In My Footsteps: A Gen-X Nostalgia Podcast

Episode 128: The World of MS-DOS Computer Games; Pro Wrestling at Cape Cod's Mill Hill Arena; Defunct Fast Food Chains; Black Dahlia Murder(1-17-2024)

• Christopher Setterlund • Season 1 • Episode 128

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An AI Therapist? A Pixelated Talking Parrot? Ruining the Lives of Sims? These are just a few of the possibilities one could have found 30 years ago during the rise of the MS-DOS computer game. Episode 128 of the podcast will reminisce about some legendary titles that helped pave the way for the modern wonders of gaming.
Mill Hill in West Yarmouth on Cape Cod was a haven of entertainment for nearly a century. The Mill Hill Club is the most well-known establishment while the Mill Hill Pavilion was the original. Sandwiched in between was a spot that was both a novelty and a success story. The Mill Hill Arena spent nearly 40 years supplying Cape Cod with world-class professional wrestling and amateur boxing. Learn its story this week.
When it comes to fast food, not all chains are created equally. For every McDonald's and Wendy's that has become ingrained in society, countless others might have had success but ultimately faded away. This week's Top 5 looks at discontinued fast food chains. Whether as big as any chain ever, a relative flash in the pan, or too ahead of its time, many different roads led to these chains ending.
There is also a brand new This Week In History and Time Capsule featuring one of the most infamous crimes of the 20th century. The Black Dahlia murder was equal parts sad and gruesome, and surprisingly Elizabeth Short has a connection to New England.
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Speaker 01:

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, and this is episode 128. This week's show is going to warm you up during the coldness of winter, running the gamut of topics, kicking it off with a look back at a forgotten Cape Cod gem, an outdoor arena where they held professional wrestling and amateur boxing, the Mill Hill Arena, not the club, the arena. We're going to go way, way back in the day and revisit some classic MS-DOS computer games, some See how many of these you played growing up. There's going to be a brand new top five that are the top five discontinued fast food chains. Did you eat at any of these? And there'll be a brand new This Week in History and Time capsule focused around the horrific, infamous Black Dahlia murder. All of that and more coming up right now on episode 128 of the In My Footsteps podcast. So here we are, middle of January. So we have dog days of summer. Are there dog days of winter? Where it's the point that you can't remember when it was fall and spring still seems so far off? New England has been getting some snow, but Cape Cod, because we stick out into the ocean, snowstorms are rarer down here. We're a place that gets slush or rain when other places get snow. Or it goes the opposite way and we get ocean effect snow where it's sunny off Cape and we're getting blasted. But how has winter been treating all of you wherever you're listening from right now? An interesting, fun little story. First world problems. As I've mentioned before, I bought a brand new laptop, an excellent one. It really runs well. It's fast, a lot more storage. So it's been excellent making videos there, editing videos and such. When recording the podcast on it, though, I've noticed I have issues with my microphone. This one I'm speaking into now. And you might have noticed, I think it was last week's episode, there were a couple of segments where the sound would muffle every now and then randomly. And only when I was editing the podcast did I realize that there was an issue. So I was hooking my microphone into the laptop trying to figure out what the problem was. But I have a schedule and kind of a deadline to get these episodes done. So rather than fool around with the new laptop trying to figure out why this microphone is having an issue there, I hooked it into my old laptop. So now I have two laptops open with the microphone in one. I feel like a gamer that has multiple screens. That's why I say first world problems. Oh, I can't record my podcast on my new laptop yet. Well, I'll just use my old laptop. Boy, what a tough life. So there's a little behind the scenes for you. Thank you to everyone who's been tuning in and listening. Thank you to all of my Patreon subscribers. You can also subscribe on Buzzsprout. I still have my Buy Me a Coffee page, but I'm leaning heavily into the Patreon, trying to put more stuff up there for people that donate their money to my content. As I grow and evolve as a content creator, podcaster, etc., I'm always looking into what will get the most eyes and ears on my work. So coming up in the future, I don't know when, I might be altering the podcast a little more. As you've noticed, the road trip segments have been phased out and I might end up leaning a lot heavier into the 70s, 80s, 90s nostalgia, the Generation X, which I am, like that kind of timeframe because I love talking about topics like that from those time periods growing up. And I think a lot more people of my generation, my age, can relate to those types of nostalgia topics than can relate to my very specific Cape Cod-centric stories that are on a lot of these podcasts. So I'm noodling with how to do that, how to transition over to that. But it's all about growth and progress. And remembering back to my friend Patrick, who's the host of the True Crime Obsessed podcast, he switched up. He had an original podcast that he changed and became True Crime. And I'm not totally changing. I'm just evolving and leaning more into one of the segments that I like to talk about. But that's just a little heads up of something that might be happening late winter, early spring. So those of you that love nostalgia, you're going to get a whole lot more of it before some... Cape Cod specific nostalgia. We're going to take a look back now at a place that gets overlooked and is probably largely forgotten by a lot of Cape Coders since it's been gone for 60 years. So let's take a look at the former boxing and wrestling haven in West Yarmouth, Massachusetts that was the Mill Hill Arena right now. Current Cape Coders know the legend of it. Long time Cape Coders lived it. and bygone generations built it. If I mention Mill Hill in West Yarmouth, anyone who lives on the Cape or visited the Cape in the last 50 years will likely have one name that pops into their head, that being the Mill Hill Club. And why not? It's one of the most famous nightclubs ever on Cape Cod. Famous, infamous, whatever. But beyond the Mill Hill Club, there was so much more going on in that Mill Hill area. Some of you out there might have heard of the Old Mill Tavern that existed in the building that would eventually become the Mill Hill Club. Some of you might also have heard of the Mill Hill Pavilion, which catered to locals with entertainment in the days of Prohibition. However, what we're going to talk about now is another spot that might have faded into the annals of time. It existed for nearly four decades and left countless Cape Codders standing and cheering. It was the Mill Hill Arena, and here's a little of its story. Long before the Cape Cod Melody Tent, long before the Cape Cod Coliseum, back in the days before alcohol was legal again, it was still important to find entertainment. Cape Cod in the 1920s, had a population hovering around 27,000 people. In comparison, the last year where I could find data, 2021, the year-round population was 228,000, roughly. So about 10 times as many. In those days, the 1920s, orchestral music, late-night dances, silent motion pictures, and baseball games occupied most of people's time. and the Mill Hill Pavilion, which was in that same West Yarmouth area, satisfied several of those activities. It also began to expand upon what was seen as entertainment. Coming into existence in 1917, the Mill Hill Pavilion was looking to branch out come the mid-1920s. It looked to amateur boxing. It also looked off-cape for the right person to put it all together. The man to bring boxing to Cape Cod and the Mill Hill Pavilion more specifically was Arthur Dutch Ayer. Dutch made his name north of Boston. He coached at Concord High School in New Hampshire and later directed the athletics department at Somerville High School. Ayer had experience in coaching baseball, basketball, and boxing, plying his trades at Norwich University in Vermont and Boston University as well. For Dutch, the timing was perfect. After winning four straight baseball championships at Somerville High, he was forced to resign in 1925 after having been found using an ineligible player. Having spent some time on Cape Cod, Ayer had an idea to bring amateur boxing to the peninsula starting in late 1926. The debut of boxing on Cape Cod was took place inside the walls of the Mill Hill Pavilion on November 2nd, 1926. Dutch Ayer enlisted the help of Jack Dodge to promote the amateur tournaments. The fights were sponsored by the newly formed Cape Cod Athletic Association. Four different weight classes had a series of bouts, with fighters coming from as far away as Boston and Worcester. That night was a rousing success, with several hundred tickets being sold. Subsequent tournaments were held around Thanksgiving in 1926. As marketable as the fights were inside the Mill Hill Pavilion, Dutch Ayer had bigger plans. He began construction after the turn of the new year on an open-air arena next door to the pavilion. Located on 30 acres of open land, the arena was fenced in with a ring in the center. It was initially intended to have 3,500 seats inside, although at the time of the grand opening, only about 1,000 seats were finished, and even later on it would only get up to about 1,200 seats. The open-air arena, seen at the time as perhaps the only one in all of New England, made its debut on May 31, 1927. First on the bill was an amateur boxing tournament sponsored by the Cape Cod Athletic Association. It was said that hundreds of cars parked on the grounds for the event. Luckily, rain that was forecast held off until the final match, which had to be postponed. In the beginning, the arena was referred to as Ayers 30 Acres. However, it didn't take very long for it to be officially christened the Mill Hill Arena... due to its close proximity to the Mill Hill Pavilion. Sadly, little more than a year after the opening of the Mill Hill Arena, the Mill Hill Pavilion would burn to the ground. And for decades, the Mill Hill Arena would be the only Mill Hill property with it in its name until the Mill Hill Club came in the late 1940s. Interestingly, going back to that opening night of the Mill Hill Arena... The dressing rooms for the talents in the boxing and wrestling events that took place weren't built until after the grand opening, so they all had basically nowhere to change. That notwithstanding, Mill Hill Arena was a resounding success. Boxing and wrestling matches took place in the sweet, salty air of the warmer summer months, weather permitting, of course. Inclement weather would postpone any events, naturally. The first few years saw Mill Hill Arena focus mainly on amateur boxing. That began to change in the 1930s. It began when Dutch Ayer left the establishment. In came Fred Bruno, an Italian-American professional wrestler turned promoter who became owner of the arena in 1931 at the age of 34. Bruno immediately began co-promoting matches with the Rainbow Ballroom, which was located across the street. With Bruno aboard, the focus shifted more toward professional wrestling throughout the 1930s and 40s. Legendary professional wrestling world champion Ed Don George made many appearances at the Cape Cod location during his career. Fred Bruno himself even donned the tights occasionally. In the subsequent years, Bruno enlisted Terry Rogers to put together and promote the cards. He helped bring in Spanish Adonis Manuel Cortez in the late 1930s. Cortez was a star and became a popular attraction every time he wrestled on Cape Cod. Fittingly, Fred Bruno's final ever wrestling match on November 7th, 1945 was a loss to Cortez. After leaving the Mill Hill Arena, Dutch Ayer did not fade from the spotlight. He operated beach concessions on Shore Street in Falmouth from the time of his departure from the arena in 1931 all the way up until 1948. Ayer became civilian director of recreation and athletics at Camp Edwards in February 1943 and was also part of the early days of the Cape Cod Baseball League. The Mill Hill Arena itself soldiered on through the 1940s and 1950s. By that time, the Mill Hill Club had opened, although back then it was a swinging jazz club, not what it would become in the 1970s and 80s. The Mill Hill Arena continued to enthrall audiences with amateur boxing, professional wrestling, and more. Under the ownership of Fred Bruno, The approximately 1,200-seat open-air arena saw skilled grapplers like Gorgeous George, Primo Canara, and Antonino Rocca grace the squared circle in West Yarmouth. Bruno was also able to convince icons of boxing, including Jack Dempsey, Jersey Joe Walcott, Joe Lewis, and Brockton's own Rocky Marciano, to act as referees for the amateur boxing matches. Bruno parlayed his enormous success on Cape Cod into promoting sporting events all across New England. Dutch Ayer, who created the Mill Hill Arena and brought it to initial prominence, died on April 26, 1962 at Cape Cod Hospital at the age of 71. Besides his legacy with the Mill Hill Arena, he left behind an impressive resume in Cape Cod sports coaching and promoting that commanded admiration and respect. Fred Bruno, who took what Ayer had created to new heights and made it a summer destination on Cape Cod, died on July 8th, 1977 at the age of 80. He, as well as Ayer, left behind a respected legacy in sports promotion. It has now been well over a half a century that has passed since crowds cheered on the grapplers and pugilists under the warm summer night air on Cape Cod. The Mill Hill Arena has now been just a memory longer than it was in existence. In the mid to late 1950s, the east end of the 30-acre property saw the construction of the Leaning Tower of Pizza restaurant, which would then later become Prince of Pizza. The Mill Hill Arena itself was ultimately torn down in 1966. The reasonings behind it I've had trouble finding. There was an article about a suspicious fire at the Prince of Pizza restaurant in 1962. but I couldn't find anything that connected that to the Mill Hill Arena itself. I also had in my notes something about the arena being purposely burned down in order to clear it out and make way for a restaurant, but I couldn't find any confirmation on that either, so I didn't want to just run with it. For those younger Cape Codders, which I guess I'm one of those... since I wasn't alive when the Mill Hill Arena was around. Today, the site is occupied by the Cove at Yarmouth Resort, as well as De Parma Restaurant. And if you go online, Yarmouth Historical Society or digitalcommonwealth.com, either of those sites have tons of photos of the Mill Hill Arena and that Mill Hill area in general from the 1940s and 50s. And it is definitely a wild scene to look at these old photos compared to how congested Route 28 in Yarmouth on Cape Cod is today. And it's also wild to think about how popular of an entertainment center the Mill Hill area of West Yarmouth was for almost a century. Now all that's left is the retirement home where maybe some of the people that used to dance on the dance floor at the Mill Hill Club are currently at. It was definitely a different time back then. This week in history, we are going back 77 years ago to January 15th, 1947 and the infamous Black Dahlia murder. This is one of the most infamous true crime cases of the 20th century and actually has a connection to New England and Massachusetts more specifically. At the center of this gruesome tale is a woman named Elizabeth Short. And for as sensationalized as the Black Dahlia murder has become, it's most important to remember that Elizabeth Short was a real person. She was born on July 29, 1924 in Boston, Massachusetts. She suffered through a turbulent childhood with her parents divorcing when she was young. She moved with her mother to California, and her life took a tragic turn when, at the age of 19, she was reportedly sexually assaulted, leading her to drift from city to city in search of a better life. Her biggest dreams were that of becoming an actress in Hollywood, and those were never realized. In those years leading up to her murder, Elizabeth Short struggled financially and emotionally. Despite these difficult circumstances, she maintained a vibrant social life and was known for her striking looks, which earned her the nickname the Black Dahlia due to her penchant for wearing dark clothing. On the morning of January 15th, 1947, The discovery of Elizabeth Short's mutilated body in a vacant lot in Los Angeles sent shockwaves throughout the nation. The details were really gruesome. I apologize if you're listening to this before you've had breakfast. Elizabeth Short had been bisected at the waist, her body drained of blood, and her mouth slashed open into a grotesque smile. With it being in Los Angeles, there was a media frenzy. Newspapers were competing for the most sensational headlines. The press played a pivotal role in shaping public perception, often sensationalizing details of the crime and creating this aura of mystery around Elizabeth Short's life. The sheer brutality of the murder, coupled with the media's intense coverage, fueled public fear and fascination. Despite an exhaustive investigation by the LAPD, the case remained unsolved. There were numerous suspects considered and various theories that emerged, ranging from connections to the Hollywood elite to allegations of organized crime involvement. However, the lack of concrete evidence and the complexity of the case left law enforcement stumped. It has long been... theorized that the murderer of Elizabeth Short knew her and that it wasn't a random act of violence. But the Black Dahlia murder itself had a lasting impact on American society, influencing crime reporting and public perception of law enforcement and the portrayal of violence overall in the media. From her birth in the Hyde Park section of Boston to her travels to Hollywood, The Black Dahlia case and Elizabeth Short's life in general served as a cautionary tale, highlighting those potential dangers faced by the people that go to seek the fame and fortune of Hollywood. And after all this time, after 77 years, the quest for justice in the Black Dahlia case remains unresolved. And although it's been a long, long time, like I've mentioned many times on this podcast with my involvement with the Lady of the Dunes case... Just because a case has been cold or unsolved for decades doesn't mean there's not a chance that something could break. One of the most infamous murders of the 20th century, the Black Dahlia murder, occurred 77 years ago this week in history. And now it's time for a brand new time capsule. We're going to lift the mood a little bit with this one as we go back 38 years ago this week. to January 16th, 1986. Let's see what was going on in the world of pop culture back then. The number one song was Say You, Say Me by Lionel Richie. This song appeared on Lionel Richie's album Dancing on the Ceiling, but it's actually got a fascinating little backstory as it was part of the movie White Nights, which was a ballet drama movie starring Gregory Hines and Mikhail Baryshnikov. But the song, even though it's in the movie, is not available on the soundtrack. And that's because Motown Records didn't want Lionel Richie's first follow-up single from his huge album Can't Slow Down to appear for someone else on a soundtrack. But this song spent two weeks at number one. The number one movie was Iron Eagle. This is an action movie about a young pilot planning a rescue mission when his father, who is an Air Force colonel, is shot down over enemy territory. The reviews for the movie weren't great because it was compared to Top Gun that was also out around the same time. It starred Jason Gedrick and Louis Gossett Jr., making just over $24 million at the box office, which made it enough of a profit that it garnered a sequel and three total sequels. with Louis Gossett Jr. being the only person to appear in all four Iron Eagle movies. The number one TV show was The Cosby Show, because it's the mid-1980s and of course it was number one. It's appeared on a few different time capsules on the podcast. This is about the upper middle class African American family, the Huxtables, living in Brooklyn Heights, New York. It lasted for eight seasons and 201 episodes. And out of those eight seasons, it was ranked number one for five of those eight seasons, which is why if I do any time capsules from around this period, typically The Cosby Show was number one. And if you were around back then, January 16th, 1986, perhaps you have a new baby and you need a little away time, To occupy the child so you can sleep or eat or something? Well, you're in luck because Toys R Us has a lot of great storytelling stuffed animals. Put in the cassettes, make sure it has batteries, press play and occupy your child for hours. These included a Big Bird one that you could get for $64.97. A Snoopy one, which I had no idea there was a such thing, that you could get for $74.97. Or the very famous Teddy Ruxpin bear that you could get for $69.97. Any of those at Toys R Us. Before there was video games and tablets to occupy your children, there were storytelling stuffed animals. That'll wrap up another This Week in History, another time capsule. But another way to occupy your children in the 1980s was some nice fast food. But not all of these fast food restaurants could be icons like McDonald's and Burger King. So what we're going to do now is look at the top five discontinued fast food chains. So let's see if any of these bring back memories for you right now. When you think about fast food juggernauts of today, there's obviously McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, Taco Bell, and they've been around forever. And I don't think you could imagine a day that they wouldn't be around serving millions of people every year. On this week's top five, we're going to look at discontinued fast food chains. Now, not all of these ever reach the heights of a McDonald's or a Wendy's. But I'm sure with some of these, when they were at their peak, it seemed like they might be around forever. Some of these places had unique ideas, different takes on popular food items. Others tried to kind of reinvent the wheel, all to varying degrees of success. Some of these you might remember. Some of these you might be hearing about for the very first time. But all of these were popular to a certain degree at their peaks. So let's look at them. Top five discontinued fast food chains. Now with most of these lists, of course, I've got some honorable mentions to kind of get your mind going. So honorable mentions for discontinued fast food chains include Pumpernic, which even though it was originated in Argentina and it was around in the 70s and 80s, I included it because if you look up Pumpernic, spelled N-I-C-E, You tell me what their logo looks like. It's an exact copy of the old 80s, 70s Burger King logo. And yes, they were eventually sued by Burger King. There was also Burger Queen, which was around from 1956 to 1981 and had as many as 171 restaurants. It eventually became Druthers, and that also closed down. There was White Tower, which for all intents and purposes was a ripoff of the White Castle franchise. Surprisingly, they were around from 1926 all the way to 2004, despite being seen as a ripoff of White Castle almost the entire time. There was Carol's, which was another burger joint that had its peak in the 1960s with 150 locations, mainly in upstate New York and Pennsylvania. Interestingly, their parent company is now the largest owner of Burger King franchises in the world, so that's kind of weird. And the last honorable mention is Gino's Hamburgers, founded in Baltimore, Maryland, by Baltimore Colts defensive end Gino Marchetti. They lasted from 1957 to 1982, with a peak of more than 350 locations in the Northeast. So those are the honorable mentions. Do you remember any of those? Did you eat at any of those? Maybe not Pumper Nick, but the others? Well, let's dive into the actual top five discontinued fast food chains, starting with number one, Burger Chef. People a little bit older than me, so probably in your 50s now, you may be very familiar with Burger Chef. They opened in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1954. So right around the same time that McDonald's and Burger King were just starting out. In fact, Burger Chef was the first one to patent the flame broiling for burgers that Burger King became famous for. They had a bunch of specialties on their menu. A double burger called the Big Chef, spelled S-H-E-F. And the quarter pounder called the Super Chef. Burger Chef might be most well known for their introduction of a kid's meal in 1973 called the Fun Meal. And by this point in the early 1970s, Burger Chef was the second largest franchise in the world for fast food. They had 1,200 locations. And that was kind of part of the issue was that they expanded so fast. They had animated commercials all over TV with Burger Chef and Jeff. their mascots. But the writing was kind of on the wall when McDonald's invented their Happy Meal in 1979 and Burger Chef sued them, but ultimately lost. In 1982, Burger Chef was sold to the Hardee's Corporation, with most Burger Chefs being turned into Hardee's and the other ones eventually closing within a few years. Number two is Red Barn. This burger establishment was founded in 1961 in Springfield, Ohio, by three men, Don Six, Martin Levine, and Jim Kirsch. Their buildings were unique because they were literal red barns. That's how they were shaped. You can find their commercials on YouTube, too. They have these weird puppet mascots. One was Hamburger Hungry, which was a humanoid hamburger combo. with the burger bun, burger for a head. There was fried chicken hungry, which was a talking chicken leg, and big fish hungry, which was a blue fish. These were based off of their slogan when the hungries hit, go to Red Barn. Their Big Barney Burger was a predecessor to the Big Mac from McDonald's. It actually predated it by a few years. They had self-service salad bars, which were forward-thinking. And they catered towards kids with coloring books and crayons and the food being served in red barn-shaped boxes, although they don't say anything that I saw in my research about kids' meals. At their peak in the 1970s, Red Barn had close to 400 locations in 19 states into Canada. In the late 60s, though, the Red Barn company was sold and the new owners simply stopped advertising for them over years. So with dwindling advertising and then the leases on the buildings being allowed to expire, the buildings just shut down. The last Red Barn closed in 1986. Number three is Kenny Rogers Roasters. Seinfeld fans will remember Kenny Rogers Roasters. It's immortalized. This chicken restaurant was founded by legendary country singer Kenny Rogers and... Former Kentucky Fried Chicken CEO John Brown Jr., who was also a former governor of the state of Kentucky. With a famed country singer and a big wig with the KFC Corporation on board, this place took off quick. By 1995, they had more than 350 locations. They featured wood-fire rotisserie chicken, and they later expanded to include turkey and ribs. But that rotisserie chicken idea caught on elsewhere and Boston Market became competition, as well as Kentucky Fried Chicken creating their rotisserie gold. Incredibly, within three years of that peak in 1995, they had filed for bankruptcy and were bought by Nathan's, the hot dog company. By 2008, Kenny Rogers Roasters was closed in the U.S. as Nathan's had sold the company to their Asian franchisee, Asian Pacific Limited. So Kenny Rogers Roasters lives in Asia. There's more than 150 locations there, but none in the U.S. Number four is D. Lights. This chain was established in 1978 in Norcross, Georgia. Their big claim to fame was fast food with a greater emphasis on nutrition. Which immediately seems like it could be an issue because how many people go to a fast food restaurant for stuff that's healthy? It was simple though. Lean beef, high fiber buns, low calorie cheese, things like that. Initially, this idea caught on. It was a popular alternative and there was more than 100 stores by their peak in 1985. But those of us that lived in the 80s, grew up in the 80s, you know that a lot of fast food restaurants suddenly started to have more nutritional choices. And that became a problem for D. Lights. If you've got McDonald's and Wendy's offering more nutritional choices, why are people going to go to a smaller place? So by the end of 1986, D. Lights had filed for bankruptcy. And the next year, 1987, all D. Lights restaurants closed down. And finally, number five on the list of top five discontinued fast food chains is Chi-Chi's. Chi-Chi's was a Mexican fast food chain, a little bit similar to Taco Bell. They were founded in 1975 in Richfield, Minnesota by former Green Bay Packer player Max McGee and restaurateur Marno McDermott, whose wife was nicknamed Chi-Chi, so that's probably where they got the name from. In addition, the chain was run by former Kentucky Fried Chicken executive Shelly Frank. So there was good leadership there too. And the company grew. By early 1995, there were 210 Chi-Chi's in the country. And those of you that grew up then probably saw the commercials. They were on TV a lot. I remember them. Chi-Chi's got hit with a double whammy that basically spelled the end of them. In October 2003, they filed for bankruptcy. which is bad enough, but a month later, November 2003, they had the largest hepatitis A outbreak in American history. Four people died, and 660 others got sick in the Pittsburgh area alone. There were lots of lawsuits brought, and by July 2004, when the last of the lawsuits had been settled by Chi-Chi's, they only had 65 restaurants, or less than half, remaining from their peak. In August 2004, Outback Steakhouse bought the remaining Chi-Chi's locations, but shut them down and didn't keep the Chi-Chi's name or properties or anything. And in September 2004, all of the Chi-Chi's were closed. And that'll wrap up the top five discontinued fast food chains. I tried my best to keep this to fast food. I want to do another list for discontinued casual restaurants, because there's a lot more of those too. But which one of these in the top five and the honorable mentions were your favorite? I can tell you honestly that growing up on Cape Cod, we didn't have any of these. But the irony is we have a Red Barn pizza restaurant in Eastham. But it's not associated with the old fast food place, obviously. Growing up as a child of the 1980s, my memories of computer games runs the gamut from the primitive ones, like Facemaker in the early 80s to Oregon Trail that's iconic now and was really fun back then, all the way up to things like role-playing games, Sims. You can play pretty much anything on your computer now for games. It's incredible. But there was this turning point when it came to computer games in the late 80s and early 90s that I wanted to shed some light on and bring some memories back for some of you from that time. And that is the advent of the MS-DOS games, also known as Microsoft Disk Operating System games. These bring me so many fond memories of my buddy John, and I wanted to go way, way back in the day and look at some of them and share memories of them and see if any of them bring back memories for you. These pixelated games that seem simple by today's standards defined this era of the late 80s, early 90s. These games shaped the future of the gaming industry. They laid the groundwork for the more immersive, sophisticated games that are out there today. There are a few that I'll go over on this list that I have really strong connections to, and others that I don't remember but I want to share because I don't know if you out there will remember them. First and foremost, as far as MS-DOS games go, and it was the reason why I wanted to start this segment anyway... was Dr. Spezo, the talking therapist. This was developed by Creative Labs in 1992, and Dr. Spezo was a very primitive artificial intelligence program that was also a therapeutic chatbot, like your therapist. It asks you to tell him about your problems. My buddy John and I would make it say things. You could type the word say, and then whatever came after it, it would say in its robot voice. But the best thing about it, among other things, was that it wouldn't be able to pronounce words right. Common names, of course, it wouldn't be able to say correctly. So it would make you laugh if you put in someone's full name. But normal words, it wouldn't pronounce right. What kind of AI can't pronounce proper words? Naturally, if you tried to get it to swear, it would give you a warning. And then if you kept trying to type swears in... It would make this horrible high-pitched squealing noise. One thing that John and I liked to do was make it say just mashing the keys down. So it would pronounce all the different letters and symbols into just this jumbled mess. But I have to laugh when thinking of Dr. Spezo. If you would try to be serious with it and ask it questions, it didn't give you any advice. Typically, it would answer your question with another question, and you'd just go round and round to where it was just useless. Naturally, I need to give you an example. So here's a little Dr. Spezo.

Speaker 00:

Hello, In My Footsteps podcast listeners. My name is Dr. Spezo. I am pretty useless, but my voice is funny. I hope that you are enjoying this episode of the podcast. There

Speaker 01:

were a lot more MS-DOS games than just Dr. Spezo. There was SimCity. which was created by Maxis in 1989. And it's basically the beginnings of all of the simulation games that are out now, like the actual Sims where you create people. But this was you being a city planner, constructing and managing your city. It's considered a sandbox-style game where you could start with kind of a blank slate and build out plots of land... And of course, with simulation games like that, you could either play it serious, or you could go the typical route and make it horrible and see all of the rotten things that could happen. Come on now, any of you who have played The Sims, you know you do stuff like that. Build a house, put The Sim inside it, and then remove all the doors. Or create a closet without a door and just have them stand in there until they turn into an urn. Man, I'm going to have to do a Sims back-in-the-day segment at some point. I could talk about them for hours. Another game that I have strong connections to and really made me appreciate the talents of my friend John was Doom. This was created by id Software in 1993. This is a first-person shooter game. The main character, the first-person shooter, is never named. He's either just Doomguy... or the Doom Slayer, but you've got to fight all these monsters. And it had these great 3D graphics, and it was intense, haunting soundtrack. And for 1993, it was really crazy. For gamers out there, long-time gamers, Doom is a cultural phenomenon. They still are making sequels to the games, movies based on the games. But the reason why I have such a strong connection to this game... is because my friend John figured out how to kind of hack into the game and allow us to replace sound effects, monster noises with our own voices. I wish I had recorded these things that we did. The monsters would have our voices just yelling stuff. So if there'd be 10 or 12 of these monsters coming out, you just hear 10 or 12 of us just yelling. My favorite might have been turning the... Gatling gun, machine gun, and do a fart noise instead of bullet sounds. Just typical 15-year-old boy humor. But the fact that my buddy John went on to work in video games, games like World of Warcraft and Medal of Honor, working some with Blizzard Entertainment. I appreciate more now the skills that he had then. I didn't as much when I was 15, but now seeing where he's gone makes me really appreciate what I was a part of back then. There were a lot of other beloved MS-DOS games. Lucasfilm games that later became LucasArts. They had Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which the movie came out in 1989 and the game was not that long after. It follows the storyline of the movie, and it's got puzzle solving, exploration, dialogue choices, kind of a choose-your-own-adventure. There were other simulation games like Sid Meier's Civilization from 1991. I love those games where you create your own tribe, basically. And again, you either do it seriously and try to make the best civilization for your people you can... Or you make it terrible and you just invade everywhere. You see that a lot now. Age of Empires became a big one. I played a lot. Then there's games like Wing Commander, if you like the space combat simulators. It was influential due to its cinematic approach and the branching narrative that influenced the future of storytelling in gaming. That game was developed in 1990 by Chris Roberts. In researching some of the more well-known games from the MS-DOS era, I found ones like Monkey Island, which is by Lucasfilm Games, which is really kind of an odd choice. But it's a series of games following the adventures of Guybrush Threepwood, navigating through pirate-infested islands in search of treasure. Have any of you heard of that one? I'm not familiar with it. Then there was Street Rod from 1989, which was a racing game combining car customization and street racing where you could buy and sell and upgrade your cars to dominate. It was like Fast and the Furious in 1989. But that game, it's ahead of its time because of the attention to detail in the car customization and its open world structure. The open world concept of games is something that's really popular where you can just go and go and not bump into a wall the edge of the world like the Truman Show when he's sailing his boat and just hits the edge of the earth. And I'm kind of glossing through some of these because it's meant to be a bit of an overview. So if you want me to go into more depth or do a part two of MS-DOS games, I can, but I couldn't end off this back in the day segment without another one of the games that I have such a deep connection to. And it's literally just called The Talking Parrot. It's not as widely known. I think it's because I played it a lot when I was in eighth, ninth grade that make it stand out to me. Today, if you see it, it's pretty stupid. It's literally a pixelated parrot and you can speak into your microphone. The parrot will mimic you. I would just like yelling and screaming and hearing the parrot do it in a higher pitched voice. But I guess in the grand scheme of games, it showcased experimentation with virtual pets and interactive dialogue. Here's the only clip I could find of Talking Parrot online for you to get kind of an idea.

Speaker 00:

Hello there. Hi, how are you? Hey, buddy. Please talk to me. I'm a talking parrot.

Speaker 01:

That video, the video of that audio that I shared, you can find on YouTube. It's got the picture of the talking parrot. This was a topic that I couldn't believe I hadn't talked about before on the podcast. Dr. Spezo, you can still play. If you type it in, you can do that. You can make him say horrible things. The trick with Dr. Spezo is spelling out words so that he pronounces swears by not knowing it swears. These are things I learned as a 15-year-old. Today, with the amazing graphics and the depth of gameplay of computer games and video games in general, I think the youth, the young gamers today, couldn't imagine the excitement that we had playing those MS-DOS games 30 years ago. That's why, again, I'm so glad I grew up when I did. Because playing these games like Dr. Spezo and Talking Parrot and SimCity make me appreciate the games that are out today. But what did you think of this trip down MS-DOS memory lane? Do any of these games ring a bell with you? Did you play them? Did you learn how to corrupt them like John did with Doom? Or did Dr. Spezo help you with your problems? Well, until next time, remember.

Speaker 00:

That's going

Speaker 01:

to wrap up episode 128 of the In My Footsteps podcast. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you to those of you who share the podcast. Thank you so much to my Patreon subscribers, Leo, Laurie, Mary Lou, Ashley. You all can go and become Patreon subscribers if you want. Get access to monthly bonus episodes. I'm trying to figure out how to get merch to my Patreon subscribers. I don't know how that's done, but I found a lot of cool marketing materials for some of my books online. that I would love to send to subscribers, autograph these things and send them out. Something more to give to those of you that give to me. I'll figure out how to do that at some point. You can find me all over social media, Instagram, threads, Facebook fan page, my ex page. Subscribe to me on YouTube. An exciting thing I just found out about YouTube is that the threshold for subscribers to where you can monetize your channel has been cut down to only 500 subscribers. I'm so excited because I'm close to that. So if you all go and subscribe on YouTube, maybe I'll get to monetize that channel after having it for 15 years. I'll keep sharing videos, though, even if I don't have enough subscribers to get three cents per click or whatever the hell it is. Next week's episode is going to be a lot of fun. Episode 129. We're going to look back at famed mall stores. This is likely going to be part one of at least two. I've been trying to put together a listicle, you know, a list that's an article or article that's a list of all of the original stores from the Cape Cod Mall and what happened to them. And it's a little slow going because a lot of these were local places lost to history. But that's when it dawned on me that it would be a lot of fun to do something like that on the podcast. Talk about these stores from the 70s and 80s and where they ended up going. You know, Orange Julius, Kinney Shoes, Woolworth, Anderson Little, and hundreds and hundreds of others. So I've got to finish up my list. So next week, get ready for a lot of nostalgia. If you're interested in any of my nine books that I have out, visit my homepage, ChristopherSetterlin.com. It's got links to all of them. I'll be adding new events come spring and summer. I just did an event at a retirement home, which was a lot of fun this past weekend. And it was something totally new and totally different that I've kind of put together that I'm hoping to do more of. And it's called 12 Stories for 12 Generations. And it's all about my favorite stories from Cape Cod. Because I like doing events where I speak about my current books. But I also thought it would be fun to have some sort of an event, a presentation that wasn't solely based around a particular book. It's just Cape Cod history in general and my favorites. So hopefully I'll be doing a few of those in the spring and summer. But obviously, there'll be a lot associated with my three books that all came out last year. And even though it's the dog days of winter and you've got to think warm thoughts, lean into the things that make you happy, that bring that warm, fuzzy feeling inside. Even if it's freezing cold outside, if you can get out in the sun bundled up, you definitely need that vitamin D. But whether it's favorite people, favorite foods, favorite podcasters, Find the things that bring you joy, even in the coldest, darkest moments. Because before you know it, spring will be here again. I mean, wherever you are, maybe it's still warm where you are. If you're in Southern California, Texas, New Mexico, down there, it's always warm. I remember winter in Las Vegas, where it was basically in the 60s at the coldest during the day. So I had nothing to complain about. But I hope you've been enjoying these podcasts. 128 episodes is a lot. Well over three years, and it's grown and evolved from my initial vision where I had so many topics I wanted to talk about that I couldn't decide. And now as I'm kind of narrowing things down to possibly just the nostalgia comfort food for the Generation X soul. I hope a lot of you will stick with it. Maybe new people will join in. I'm sure some of you enjoy just the Cape Cod history or just the road trip segments. And if those kind of fade out, you'll go away. And I'll be sorry to see people go. But hopefully more of you will stay and others will come aboard. But until next week, remember, in this life, don't walk in anyone else's footsteps. Create your own path and enjoy every moment you can on this journey we call life because you never know what tomorrow brings. I appreciate each and every one of you who are listening to this or who have listened to even one second of one episode taking a chance on my passion project that I'm continuing to try to grow. This has been the In My Footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund. You already knew that. And I'll talk to you all again soon.

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