In My Footsteps: A Gen-X Nostalgia Podcast

Episode 152: Blair Witch Project 25th Anniversary, What Was the Sega Channel?, Best As-Seen-On-TV Products, Disco Demolition Night(7-10-2024)

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The anniversary of the OG of found-footage movies, Blair Witch Project. The trailblazing but ultimately failed attempt of the Sega Channel. The best As-Seen-On-TV products.
Episode 152 is like an infomercial for nostalgia.
We start with the ingenious trauma caused by the Blair Witch Project. 25 years ago this groundbreaking film expertly blurred the ones between fiction and reality with its guerilla marketing campaign. Take a terrifying trip back to 1999.
Long before streaming video games a staple of the gaming industry took a risk. The Sega Channel was the definition of ahead of its time. We go way Back In the Day to find out more about the trails it blazed and also why it ended up failing.
We've heard the worst, we've heard the funniest, this week's Top 5 features the best As-Seen-On-TV products. Did you own any of these?
There is also a brand new This Week In History and Time Capsule centered around the infamous Disco Demolition Night in Major League Baseball.
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Speaker 00:

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 152. Nostalgia is the name of the game of this podcast, and I've got it in all different shapes and sizes. We're going to kick it off with the 25th anniversary of the OG of the found footage and viral marketing movies, the Blair Witch Project. There's so much to cover with that one. We're going to go way, way back in the day to something far less remembered than the Blair Witch Project. And that was the brief time that there was something called the Sega Channel. And you'll find out what it was all about. There'll be a brand new top five. We've had the worst. We've had the funniest. Now we're going to have the best as seen on TV products. And there'll be a brand new This Week in History and Time Capsule centered around the infamous Disco Demolition Night in Major League Baseball. All of that is coming up right now on episode 152 of the In My Footsteps podcast. It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. There's lots of traffic in my neighborhood, but it's still a beautiful day. And I hope everyone's enjoying summer time. This is that period of actual summer where it feels like there's so much pressure to just get out and do as much as you can before the fall air returns, although that's my favorite time of year, but a lot of you I know love summer the most. I wanted to kick off the show thanking my Patreon subscribers, Laurie, Mary Lou, Ashley, Kevin. $5 a month gets you access to bonus podcast episodes. This month, it's a little bit different. It is the 50th anniversary of the Lady of the Dunes murder case on Cape Cod. So I did a full-length podcast episode that you can hear early on Patreon. It went up July 1st. It'll be going up in two weeks for everyone else. It'll be episode 154 of the podcast. I also have been starting to do more things on the free tier for Patreon so that you don't have to be a paid subscriber. You just become a regular subscriber. So I did a full-length podcast episode I recently converted my first short story, Eight Hours, that I wrote in 2005-06. I had turned that into an audiobook last year around Christmas as a gift for all of my Patreon subscribers. And I've now converted that to something public, free, for all of you. If you want to go and listen to my first short story and my first attempt at making an audiobook, it's about an hour and ten minutes long. It's pretty good, but of course I would say that. And I'm well aware that spending money for Patreon is something that's not feasible for a lot of people. I mean, God, I listen to so many different content creators. I wish I could donate to all of them, but it's just not possible. So the next best thing and probably the best thing is sharing the podcast, sharing the content, telling others about it. That's the best way to increase the visibility for me, for my work. And I can tell that a lot of you are doing that because as I said last week, June ended up being one of my best months ever for the podcast. It had one of my best weeks ever, one of my best single days ever for downloads. And that's so important when you're more than 150 episodes and almost four years into doing this. It shows that some people actually care and actually enjoy what I do. And that feeds into the excitement that I hope you can hear that I bring to these shows. Because I get so excited when I find things that I think will be interesting for you to learn about or reminisce about. Or get my own twist on. And that's what's going to happen as we start with the main story here. 25 years ago this week, this movie was the OG of the viral marketing. Maybe not the OG of found footage. There are others I guess you could classify as that. Specifically, the horror movie Cannibal Holocaust, which it's very disturbing from the early 1980s. This is going to be a blast to talk about here, so let's stop beating around the bush. Let's just dive right into the excitement here as I start talking about the 25th anniversary of the Blair Witch Project, complete with a few of my own stories from it, coming up right now. Sometimes I get really lucky when it comes to my research for the podcast. I usually spend a couple hours a week just kind of drifting around the internet looking for nostalgia topics to add into my ever-growing pile of future podcast segments. And I look at anniversaries of movies, TV shows, music. And it was only a few weeks ago that I started thinking about 1999 because it's 25 years ago. And I remembered how big the Blair Witch Project movie was back then. So then I naturally had to look and see when the actual anniversary was when the movie was released. And lo and behold, it was July 14th, 1999 that the limited release of the Blair Witch Project happened. Later in the month of July was when it went nationwide. But I couldn't wait. I had too much excitement. So I went with this, the limited release as the anniversary.

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Found

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footage

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has been done to death now in the last 25 years. And it's had varying degrees of success. Movies like Cloverfield I thought were awesome. But for every Cloverfield, there's two dozen garbage movies that looks like something that I did with my friends back in high school with my camcorder. The Blair Witch Project was fresh and new. And it hit on everything at the right time. The found footage idea, but also the viral marketing campaign. The promotion of these three stars of the film being real people that were really missing. And it captured the imagination of the country at the perfect time. The nuts and bolts of the Blair Witch Project movie is it's a horror movie, naturally, directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez. Because it's a quarter century old now, I have to assume there are some of you listening that were too young to know the hype surrounding this movie. It's the combination of low budget, found footage, and the promotional strategy that I started talking about. It became one of the biggest hit movies ever, especially based on budget compared to profit. The movie tells the story of three film students, Heather Donahue, Michael Williams, Joshua Leonard. They venture into the Black Hills near the town of Burkittsville, Maryland to investigate the legend of the Blair Witch. The narrative of the movie unfolds through the recovered footage, and that was a big part of the promotional material. They found this footage that was supposed to be from, I believe, 1994, so five years earlier, and these three had been missing ever since. Part of what led to the terrifying nature of the movie was that it was raw, and these actors, quote unquote, they were unpolished, and they seemed like they were real people. it really blurred the line between what was reality and what was fiction. There are legends around this movie where the actors had very minimal lines. It was more directions of their characters, like you don't trust so-and-so, and that was kind of part of their motivation. And that they were slightly tormented by the crew to really get real visceral reactions to what was going on. I can remember being on the gateway computer at home in 1999 and the website being launched. This was months before the film was going to come out. And it presented the Blair Witch legend as actual historical events. Fake police reports, interviews, detailed backstories for these characters, Heather, Michael, and Joshua. And this was before it was so played out that everyone was jaded and just knew that it was fake. This seemed real because it was new. The website was really innovative, especially for 1999. But then in a further effort to sell this movie as reality, there were missing person posters featuring those main characters distributed at film festivals, posted on college campuses. It was this guerrilla marketing tactic that added an extra layer of authenticity. It piqued the public interest, and I know it interested me. That's the kind of buzz, the kind of word of mouth that's invaluable online. The filmmakers doubled down on this reality-based film when at the Sundance Film Festival in January 1999, they submitted The Blair Witch Project as a documentary. This only added to the aura of the authenticity of the movie. The festival's audience, they were already primed by that viral marketing campaign, and they left the theater questioning the reality of what they had witnessed. This movie is as close as you can get to one of those hitting the lottery type deals, like getting a scratch ticket for a dollar and winning a million. The budget for the movie is anywhere between $200,000 and $500,000, but its gross worldwide was nearly $250 million. That literally is the equivalent of buying a $1 scratch ticket and winning a million. Low risk, high reward. The vast, vast majority of this movie is just the three main characters walking in the woods. So it didn't cost much, and the camera they used was not too much different than the camcorder that I owned when I was in high school.

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This area's been haunted by that old woman for years. I don't know why you have to have every conversation on video. Because we're

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making a documentary.

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Not about us getting lost. We're making a documentary about a witch.

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I'm doing my best to not give too much away in spoilers. I am figuring that 99% of you listening to this have seen this movie maybe multiple times. But in case there's a few that haven't, I don't really want to ruin it. I saw this movie in the theater twice when it came out. both at the local Cape Cinema in Dennis. It's a smaller, one-screen theater, like an old-school one. It's 100 years old. Because this was a really low-budget indie film, it fit perfectly for the motif of that Cape Cinema. It really was a cultural phenomenon. The first time that I went to see it, I went with several people from my work, the restaurant I worked at, at least a half-dozen of us. There was a line outside to get tickets. So while waiting in line to get tickets, we were pre-gaming with beers. I know me, myself, I had at least three. Standing in line to get tickets. But oh, that was a mistake. I didn't realize found footage would mean mostly handheld cameras. So I went inside the theater, sat down. In the very beginning of the movie, everything's fine. But then the minutes go by and it's a lot of shaky cam, POV as they're walking around. And after three beers, I would say, shaky cam didn't really work well with me. I was able to kind of concentrate on the movie, but the back of my mind was, oh my God, I shouldn't have drank these beers before watching this. I didn't get sick or anything, but there were times that I had to close my eyes because I felt dizzy from the shaky cam from Blair Witch. But I definitely wanted to make sure that I saw the movie again so I could really pay attention to it and this time do it clear-headed. The second time I went back to the Cape Cinema, I went with my sister Kate and my friend Barry that you've heard me talk about a whole bunch on this show. I definitely enjoyed it a lot more without booze flowing through me. But little did we know, my mother and my little sisters, my baby sisters, had seen this movie. and decided that it would be funny to set up the house in a way to scare us on our way back. To me, the movie was scary, but it wasn't something that stuck with me when I left there. I wasn't looking over my shoulder as I walked up to the house like Blair Witch was going to pop out from behind a bush. The same can't be said for my sister Kate, though. Without spoiling too much, those of you that know the movie, I'll just describe the scene. As I opened the door, there were pages, white paper on the wall of handprints everywhere. The lights were really dim, and my two sisters were standing in corners facing the wall. I wasn't expecting it, but after a moment, I kind of smiled and was like, oh, that was pretty good. My sister Kate was terrified. She freaked out. So that was a great way to end the night after seeing Blair Witch for the second time. It's hard to understate The profound influence the Blair Witch Project had on the horror genre, independent filmmaking, the found footage style. Like I said, now it's a staple in horror cinema, done to death. But you get some good films like Cloverfield, like Paranormal Activity. And it also kind of created the blueprint for the viral marketing industry. The genius level of building a website and the missing person's posters, it's wild to think about that, being the ones that set that trend. Naturally, the success of the Blair Witch Project led to a quick release of a sequel that was hot garbage, Book of Shadows. The original Blair Witch is 86% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, and like I said, it made almost $250 million at the box office. Book of Shadows Blair Witch 2 was released the week of Halloween 2000, so a year and a half later. It is 14% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and made just under $50 million with a budget of $15 million. So it was profitable, made about three times its budget. That's far different than the original Blair Witch that made more than 900 times its budget in profit. It's still hard to believe that it's now 25 years since this movie came out because I can remember like yesterday, seeing it, the whole viral marketing, going to the initial showing buzzed out of my head with the shaky cam, going the second time and my sister scaring my other sister Kate. I think that's what makes The Blair Witch Project different. It's more than a horror movie. It was a landmark in cinematic history. the ability to generate a sense of realism, and its impact on audiences and future filmmakers. That's the enduring legacy of the Blair Witch Project. And you can see it today where it's more prevalent than ever, digital marketing and low-budget filmmaking. It actually inspired me to think about creating a film out of one of my short stories I called The Cabin. It was basically set up in the woods in a cabin. This was 2007. And I had said I probably could make the film for $30,000. But I was also working a full-time job, so that kind of came and went. But that was Blair Witch's influence on me. Have you seen The Blair Witch Project? I would assume most of you have. If you haven't, definitely go and check it out. 25 years ago this week, it made its debut, at least in limited release. And be on the lookout for The Blair Witch. You never know where she might be. This week in history, we are going back 45 years ago this week to July 12th, 1979 and the infamous Disco Demolition Night. Sports fans likely know this story. Those of you that have never heard of it or are too young to remember it. I mean, I was less than two years old when this happened, but this is a catastrophic promotion and a cultural flashpoint. It took place in Comiskey Park in Chicago. The event itself was a baseball game. Chicago White Sox hosted the Detroit Tigers in a doubleheader. And it was intended as a lighthearted stunt, but it quickly devolved into chaos. And it actually reflected the intense backlash against disco music that had been brewing for years. It was the brainchild of Mike Veek, the son of White Sox owner Bill Veek, and Steve Dahl, who was a Chicago radio DJ known for his outspoken disdain for disco music. At the time, it couldn't be denied that disco was a dominant force in American pop culture. The Bee Gees, Stayin' Alive, films like Saturday Night Fever were huge. But you know, not everyone likes everything. So those that liked more traditional music, rock music, they viewed disco as superficial. And Dahl, the DJ, he had been fired from a radio station when it switched to an all-disco format. So he took those anti-disco sentiments to WLUP, The Loop, and that's where he gained a following among like-minded rock fans. Dahl and Veek conceived Disco Demolition Night as a way to attract a larger audience to Comiskey Park. The White Sox were several games under 500 in July, so they needed something to bring people into the stadium. It was a very straightforward promotion. Fans would gain admission to the doubleheader for 98 cents if they brought a disco record to be destroyed. And the plan was to collect the records, and between the games of the doubleheader, blow them up in the outfield. And this, the anticipation of a grand explosion, it was the opportunity to symbolically smash the disco culture. Some of this anti-disco sentiment, it came from the same stupid tribalism you see today. People are so pro what they like and so anti what they don't like that it gets into this... This burning hatred that's really not healthy. But there were enough of these tribalistic people that wanted to blow up disco that the White Sox expected a decent turnout, but they ended up with more than 50,000 fans with thousands more outside. There were supposed to be boxes where when you went in you would put your records in there, and the people would collect the boxes, bring them to the outfield, and blow them up in between games. These boxes quickly got filled and overflowed, so people were going to their seats with their records, which then they started throwing on the field. In between the games, Dahl, who was dressed in army fatigues, took to the field to lead the demolition. Crates of disco records were blown up. Showers of debris rained down. And the crowd's excitement turned to pandemonium. They started storming the field, tearing up the turf, setting fires, and vandalizing the stadium. This caused the second game of the doubleheader to be canceled. And the White Sox, they got fined. The event became a cautionary tale about promotional stunts. The biggest winner out of all of this was Steve Dahl. He became a bigger star as a shock jock. And while disco didn't disappear overnight, it became kind of a pivotal moment, signaling the decline of disco's mainstream popularity. By the early 1980s, you know, three, four years later, disco was pretty much done. Disco Demolition Night, though, it remains a fascinating example of how sports, music, and cultural tensions can intersect explosively. And that famed night happened 45 years ago this week in history. Oh, it's time for a brand new time capsule. We're going to go back 63 years ago this week to July 12th, 1961. Let's see what was going on in the world of pop culture back then. The number one song was Tossin' and Turnin' by Bobby Lewis. This R&B song spent seven weeks at number one, and it's actually one of only six songs from the 1960s to spend seven weeks or more at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. It also gained new life being on the soundtrack of the 1978 movie Animal House, so another generation got to hear this song. The number one movie was The Parent Trap. And you could get into the theater with a ticket costing 69 cents. Nice. This movie stars Hayley Mills in a dual role as identical twin sisters that were separated at birth by their parents' divorce and they get reunited years later at a summer camp. The movie was a huge hit, grossing over $25 million worldwide, which would be more than $260 million when adjusted for inflation to 2024. It's also 90% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and spawned a sequel, a remake. The number one TV show was the Miss Universe pageant. This is the famed beauty contest. This was the 10th one in the series held at Miami Beach, Florida. Despite being Miss Universe, there's only people from Earth featured here. I am sure that Miss Mars and Miss Venus were very upset that they did not get asked to come here for this pageant. The winner was Marlene Schmidt from Germany, and Johnny Carson was the host of the show. And if you were around back then, July 12th, 1961, you just watched the Miss Universe pageant, you gotta blow off some steam from your excitement of watching it. Well, you're in luck. It's a beautiful day out, and you can get your two-seat Roadster go-kart from the Montgomery Ward catalog. Orange and black, 10-inch pneumatic tires, a steel frame, steel bumpers, and the top speed could be preset. It doesn't say how fast it could be preset to, but you could preset it. It comes partially put together, and don't worry, when it's all together, it only weighs 165 pounds. You want one of these go-karts, they're $187.50, or about $1,969 when adjusted for inflation. Are go-karts things anymore? Here's a question to just throw out there for everyone. But that wraps up another time capsule, another This Week in History. We've seen the worst. We've seen the funniest. But now let's jump into a top five with the best, at least in my opinion, as seen on TV products ever right now. Ah, yes. As seen on TV products, infomercial products... As I said, we did the worst, we did the funniest. I did the funniest As Seen on TV products back in episode 43, and I did the worst in episode 85. Here with the best As Seen on TV products, you'll find a lot of heavy hitters, a lot of famed products from over the years. Maybe you even own some or all of these. And best typically describes how well it's sold. So there are a few that are funny, but they were big hits. So they make this list. As with most of these top five lists, there are some honorable mentions and the top five itself is in no particular order. So without any further ado, let's get into the honorable mentions for the best as seen on TV products. They include the Snuggie which was that blanket with sleeves in the late 2000s, but it sold more than 30 million units. The Clapper, which has one of the most famous commercials of the 80s into the early 90s, where you could clap on and clap off your lights and such with this clapper. The Magic Bullet, which was a compact blender known for convenience, versatility. There was the Litter Genie, which is a cat litter disposal system that makes cleaning litter boxes easy and more hygienic. So it's popular among pet owners. And finally, for honorable mentions, there is the WEN hair care products. These are a favorite of my mother, so I wanted to put them in here. It's a line of hair care products promoted as healthier alternative to traditional shampoos and conditioners. And it's the infomercials and celebrity endorsements that have contributed to its success. So those are the honorable mentions. But let's get into the actual top five. Like I said, they're in no particular order. So we'll start with number one, the George Foreman Grill.

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This is one that I

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remember distinctly over the years. It was introduced in the mid-1990s. It's an indoor electric grill promoted by one of the most famous boxers of all time, George Foreman. It has the little raised grates on it for the grill so that if you were putting food on it, the fat would drain out there. That was the big thing. You could cook food quickly and reduce the fat content. I mean, George Foreman was a big man. So him promoting something that was a healthy lifestyle, it didn't mesh. But he was so charismatic that you look past the fact that he was pretty overweight. The George Foreman Grill made it into the zeitgeist of American pop culture when it was on The Office, where Michael stepped on it when it was on and it clamped down on his foot. It's a skill. Me finding ways to work in quotes from The Office or The Simpsons into so many different segments on the podcast. But hey, the Foreman Grill has sold more than 100 million units worldwide, so something is good about it. Number two is OxyClean. Hi, Billy Mays here for OxyClean, the stain specialist. Powered by the air you breathe, activated by the water that you and I drink. It's Mother Nature approved, then it's safe on your colored fabrics. This is a powerful stain remover, a cleaner. It was in so many infomercials with pitchman Billy Mays. He was in so many infomercials and ironically, sadly, he passed away 15 years ago last month. Besides OxiClean, he was known for other products like Kaboom, Orange Glow, Mighty Mend-It. It's hard to track down exactly how many units OxiClean has sold over the last 15 plus years, but it's still going strong. And on their website, they say they're the number one stain remover based on units sold. Number three is Proactiv.

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Call now and order the amazing proactive solution to heal your acne and help prevent future breakouts. Proactive is the number one best-selling acne system in America called Best Acne Treatment by Allure Magazine.

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This is an acne treatment system. It's been heavily marketed over the last 10, 15 years. It was invented in 1995 but really gained success after celebrity endorsements. And being because it actually worked is a three-step process of removing acne. So any teenager, young adult could use that. You can find Proactiv everywhere. Target has it. Ulta Beauty has it. The Cape Cod Mall has an automated kiosk. I don't know exactly what you do there. Is it like a vending machine, but with acne cream? I'm in my 40s. I don't go to the mall all the time like I did 30 years ago. At its peak, though, Proactiv was bringing in $800 million a year, but also paying $12 to $15 million a year for the celebrity endorsements. Number four is the Bowflex.

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This is Bowflex, a real workout at home that's so good, we guarantee results in six weeks or your money back. Think about it. You could get results like tighter abs, finer lines, a stronger chest, and more defined legs in only six weeks. It's not magic.

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Oh boy, do I remember this from being a kid. It's a line of home fitness equipment, but the infomercial showing how it was done Interestingly, Bowflex started off as Nautilus Incorporated, and Nautilus equipment is stuff that's in a lot of gyms, or at least old gyms, because that stuff was around in the 70s and 80s, and it basically was all this Nautilus equipment that was for specific muscle movements, all compressed into one unit. The first Bowflex came out in 1986, and it's the resistance training... But it was Bose that had different resistance levels to them. It was really unique looking. Now they've got adjustable dumbbells. But all is not well. In March 2024, Bowflex Incorporated filed for bankruptcy. But Taiwan-based Johnson Health Tech said they were going to acquire all of the Bowflex assets for $37.5 million. And their website is still up, so they're still selling. So you've got time if you want your Bowflex. And finally, number five on the top five best as seen on TV products is the Flex Seal.

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To show you the amazing sealing power of Flex Seal, we replaced the bottom of this boat with a screen door and covered it in Flex Seal. After a day on the water, not only does it stay afloat, but the inside is completely dry.

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This is a rubberized sealant spray, not an animal that's really good at yoga. It's advertised still for its ability to stop leaks instantly. With the infomercials that demonstrate the dramatic fixes, sealing holes and cracks and such with water rushing out and then Flex Seal stops it. The one with the fishing boat and they did the Flex Seal on all the holes in it and they sail the boat away. They got Flex Seal, Flex Tape, Flex Paste, Flex Shot, Flex everything. But it all works. It really does. That wouldn't still be around. Because you know somebody tried to make a Flex Seal boat with a screen on the bottom and spray it. And if it didn't work, they would have sunk and they would have sued him. Phil Swift is the pitch man for Flex Seal. He's kind of like a spiritual successor to Billy Mays. But yeah, that's still going strong. And that wraps up the top five best as seen on TV products, at least in my opinion. Do you have any of these? I would think these would be more common. OxyClean or the Flex Seal or in the honorable mentions when I told you my mother has been getting that forever or any pet owners with the Litter Genie or Magic Bullet to make smoothies. These are not ones that I laughed at constantly like when I did the funniest ones. I do enjoy doing these though so maybe I'll have to find another way to keep doing as seen on TV products. Maybe we'll go by the decades next. Growing up, I honestly considered myself more of a Sega kid than a Nintendo kid. Of course, we had Nintendo first in my household, but when I was able to make a choice on a console I wanted, I wanted the Sega Genesis. I considered myself so much of a Sega kid that I even bought the Sega CD from my friend John. I spoke about having the Sega CD way back in episode 27 of the podcast, so if you want to hear more about my experiences with that briefly released console, you can go check that out. For the Sega company, the latter part of the 1990s proved to be the end for them as far as making consoles. In 2001, they stopped making them. In the in-between, though, from when I got the Genesis to when they stopped making consoles, there's a brief time that there was something called the Sega Channel. In researching for future podcasts, I found this. I had never heard of it, despite this being right in my wheelhouse for my age of being really into video games. So I thought it would be fun to go way back in the day and share all that I've learned about the Sega Channel.

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Sega!

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What was known as the Sega Channel was first available in the United States starting June 1st, 1994, so over 30 years ago. The mid-1990s, that's when PlayStation started coming out, Nintendo 64, and the gaming industry began to boom with technological advancements, innovative ideas. That's where Sega comes in. They introduced a service that could have revolutionized how video games were delivered and played. They were kind of ahead of their time with this service known as the Sega Channel. This was conceived, the Sega Channel, at a time when video game consoles relied heavily on physical cartridges or with PlayStation, more of the CD-type games. The idea of the Sega Channel was to provide gamers with a new way to access a wide variety of games without the need to purchase each one individually. So what you're looking at is closer to streaming online. The service was developed in collaboration with Time Warner Cable. They aim to leverage the existing cable television infrastructure to deliver games directly to the Sega Genesis console. By subscribing to the Sega channel, users could download games via their cable connection and play them on their console, giving them access to a rotating library of titles each month. Think about how familiar that sounds these days. Downloading games, instant access, a flat fee to play a whole bunch of different games. This is 30 years ago. The innovation of the Sega Channel was driven by several key motivations. Expand the gaming experience, where Sega aimed to provide a more flexible and expansive gaming experience, so users could try out a variety of games without committing to a purchase. Kids of the 90s, think about how much video games cost. $40, $50, $60. And it was very hard, if damn near impossible, to return a game. They'd make you jump through hoops as far as getting it returned to Toys R Us or Electronics Boutique. Another motivation of the Sega Channel was competing with rental stores. Because back then with Blockbuster Video, Hollywood Video, All-Star Video, name your whatever video, they didn't just have VHS, they had video games. You could rent games, you could rent consoles. But this was aiming to allow people to do that from home. So you wouldn't have to get in the car and drive down the street to Blockbuster.

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And this is the best way to get video games. Sega Channel, over 70 hot games a month for your Genesis machine. No lines, no limits, no late fees. Just unlimited play on your TV. Sega Channel, less than $15 a month. Call your cable company now. Sega Channel, the only way to get it is to get it.

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A third motivation that actually really interests me was the idea of extending the lifespan of the Sega Genesis. It was a way to keep people playing their console, even as newer consoles came out from PlayStation, Nintendo. If you could constantly download new games to your old console, there's really not a need to get a different console. The more that I researched this, the more I kept coming back to the shock that I had never heard of the Sega Channel. I don't think that my mother and stepfather would have let me get it and subscribe to it, but the fact that it slipped through the cracks of my life when I was 17 years old just blows my mind. Sega Channel was so far ahead of its time with digital distribution long before digital storefronts like Steam, PlayStation Network, Xbox Live. 30 years ago, Sega Channel provided a form of digital game distribution. They had the subscription model, which it's now become standard in the digital age with services like Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation Now. The Sega Channel kind of made the blueprint for it, or at least started the groundwork for others to come and make it better. A major selling point that would have been for me if I'd known about it was the content variety. Every month, subscribers could access up to 50 games, including new releases, classics, exclusive titles. That rotating library concept, that would make the subscription worth the price right there. I'm trying to think at my peak as a Sega Genesis or PlayStation player, how many games I owned. It might have been six to eight. It sure as hell wasn't 50. So having the access of that many games would be incredible. Another of the innovations of the Sega channel was the idea of interactive media. as they offered demos, special events, downloadable content. It was a precursor to the multimedia experiences common today. Kids that are growing up now playing video games have no idea that that's not how things were. There's so much trial and error and advancements in all of the years and decades of games to get to where we are now. But being the first, being an innovator, there's challenges with that. In July 1998, the Sega Channel was discontinued. And obviously, there were several factors that led to this. You know, four years they tried. But first and foremost, it was the technological limitations. Think about how different gaming was back then, 30 years ago. Trying to do downloadable content. Doing things like relying heavily on the cable infrastructure, which varied in quality and availability. Download speeds being so slow that it would lead to long wait times and service interruptions of the game. You imagine playing some game and getting so far in it and then it just pauses because there's no connection. You'd smash your Genesis. Another issue was the cost of the subscription, which was about $15 a month. Plus you needed a specific adapter, which that cost money. Like I said, I didn't know about this back then, and I don't think my mother and stepfather would have gotten this for me. $15 a month, plus a special adapter. They didn't have scholarships for gaming or esports or anything, so it wasn't like I could write it off as I'm learning for college. Plus, there was more market competition. By the late 90s, the gaming landscape kept evolving. Sony PlayStation, Sega Saturn. They were offering enhanced graphics and gameplay, which is ironic because Sega Channel wanted to keep people using their Genesis. Then they released the Saturn and that diverted attention away from the Genesis and the Sega Channel. There was also actually a limited game library. The rotating selections was innovative, but it was also restrictive. If gamers wanted permanent access to specific games, they couldn't do that. They would still have to go buy the actual cartridge. So it would come down to how much money do you really want to spend on your video gaming habits. But the biggest issue with the Sega Channel, and I've mentioned it several times now, it was marketing challenges. I'd never heard of this until I was researching things for the future podcast episodes.

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So trying

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to get the word out there to effectively communicate the value, the functionality of the Sega Channel to a broad audience was challenging. This left many potential customers either unaware of the service, like me, or aware of it but unsure of what exactly the benefits were, because it was new. At its peak in early to mid-1995, Sega Channel had 250,000 subscribers. And based on the time, 1995, and just the idea of this Sega Channel, I don't know if that's a good or a bad number. But numbers started going down after that. And then the rise of the internet, 96, 97, 98, it drove people away from things like the Sega Channel. Because then you could play games online a little really slowly. So it was kind of a victim of timing too, where you had this... two-year window before the internet really became a household thing. And it's like if you didn't hook the people by then, you were screwed because everyone went on the internet instead. That being said, even though the Sega Channel was discontinued after just four years, its influence on the gaming industry is undeniable. It was a pioneer in digital distribution, subscription-based gaming, concepts that are common now. The Sega Channel demonstrated that potential, and it was a bold experiment, highlighting Sega's willingness to innovate and push the boundaries. But like I said a few times, it seemed to be the signaling of the beginning of the end as far as them as creating consoles. Less than three years after the Sega Channel went under, they stopped making consoles. But they still do make games, so Sega's not gone, they're just not around in the console market anymore. But yeah, that's the wild story of the Sega channel. Do you remember it? Were you a subscriber to it? My biggest takeaway is that there was a Sega channel and I didn't know about it. But until next time, that will wrap up this week's episode of the podcast 152. Thank you so much to everybody helping me get to this point. More than 150 episodes. It's a lot of work. I love doing it, but it is a lot of work. I spend on average probably 15 hours a week doing content work. And if I had more time, I would do more. So those of you that share the podcast, subscribe on YouTube, read the blogs, that does so much to keep me going. You can find me all over social media, Instagram, threads. I have a Facebook fan page that you can go follow me there. It's funny, I'm a member of a couple of podcasting groups on Facebook. One is excellent, Podcast Nation. Shout out to them if anyone from that group listens to the show. There's another one that I'm a member of and I'm not going to name them because every time I share my podcast on that group page, I'm flooded with either messages on the post from people looking to have me pay them to promote it or I get a bunch of rando people trying to be my friend on Facebook. Which, no offense to anyone, if I don't know you in real life, I'm not going to add you on Facebook. This isn't like a high school popularity contest. If you're in the area next Friday, the 19th, check me out at the Osterville Village Library. I have resurrected my Cape Cod Nights book and I have a brand new presentation about it. I'll have plenty of books for those that want to read about the golden age of Cape Cod nightlife. Remember things that you forgot because you were drunk back then. If you're interested in any of my nine books, visit ChristopherSatterlund.com. You can get a copy of Cape Cod Nights there right now. Next week, the train keeps rolling. I'll be back with episode 153 of the podcast. We're going to do a deep dive and try to avoid dysentery as we look back at the Oregon Trail PC game. Oh man, what a huge part of my early educational days. I'm also going to share the story of the demise of McDonaldland. The lawsuit that killed Mayor McCheese. Sometime later on, I'll do the birth of McDonaldland so it won't be all doom and gloom. That's coming up next week. I wanted to take a moment to wish an early happy birthday to my stepfather, Serpa. Well, his name is Chris, but last name Serpa, that's what we always have called him since I've known him since 1995. I've been lucky to have several good male role models and good men in my life. It's good to have father figures when your own father is someone who really couldn't give a damn about if you succeeded. So having someone like Serpa that has known me since I was in high school and has always been there through all the years and he's so supportive of all of us kids. He's not our real father, stepfather. And he's always there for kids, grandkids. I know I don't take that for granted. I can't speak for anyone else. But father figure types that actually have your back, they don't grow on trees. Trust me, I know. So I wanted to take a minute out to wish him an early happy birthday. I'm sure I'll see you on the actual day. This was definitely a fun episode of the podcast. I hope that you all enjoyed it. I'm so appreciative of all of you that listen from not just where I'm from on Cape Cod, but all around New England, all around the country. It blows my mind when I check my... locations, my stats for the show, and see where people are listening from. The neat thing is that the number one place that listens to my podcast is New York City. It's not even Cape Cod towns, although they're on there a lot. That's kind of partially why I started drifting towards the nostalgia topics on the podcast, was to appeal to a more broader audience. I'm very full of Cape Cod history, but that's a very niche market. And if I've got a all across the country and even over in the rest of the world. You might have never even heard of Cape Cod, so history about it's not going to be something you come back to the show for. Thank you for listening. It's good for my mental health. Make sure to take care of your mental health. Get out there in the sun, enjoy the vitamin D, and lean into the things that make you happy, whether it's certain people, certain foods, certain places, or certain podcasts. And I'll keep pumping out the content. But 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. This has been the In My Footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund, and you already knew that. And I'll talk to you all again soon.

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Christopher Setterlund

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