature feature W L V I 56. The only thing better than the creature feature was the creature double feature. These were typically Saturday afternoons, which is where I became acquainted with all of the movies that I'm going to talk about. B movie is a term most people think of from the 1950s. I think most of these movies are from them, but it's a lower-budget film that would be the B side kind of of a double feature for those of you around my age and probably a little older. You'll have a lot of memories when I start bringing up these movies. And though it's not always this way, this week's top five is in no particular order. And if you're monster movie fans, I would recommend seeing all these movies, including the honorable mentions. So the honorable mentions for top five creature feature B movies include first, all Godzilla movies. I didn't want to not mention Godzilla at all, but Godzilla is the king of the monsters and he will get his own list and probably more in future episodes. Other honorable mentions include it came from Beneath the Sea and the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. So those were the honorable mentions. Let's get into the actual top five starting with number one Them!.
This movie itself is what got me thinking of doing this top-five list. This movie came out in 1954 and is about a colony of mutant ants. It takes place in New Mexico and the ants have been mutated from nuclear tests from the decade before. This was in that atomic age where there was lots of fear of nuclear weapons. That's kind of that's where Godzilla came from. He was a product of nuclear weapons, so these tests were what created the race of mutant ants. And by today's standards obviously, the ants don't look great, but it's still a great movie. One of the original creature feature films that really stuck with me because you could watch this movie where the ants are killing people and then go outside and there's ants everywhere and you wonder if someday they're going to get huge and kill you. Number two is The Blob. This is the original 1958 movie starring Steve McQueen. It takes place in a small Pennsylvania town and a meteorite crashes and releases this blob. This is a kind of pinkish-orange gelatin and it starts devouring people, basically absorbing them and it can't be killed. They keep trying they electrocute it and obviously shooting it doesn't do anything. This movie was a big hit, it made $4 million on a budget of just over $100,000 and it spawned a remake in the late 1980s that was a lot more gory. That one's still good but I would stick with the original because it just has that classic 50s B movie feel to it. Number three is the creature from the Black Lagoon. Talk about another one that speaks to 10-year-old me. This movie came out in 1954 and I don't know if the creature from the Black Lagoon counts as much as a B movie because the Gillman monster that's kind of a humanoid amphibian is considered one of the classic universal monsters with Frankenstein Dracula, Wolfman, and the mummy. But I remember this movie being on the creature features all the time.
And for 1954 the makeup and the effects were really good for the Gill Man. The movie surrounds a geology expedition to the Amazon that ends up discovering this monster.
After the Gill Man kidnaps one of the members of the crew, it's eventually shot and killed or so you think because they ended up making two more sequels to it in the 1950s. Revenge of the creature in 1955 and the creature walks among us in 1956 so boy they milked that cash cow pretty quick. Number four is Mighty Joe Young.
This movie came out in 1949 and it was created by the same company RKO that did King Kong so it's another giant eight movie but Mighty Joe Young Joe the gorilla is big but he's not King Kong big. But his owner slash mother Jill Young brings him to Hollywood to try to make a fortune to save their family homestead. Joe the gorilla is only 12 feet tall which compared to the other monsters like King Kong I know he's small but at least this movie has a happy ending, unlike King Kong where Joe gets brought to Africa and lives happily ever after with his mother and her new love. The movie barely broke even at the theater but definitely became popular with kids of my generation thanks to the creature feature. And finally, number five on the list of top five creature feature B movies is the giant Gila Monster. Gila monster spelled G-I-L-A is a species of venomous lizard that's native to the Southwestern United States and Northwestern part of Mexico and this movie is about a giant one of those that terrorizes a Texas town although ironically the lizard used in the movie is not an actual gila monster which I just found out. This is another classic 50s B movie it came out in 1959 with a regular-sized lizard terrorizing through a model-scaled city. This was another movie just like Them! that really stuck with me from when I was a kid mainly because it's how I learned about a Gila monster. The movie is obviously B movie cheese but it's really fun and I definitely recommend you check it out. I recommend you check all these out. That wraps up the top five. Have you seen any of these classic creature feature B movies? Them!,  The Blob, the creature from the black lagoon, mighty Joe Young, the giant Gila monster, or have you at least seen any Godzilla movies and I'm talking about the classic ones from back in the day where you knew it was a guy in a rubber suit believe me Godzilla will get at least a segment on this podcast coming up but there you have it a nice trip into the fields for boys my age maybe a little older as we looked back at some classic creature feature B movies who knows what kind of fond memories I'll bring up with my next top five.

Beanie Babies 30th Birthday

There are some investment opportunities that one looks back on wishing they had gotten in on the bottom floor if you could have bought some stock in Apple or Microsoft or Netflix or Amazon you'd be sitting pretty today. The vast majority of investments do not pan out they do not pay off. So we're going to go way way back in the day and not look at some of those great investments, we're going to go back and look at what people thought was going to be a good investment and definitely turned out not to be as we look back 30 years at the creation of Beanie babies and the unbelievable fad that came from them. It's hard to believe that it's been 30 years since Beanie Babies were first released. Now when I say that we go back 30 years is when they were first launched at the world toy fair in February 1993.
Beanie babies are small stuffed plush toys stuffed with little pellets like a bean bag.
They were created by a man named H. Ty Warner and his brand was Ty. Ty Warner had actually founded his tie incorporated in 1986 so it took several years before he got to the Beanie Babies. They were a hit at that world toy fair in New York City and manufacturing began the following year in 1994. These Beanie babies would be all different kinds of animals. There were nine original Beanie babies that were first sold in stores located in and around Chicago Illinois. They were Legs the frog, squeal or the pig, spot the dog, flash the dolphin, splash the whale, Chocolate the moose, Patty the platypus, brownie the bear and Pinchers the lobster. Now I said at the top of the segment about good investment opportunities and bad investment opportunities.
Beanie Babies became the first really viral internet sensation in late 1995 because the Beanie babies were cute they were small they were affordable $5. Some people saw them as an investment opportunity like they were going to gain value in particular
when there were misprints. So for example, pinches the lobster there were some tags that had misspelled it was punchers. So right there if you could find yourself a lobster that had the name Punchers and not Pinchers naturally you're going to think it's worth more and it would be true if you had some that were different colors or had the error in the name they were collector's items. I believe it was later in 96 or early 97 when the Beanie babies really broke through. In the area where I am, they were in little gift shops maybe small local toy stores. Probably a display by itself kind of a rounded table with a few layers of shelves with the huge Ty branding with the heart tag that had the name of that Beanie baby inside in its story. That was a big part of the collector's items was you needed to have the tags on them and they made tag protectors but for as cute as these toys were it was basically 97 when they started retiring them that was when the buying craze and the investment took off all and all since their initial release with the original nine in 1994 there have been 822 different Beanie babies as far as different animals and names. And if you were around back then when the craze was really out of control you know how it was in stores people were buying a dozen of the same one and then selling a few on eBay. That's the thing Beanie Babies and ebay kind of came up together and it ended up getting to be kind of a skill where you figure out which Beanie babies were in line to be retired you try to find them as best you could. Some people bought these and put them away like they were going to be their retirement fund or kids' college fund. That's how much they thought these Beanie babies were going to be valued. I'm not going to stand here and look down my nose at people that did that because, in my mother's basement, I have this big gray plastic tote that's got dozens and dozens of Beanie babies that I bought. I can't remember if when I was collecting them 25 years ago if I thought they were going to be my retirement fund but I think part of me was kind of like I'd rather have them, and have them not be worth millions of dollars, than to be looking back wishing I had done it. The Beanie Baby universe expanded to Beanie buddies that were larger. McDonald's had their giveaway the teeny beanies. Those people would go nuts over. There were special ones for graduation for New Year's with specific dates and specific years on them that would make them more valuable. I'm not going to lie some of these are worth money will get into that in a few minutes but the hardcore collectors know which ones are mint or near mint Beanie
babies first and second-generation tags that are in mint condition or more valuable. It's
similar to baseball card collecting where the Beanie Babies are graded. It was madness when these things were at their peak go on YouTube and look up Beanie baby craze and see if you can find videos from the news. I don't think people would beat each other up like black Friday but it was pretty intense like I said a minute ago there are some of these that are valuable the vast vast majority are not worth barely anything more than probably what people paid for them at the time but I did find a website Luxe.digital that has the list of the most valuable Beanie babies in case you were wondering in case you want to go look in your attic to see if you have any of these. Number one is the princess bear. Diana the princess bear was for Princess Diana was released in October 1997 it's very rare. The very rare original release can fetch up to $500,000 but even the first pressing I guess of these bears in mint condition can still fetch up to $15,000. We'll do the top five. The princess bear was number one, number two is Bubbles the Fish which is yellow and black it was released in 1995 and retired in 1997. The bubbles the fish that have tag errors can fetch up to $129,000 but they're rare obviously. Three is an ultra-rare one Picadilly attic which is like a clown bear that was released and retired in 1993. I'd never even heard of this thing. If you have one or can find one you can get up to $125,000 for Picadilly attic the clownish-looking bear. Four is Batty the Bat that had Velcro wings. It was released in 1997. Again this comes down to tag errors on this beanie baby which is retired. If you can find one with the tag errors they could be worth as much as $125,000. Fifth is Jolly the Walrus with the full walrus mustache this kind of purplish-gray in color. It was released in 1997 and retired after a year. It's another rare one if you have it you could fetch up to $75,000 for it now. Remember what I said earlier in this segment there were more than eight hundred beanie babies that were have been made in the time since they were first released thirty years ago. I named you five right there that are really valuable and there are some more another dozen two dozen that are valuable that leaves you in the neighborhood of seven hundred and fifty or more that are not valuable. Even if you have some of these rare ones if they're damaged you're not going to get the full money you think for them the beanie baby fad faded away in the early 2000s. I think people started to realize that they were not going to be as valuable as they hoped. They still make nice toys I don't want to have this segment be talking about how beanie babies were supposed to be this huge money-making opportunity and they weren't because they were fun toys fun collectibles. Hell there's a shamrock bear little Irish one I bring it to all of my book events because it kind of represents my Grampa like he's there with me still at these events. So even if they weren't the investment opportunity that people hoped there are some that whole sentimental value I have a beanie baby at all of my events. I'm just lucky that I didn't spend thousands and thousands of dollars on them in the hopes that I would make millions I never went that crazy where I would spend a paycheck getting all of these different beanies. What about you? Were you there for the beanie baby craze? Did you buy any? I highly doubt it, but did any of you make money off of them? Or hopefully not lose money like a ton of money on them? They're definitely an important part of pop culture over the last 30 years becoming that first internet sensation and kind of breaking through along with eBay they went hand in hand. Maybe I'll have to
go back into my mom's basement and open up that gray tote and see if I have any of these valuable ones. Maybe I'll be singing a different tune in a future episode if I find some valuable beanie baby. You never know right?


Closing

Well that's gonna do it. That will wrap up episode 104 of the in my footsteps podcast. I was able to keep my cardio up to get through the full episode. Didn't need a water break or Gatorade. I hope you enjoyed it thank you so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed the episode or if you enjoy the podcast in general please share anywhere you want to. If you want to support the podcast link in the description you can buy me a coffee. Anything I get goes back towards advertising the podcast kind of growing the brand. As I said at the top of the show if you think that subscriptions are something that you'd be interested in or sponsors are advertising let me know. There are so many places I can take this podcast and want to take this podcast but we're also just going week by week. If you want to reach out you can find me all over social media I have a Facebook fan page the in my footsteps podcast I'm still on Twitter currently but I'm one of the tens of millions that have switched over to the threads app as well. If you haven't been on threads it's through Meta, Zuckerberg, Facebook, Instagram. It reminds me it's like Twitter with an Instagram twinge which I really enjoy but I'm over there as well. Go subscribe to my YouTube channel I've got hundreds of videos the Lady of the Dunes documentary by Frank Durant is on my YouTube channel. All the times I talked about it in the interviews with him you can now go check that documentary out on my page visit my home website Christopher Settlerlund.com it's got links to almost all of my books searching for the Lady of the Dunes is up there. You heard me talk about the process of creating that book over the last couple of years you can now buy your own copy of it. Ebook, physical paperback, you heard me mention it last week I put so much effort
into that book so I really hope you all check it out. I want to wish a little late happy birthday to my stepfather Serpa that's his last name his first name is Chris just like me. We have the same initials. By the time this podcast goes live, I'll know if you have had a happy birthday or not but I hope that you do and you did thank you for being such an
important male role model in my life over the last over 25 years. It's funny when I wrap
up these podcasts, I always have certain notes I want to hit places for you to find me
any shout-outs I want to give to people and of course previewing next week's episode. I
have it all laid out and then I always feel like I'm forgetting something many are the
times that I'm recording this podcast I will pause when I'm doing this segment and
sit and think who else can I talk about what other places do I want people to find me but
I guess that's what social media is for to update. Speaking of next week episode 105
this is another one I've wanted to do for a while it's going to be an episode all about
what I thought was cool when I was growing up. So this is not a list of my likes this is
a list of things that if I thought that I liked, and showed people I liked, it would
make the cool kids be my friend. Don't get me wrong the vast majority of these things
I actually liked in my real life but when I looked at my list of stuff and we'll go over
all of it next week these were the things that I thought the cool kids liked and did. My cutoff is getting into high school, not stuff now, but what I thought was cool growing
up. That's coming up next week on episode 105 of the podcast. As we wrap up here remember to take time for your own mental health and your peace of mind. Nothing is more important than that. The only thing you owe to others is being the best version of yourself and the happiest version of yourself. I've said it a million times do what makes you happy. If it's not hurting anyone else then who cares what they think? Be you, be true to yourself and make time for those that make time for you. Remember in this life don't walk in anyone else's footsteps, create your own path and enjoy every moment you get because each moment could be the last moment. You don't want to live with regrets. Thank you so much for tuning into episode 104 of the podcast. Whatever you do this week have fun make it good be safe. I'll be back next week. This has been the In My Footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund, and I'll talk to you all again soon.