In My Footsteps: A Gen-X Nostalgia Podcast

Episode 159: What Was Grunge Culture?, Memorable 1980s Commercial Jingles, Most Dangerous Toys Ever(8-28-2024)

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What was Grunge Culture? What were some of the most memorable commercial jingles of the 1980s? What were some of the most dangerous toys ever made? Whose birthday is the same day as when this podcast drops?
Episode 159 attempts to answer these questions.
It begins with a look at Grunge music. However, this goes far deeper into the culture that surrounded the music. We look at the fashion, the attitude, and of course the music that helped make this a defining experience for many 90s kids.
We go way Back In the Day to share some earworms in the form of 1980s commercial jingles. Many good, a few bad, all memorable. Did you want to be a Toys r Us kid?
Santa would not leave these toys. This week's Top 5 looks at some of the most dangerous toys ever made. Broken ankles? Sharp and heavy objects? Extreme heat? Actual radioactive material? It's all in here.
There is a brand new This Week In History and Time Capsule looking back at the massive Krakatoa volcano eruption.
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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 159. It's a podcast full of celebrations. We're nearing Labor Day. I'm on vacation. We're going to celebrate the birthday of my oldest friend. We're going to kick the podcast off with something that he chose, and that'll be an overarching We'll be right back. We're going to go way, way back in the day and look at some of the most memorable commercial jingles of the 1980s. A lot of best, a few worst. There'll be a brand new top five that are the most dangerous toys ever created. Did you own any of these? And there'll be a brand new This Week in History and Time capsule centered around the largest explosion ever on Earth, the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano. All of that Coming up right now on episode 159 of the In My Footsteps podcast. So what are we going to talk about this week? Well, a lot of stuff and a lot of fun stuff. So wherever you are, I hope you're enjoying the weather. I hope you're able to sit back and relax and enjoy this next roughly hour worth of me talking about nostalgia. As I said in the beginning here, this is a celebratory podcast. So when this podcast goes live, it is the birthday of my oldest friend, Barry. You've heard me talk about him quite a bit on this show over the preceding 158 episodes. And as I said last week, I was going to reach out to him and see if there were any topics he wanted me to talk about in particular. And he did. He came up with the grunge culture idea, which is one that I can't believe I hadn't thought of yet. So we're going to have all those vibes, the torn jeans and flannel. I also, when it came to the rest of this episode, tried to think of things that might entertain Barry. So when he listens, he's like, oh, that's a good idea. I'm glad that you talked about memorable 80s commercial jingles or most dangerous toys. But before we get into that mayhem, I can't start off the episode without thanking my Patreon subscribers, Laurie, Mary Lou, Ashley, Kevin, Marguerite. $5 a month gives you early access to the main podcast, early access to YouTube videos, and exclusive access to bonus podcast episodes, full ones. Those are connected to my old initial impressions blog. the wacky randomness of my life that I shared a lot through 2010 through 2012 in varying incarnations. The blog is back, Initial Impressions 2.0, so you can read that weekly because my life is just as random as it was back then. At some point, I'll have an actual camcorder to do the video podcast. The issues that I've had returning the one that I bought that you've heard me talk about the last few weeks, it's been a lot of fun. I say with as much sarcasm as possible. This better not be something where I finally get this camcorder and make the first podcast and it's like the worst thing ever. So not only am I out the money to pay for the camcorder, but I also can't do the video podcast right. But let's look on the bright side here. It's going to be great at some point. Like I said, it's a very celebratory podcast. Labor Day is next week, kicking off my favorite time of year, which, I mean, it's already started. I'm on vacation, so it's not like I have to work the week leading up to Labor Day. But then all those great holidays, the weather is so great. And even when the weather gets colder, it's at least Thanksgiving and Christmas. I know a lot of you love summer, so I won't rub it in too much as the end of summer approaches and fall starts. Let's kick this podcast off, though. Let's start the celebrations here. Like I said, this topic to start off was specifically chosen by my friend Barry. So now there's pressure that I hope that I do it justice. But let's take a look, an overarching look, at the grunge culture, and we'll get into all of what that means. Coming up right now on episode 159 of the In My Footsteps podcast.

Unknown:

In My Footsteps

Speaker 00:

Man, that music defined my life in the 90s. Well, maybe not that generic YouTube free music, but actual grunge music. Grunge and the culture around it basically defined who I was throughout much of middle school into high school. That was my identity. As I drifted away from sports to this torn jeans and flannel grunge persona, I was actually shocked that I hadn't done a segment on this podcast now 159 episodes in where I did a deeper dive into exactly what grunge is. I think it's almost that I took for granted like all of you would just know what grunge is, the music and such, without me having to actually explain it, like showing my work. So what I'm going to do here is kind of combine everything, give you history and examples of the grunge culture and style and the connection to my generation, Gen X, but also share some of my own personal experiences, likes, et cetera, with grunge music and the grunge culture. There's a deep connection between grunge music and glam rock or hair metal, because basically that type of music, the polished, glamorous sound of 80s arena rock and pop, that's what birthed grunge music, swinging the other side of the pendulum. I've mentioned a lot on the podcast the teenage angst, that catchphrase. That's really what grunge music and that culture encapsulated. the angst and disillusionment of a generation, my generation. I think it's natural. It's the pendulum swinging of different generations, age groups. Something gets popular, then it gets oversaturated, so the pendulum swings back the other way to something totally opposite, and it keeps going. Grunge music itself, it's basically a stripped-down version of alternative rock music. And in fact, when the grunge movement began in the late 1980s in the Pacific Northwest, specifically the Seattle area, the term grunge itself initially was meant to be an insult to the music and those who liked it. It was dirty. When you think of grunge, you think of dirty, and the musicians were just unkempt. That's the flannel, the torn jeans, the stringy hair that would likely be not washed clean. But that became a badge of honor. The term grunge, maybe not dirty hair. I was proud to be considered a grunge kid. It was a badge of honor to have an identity at a time when kids, teenagers are looking for something to hold on to, something to make them feel like they're someone, that they belong somewhere. I did a bonus episode way back episode 38 where I did a full deep dive into Nirvana's Nevermind album because that's kind of the launching point for me as far as grunge goes. Hearing Smells Like Teen Spirit on my friend Matt's little alarm clock radio in his bedroom in August 1991. How that sound, the guitar riff that starts that song off, it was like an awakening, doors opening. It's not true for all of us Gen X kids, but grunge became kind of the voice, the unofficial voice of my generation. It spoke a lot to the issues we were dealing with. Gen Xers, we grew up during a time of increasing economic instability, decline of manufacturing jobs, the rise of corporate culture. We were also the first generation to experience widespread divorce. and the changing of family dynamics, and it led to a sense of alienation, skepticism toward traditional institutions. These bands, these grunge bands, they provided the soundtrack to this generational experience, with the lyrics often being themes of depression, alienation, existential angst, and the inner turmoil of a generation that felt disconnected from the quote-unquote American dream. Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, who was the unofficial spokesperson of Gen X and didn't want to be, but he had the famous quote that I love using, I'd rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I am not. Being real and true to yourself, even if that's not glamorous, rather than changing who you are to fit in somewhere. There was a lot of grit and respect and hard work in grunge because so many of those people Bands, they started off in the small independent scenes, little dingy clubs, recording their own albums on shoestring budgets. But that's how they got popular. Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Sonic Youth, Mudhoney. It was their hard work. Could you imagine a grunge band, any of those, before they were famous, being on a show like America's Got Talent or American Idol or any of those shows? They wouldn't win. And it was that authenticity that made these bands popular with my generation. There's a little bit of the overarching bit of what grunge is, but then we get into the fashion and the style, the grunge aesthetic. Because it wasn't just about the music, you also had to look the part of grunge. We didn't have any designer clothes and polished looks. Oh no, it was disheveled and unpretentious all the way. Flannel shirts, ripped jeans... combat boots, any sort of thrift store finds that could make your uniform as a grunge person. I never wore combat boots, but I definitely had the casual shoes, vans, and airwalks, which I guess we kind of borrowed from the skater culture. I valued and treasured my flannel shirts. I will tell you the truth. I may have mentioned this on the podcast before, My senior photo in high school, I was wearing torn jeans and a red flannel shirt, although you can only see my head and the collar of my shirt. In my closet right now is that red flannel shirt that I found probably a year ago. I found it in my mother's basement in one of my boxes there. That shirt is almost 30 years old. I washed it. Thankfully, it didn't fall apart. I took a picture of myself with it with a big old white goatee like I have now. Talk about defining the midlife crisis. Grunge fashion was anti-fashion, basically. Whatever you thought the popular kids, the rich kids, what they would wear, you get the opposite. You're not them, we're not them. I had a few different pairs of jeans that were so ripped that I don't think my mother could believe that I would still wear them. But that was kind of like the signs of your grunge card. How many rips in your jeans. The more you had, the more real grunge you were. But then what ended up happening was the rejection of style. going with cheaper options for clothing, the anti-fashion, comfort and practicality. When the music got popular, all the people looked towards trying to get a part of that grunge for themselves, so the fashion became popular. I wasn't in school looking for posers of grunge, but I am sure there were a lot of people that were in my high school that had torn jeans and flannel, but couldn't name me any song from any grunge band. It got to a point, though, as it got popular and mainstream, you had high-end designers creating the, quote, grunge-inspired collections, end quote. And this was the part where, as grunge went mainstream, that some of the bands started to shy away from the mainstream because it was not what the point of it was. It was betraying that anti-commercial ethos that grunge represented. I wasn't super against the mainstream coming-to-find grunge thing. because it just meant that something that I believed in that was such a huge defining part of me was getting popular, and that I was kind of on the right side there. Of course, my beliefs went back and forth, and that's part of the grunge attitude. Apathy, but also authenticity. I can't speak for others. I can only speak for me. But the idea was not that I didn't care about anything, but it was that I didn't care about much. But what I did care about was everything to me, if that makes sense. Because in that time period where it was the attitude of apathy, disillusionment that kind of defined Gen X, it's like when you find something you gravitate towards and believe in, you really sink your teeth into it. Even though they were on TV making millions of dollars with their music, bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, they all seemed like ordinary people that you would meet in a record store or walking along Main Street in Hyannis on Cape Cod. They were all grappling with the same issues as you who were listening to their music. I always felt like Kurt Cobain was speaking to me. When I started writing my own song lyrics, when I thought I would be a singer-songwriter, a lot of the ideas were the same as things in Nirvana songs. I just wrote more towards my life. That sort of grunge culture you could see in brands like No Fear or OK Soda. These things that were catered towards us in Gen X in the 90s. But it was hard to capture that attitude. It was just, it was there. You couldn't fake it. You had to really not care. Like I said a few minutes ago, things did start to change when grunge went mainstream. And it's not so much that they changed, any of the bands changed their music to fit mainstream. It's just mainstream was looking for something new. And they found grunge and pulled it towards the mainstream. That's where you started to see grunge bands on Saturday Night Live or playing prominently on MTV award shows. And suddenly this gritty underground sound was now being front and center on rock radio stations or there were stations being created specifically to cater to the grunge and that surrounding sound. We had one on Cape Cod. I think it was called UN Underground. Anyone from Cape Cod remember that underground radio station in the 90s? You got the TV shows, radio stations that were giving you the catchphrase, the Seattle sound. And it must have been difficult to cope with for the bands that started out with nothing and battled through the underground scenes with their message, their authenticity being what got them where they were. But then that message getting so popular that they started raking in all the money and almost becoming what they didn't want to become. In reality, I think that the grunge culture outlived grunge music itself. And what I mean is grunge kind of had its roots in the late 80s, 88, 89 in Seattle. The end of 91 is when Nirvana broke through and kind of opened the doors for all these other bands to come through. Less than three years later, by the summer of 94, Kurt Cobain was dead and Pearl Jam was saying, we don't want to be mainstream, so we're going to make our next albums be the total opposite of what you like. And you had a bunch of poser bands coming in trying to claim to be grunge, diluting the sound, to where by the mid-late 90s, grunge was dead and it was replaced by this hybrid with traditional alternative. And don't get me wrong, the post-grunge bands, there were a lot of great ones. I'm not, you know, taking a dump on all of these bands. But they were like the later series of Garbage Pail Kids, or Three Stooges episodes with Shemp, or The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air with the second Aunt Viv. It's like, yeah, it's the same, but it's not, and you know it's not. As the 90s come back in fashion, though, grunge fashion I can see coming back around, whether intentional or unintentional. I've still got a few flannel shirts. I don't have any ripped jeans, but that would be easy. Grab a pair of scissors and make them yourself. I think even though times change, fashion changes, trends change, it comes back to the authenticity of the grunge music, which is why it still resonates with people. Those that grew up back then who listened to it when it was first coming out. And maybe others that are now of that same age, mid to late teens, that are discovering this music and saying, wow, that speaks to me. When you think about the importance of grunge music and the grunge culture, those of you that grew up grunge fans in that sort of aesthetic, I guess for lack of a better term, think about this. If there was no grunge music, grunge culture, what would have defined your life back then? If you pulled grunge out of there, what would you have been? That's just an interesting, thought-provoking thing. You can pause the podcast and think of that. Because even though its time in the spotlight was relatively brief, the legacy of grunge, grunge culture, endures, reminding me, my generation, and anyone else who can be affected by the music of that power of music to change the world. This week in history, we are going back 141 years ago to August 27th, 1883 and the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano. Krakatoa is nestled in the Sunda Strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra in Indonesia. And before this eruption, Krakatoa was a relatively obscure volcanic island. Now granted, it is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, so I guess it wouldn't be too obscure. Even before the eruption in 1883, Krakatoa had a long history of volcanic activity, but none of the eruptions were remarkable on a global scale. By the early 1880s, however, Krakatoa had entered a period of renewed volcanic activity, including in May 1883 minor eruptions and earthquakes being reported that kind of signaled the beginning of what would become one of the most significant geological events in human history. Despite warning signs, the magnitude of what was coming was largely underestimated. The day before, on August 26th, Krakatoa began erupting in earnest, spewing ash, pumice, and gases high into the atmosphere, with the eruption reaching its climax the following day, August 27th, when a series of four massive explosions rocked the island. The final one occurred at 10.02 a.m. local time, and that one was so powerful that it was heard as far away as Australia, more than 3,000 miles away. I couldn't imagine there being an explosion so powerful here on Cape Cod that you could hear it in LA. To give you an idea of how serious this eruption was, it's estimated that the explosion was equivalent to 200 megatons of TNT, making it one of the most powerful explosions ever recorded on Earth, including being more than 13,000 times the yield of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II. It was also considered the loudest noise in recorded history, and it ruptured the eardrums of sailors nearly 40 miles away. Naturally, the aftermath was devastating. Krakatoa was obliterated, with over two-thirds of it collapsing into the volcano, forming what is now known as the Sunda Strait. The explosion generated massive tsunamis, waves up to 130 feet high that devastated people, coastal towns and villages along the shores of Java and Sumatra. It's estimated that more than 36,000 people were killed primarily due to the tsunamis. Because of the vast quantities of ash and sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere, you had deep red sunsets in Europe and North America. The climatic impact was felt for years, with global temperatures dropping an average of 2.2 degrees the following year, and 1884 being known in some places as the year without a summer. These conditions also contributed to a series of unusually harsh winters, poor harvests, and that led to famine and social unrest in various parts of the world. Some good did come out of it. as it was a watershed moment in the study of volcanic activity and understanding Earth's natural processes. The Krakatoa eruption also played a critical role in advancing scientific knowledge about atmospheric phenomena. And just like a movie that needed a sequel, even though Krakatoa was basically destroyed in the eruption, there's a volcano called Anak Krakatoa, or Child of Krakatoa, that emerged from the same spot in 1927. And that massive eruption, one of the largest explosions in the history of humankind, occurred 141 years ago this week in history. Oh boy. So it's time for a birthday time capsule. For this, we're going back 46 years ago this week to August 28th, 1978. I heard it was some guy's birthday. So we're going to look at what happened on that guy's birthday. The number one song was Grease by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. This is a very disco-y song about a movie set in the late 50s, early 60s. written by Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees. The Grease soundtrack is one of the most popular soundtracks ever, selling more than 30 million copies. Grease was a phenomenon at the time, and it's tied right into the number one movie being Also Grease. Well, it was just Grease. It wasn't a movie called Also Grease. But you could get into the theater with a ticket costing $2.34. This is the escapades of Danny Zuko and Sandy Olsen. High school students, they had a summer fling. He's a greaser, she's an Australian exchange student, and they sing a lot. I've seen this movie all the way through maybe once, but I've seen bits and pieces of it thousands of times growing up with three sisters. Even if you've never seen Grease or have no desire to see it, It was a monster when it came out, making $396 million on a budget of $6 million in 1978. That would put its box office at roughly $1.9 billion when adjusted for inflation to 2024. So I can't hate on Grease. The number one TV show was Flying High. This was an American comedy drama series series. It features three sexy flight attendants and their shenanigans on LA's SunWest Airlines. There were some that thought that this show might be a rival to Charlie's Angels, but this show lasted a whopping 19 episodes before being canceled. And if you were around back then... August 28th, 1978. Maybe you've got a newborn child and you're looking to decorate their room with something that they will enjoy looking at. Well, you're in luck. Sears catalog, because it's awesome, has everything you could want to make your kid's bedroom look like poo corner. Literally, it's just all Winnie the Pooh stuff. There's blankets. There's a toy box. There's a lamp where he's got balloons. There's a rug with him and Eeyore. Naturally, there's a mobile you could put over the kid's head with Eeyore and Tigger and Kanga and Roo and Piglet. But wait, there's also plates and bowls and cups. And for some reason, a kid sitting on a little Winnie the Pooh dresser. I thought she was wearing Winnie the Pooh clothes. Maybe she is. So there you go. If you love Winnie the Pooh, get it for your kid in 1978. If you don't love Winnie the Pooh, don't look at page 360 of the Sears catalog. But if you do have a kid back then, I'm going to help you out. Don't get these toys for them. If you love your child, if you don't love them, then get these toys that are coming right now on the top five. These are the toys Santa would bring bad kids and say, here, good luck making it to next year's Christmas. When I say dangerous toys, and when I go through this top five in the honorable mentions, I'm sure there will be a lot of these on here that you listening will say either I had this and never got hurt or new people that had them and never got hurt. I'm not saying that these toys, you buy them and you instantly get hurt. These are just the ones with the higher probability, including recalls and stats about injuries. The vast majority of these on the top five are actual singular products from a certain company, although there is one that's more general and you'll know when I get to it. This is also a mix of vintage toys up to way more recently. I didn't want it to be attacking the older toys only because I could have made a whole top five just on those from the 50s and 60s. But enough teasing. Let's get right into the top five. As I said, there are honorable mentions, and I'll give you the reason why these were recalled or why they're on this list. There's the Snack Time Cabbage Patch Kid, which had food you could feed it and a motorized mouth that would open and close. And it's good for eating the fake food, but if you put your finger or your kid's hair gets stuck in it, that's no good. There's the hoverboard, nothing like what Marty McFly had in Back to the Future 2. They don't even hover. They've got wheels. But it was a viral sensation, videos on social media of people falling on their backs or them catching fire. The hoverboards, not the people. The fail of hoverboards makes me not want to have self-drying jackets or self-tying laces or flying cars like Back to the Future 2 had. There was also Easy Bake Oven, which was at the top of most lists that I was finding, mostly because of the heat that would come from the oven to actually really bake stuff. There are Bucky Balls, which are tiny little magnetic balls you can stick together, but they're very small, easy for kids to eat, and God help them if they swallow a few and they get stuck inside them. And the final honorable mention was the Gilbert Glass Blowing Set. And this was from pre-World War II, but it is what you think it is. Kids could make their own glass, which is heat and blowing up the glass, so I'm sure nothing could go wrong with that. And it won't be the last time we hear of the Gilbert Toy Company. Those were the honorable mentions. Did any of you own any of those? Let's jump into the actual top five, and we're going to start it off with a very well-known toy in the world of danger. And those are, number one, lawn darts. This was a game especially popular in the 60s and 70s, typically two teams with four large darts and two targets. The darts were usually about 12 inches long with a weighted tip, and they were intended to be thrown underhand, almost like horseshoes. If in the hands of the wrong people, throwing these weighted 12-inch darts at other people, I'm sure that would feel good. throwing them in the air and saying heads up and everyone looks up and someone gets a lawn dart in the eye. There was actually a seven-year-old girl that was killed by lawn darts in 1987. And the father ended up helping to get them banned by the following Christmas. So by the end of 1988, lawn darts were banned. When anyone makes a list of their own for the most dangerous toys ever made, Lawn Darts is usually at or near the top, so naturally it's at the top of mine. Number two is the Gilbert Atomic Energy Lab. Here is Gilbert again, and yes, atomic energy. This was released in 1950 and had actual radioactive material in it, This actually had four types of uranium ore. Beta alpha source, pure beta source, gamma source. It's unbelievable to think that this was sold to kids. It had a very short shelf life. We're talking 1950, 1951. Now, we know why it got recalled, giving radioactive material to kids. Gilbert claimed that it was the high price, which was about $50. or about $650 today, and the overall sophistication of the product. So that's what the company says is why they didn't sell more. I'm sure they're telling the truth. Number three is the Thing Maker. This toy came out in 1964, and it consisted of heating up and melting plastic into die-cast molds that would look like bugs. And then when the plastic cooled, you'd have these little rubbery bugs that you could throw around. This came with an open-face electric hot oven that would get up to 390 degrees to melt the stuff that they called plastic goop to then make yourself these creepy crawlies. 390 degrees. Yeah, I'm sure that's not too hot. I will say when doing my research, when I first saw Thing Maker, I thought it said Thighmaster. And then I saw reviews about melting plastic and such. And I said, God, what kind of Thighmaster was Suzanne Somers selling that melted on people's legs? So there, there's that. Number four is Moon Shoes, Broken Ankle City Shoes. These are like little trampolines for your kids' feet. They're still made today, so watch out if they want them. These originally came out in the 1950s and were sort of like clip-on springs meant to fit over your regular shoes like clip-on roller skates. These were perfect for rolling your ankles, falling on your face... They came back around in the 70s and were called moon shoes because it was supposed to mimic how it felt to walk on the moon. So those were mini trampolines for your feet. That leads us to number five, trampolines in general. This was the one where I said at the top I had mostly specific products to a certain company, but there was one thing that was kind of a general topic, and that's trampolines. This is one where I looked at a lot of these products and thought if you're responsible, you should be safe with them, except maybe the Atomic Energy Lab. And it's the same for trampolines. I jumped on trampolines so many times growing up and never got hurt. And yet this product is one of the most dangerous there is. Look at the videos. You'll see fail videos on YouTube or on other social media of people bouncing out of the trampoline or falling through it. You could honestly easily get too close to the edge where the springs are, slide through, snap your legs, snap your arm. You could do flips and break your neck. And they've only got that little mesh net around the edges, if that, to protect you from bouncing off of it. At least the bouncy castles that you get for kids' parties now have bouncy walls. Yeah, this was one where I said, boy, it was always safe for me jumping on them, or I liked the danger, but I could see I was reading about people getting really hurt on trampolines. I said, well, I better put it in to make this list objective. But that's the top five most dangerous toys ever, at least in my opinion and in my research. Did you own any of these? Lawn darts, the Gilbert Atomic Energy Lab, the Thing Maker, not the Thighmaster, moon shoes, or a trampoline? At some point in the future, I might do a deeper dive into that Gilbert toy company because they were just rife with toys that would kill people. But what we're going to do now is put the most dangerous toys in the toy box and put them away. And we're going to look at some of the most memorable commercial jingles of the 80s. This was a lot of fun to look up, and it's going to be even more fun to share. Back in episode 134, I did a segment on the most memorable 90s commercial jingles, good and bad. That was so much fun to put together. It was also a lot easier to find bad commercial jingles. Doing this segment here, 1980s commercial jingles, I found so many that I loved, I had to actually cut down on them. But when it came to the worst, it was a lot harder to find. I found three. What I'm looking at here for jingles, it's a commercial that had to have a song in it. There are some memorable 1980s commercials with slogans that aren't songs, like Wendy's Where's the Beef. That's not a song, so it can't be on this list here. So at some point, I'm going to do, for example, memorable 1980s commercials in general. That's just in case as I go through these commercials, you're wondering where certain ones are. These are jingles as in songs, right? Rather than explain it, I'll just give you an example. Do you remember this commercial?

Speaker 03:

Oh man,

Speaker 00:

Juicy Fruit. When I was thinking of 80s commercial jingles, I immediately thought of this one. I remember when these commercials were out. So it was mid 80s. They kept going into the 90s where they tried to make it more 90s. It went from skis, I think, to surfboards as far as what was getting shined up. I remember my friends and I thinking this commercial's slogan was a little dirty. And it's because they say, take a sniff and pull it out. And then the taste will move you when you pop it in your mouth. And 12 year old boys, there's the humor. This was one of those commercial campaigns that basically defined the product. If anyone who has Juicy Fruit, I mean, maybe today not, but who had Juicy Fruit gum in the 80s, 90s, you would immediately think of this commercial. The second one here is one that was more of an earworm from my childhood that I had obviously repressed until recent years, and that's this Dentine commercial.

Speaker 03:

That friendly nurse is sure courageous, cause breath like yours could be contagious. Brush your breath, brush your breath, brush your breath with Dentine. Oh, you finally found your young prince charming. Too bad your breath is so alarming. Brush your breath, brush your breath, brush your breath with Dentine.

Speaker 00:

So what ended up happening was I was watching a batch of old commercials, as I do sometimes, and that commercial, the Brush Your Breath, came on. And it was like it triggered some kind of visceral reaction from my childhood. Like I must have been watching TV with that commercial on at least once when I was five years old. Has anyone else ever experienced that? Suddenly a song or a commercial or something like that triggers a memory from way back in your childhood? I think the Brush Your Breath line was a part of Dentine before for decades and probably after. But these commercials, they hit me right at the point where I guess memories were starting to form. And the commercials had all kinds of wacky scenarios going on. And that Brush Your Breath would come in the middle with the pack of gum sliding across the screen. The funny thing, as I started putting this together, these weren't in a particular order. But when we get to the third commercial, it's Big Red Gum. So there's three in a row that are different gums. I promise that's the last of the gums. It's not best gum commercials of the 80s. Although there were more I had to leave off. That's why. I said I can't have this be all gum. But Big Red, brush a little longer, stay close a little longer. Here.

Speaker 03:

There,

Speaker 00:

that's what the commercial is. where it was always a couple kissing and there's stuff going on in the background. Either people are getting on a train or going to a plane or going insane, but they keep kissing and stuff's going on. The bar's closing and finally they have to leave. So basically this commercial said, if you chew Big Red, you're going to make out with someone for super long. This is the message that it sent to me when I was 10, 11 years old. You'd be surprised that when I bought my big red gum at the corner store, I wasn't flocked with girls wanting to make out. I think one of the most beloved commercial jingles, I know it's the 80s and 90s, but it's this one.

Speaker 03:

Oh,

Speaker 00:

I want to be a Toys R Us kid. I was shocked that I hadn't covered this for the 90s commercial jingles. So it was easy to take up a spot with that. These commercials would always show adults as kids or maybe regular kids, but it was a lot of it adults wanting to still be kids. And then they have kids that were my age with whatever toys were popular. And I'd say, I want to be a Toys R Us kid too. Can I have that big wheel? This is one of those jingles that's synonymous with the brand itself, Toys R Us. I still hold out hope that there are going to be some brick-and-mortar Toys R Us stores coming back, because it'll be sad if kids growing up don't get to go into an actual toy store. It was one part super exhilarating to walk in and there's everything you could ever want, but then also sad if your parents didn't let you get anything, which I don't know why they'd bring you there to do that, but there were times. The 80s were also about teaching you how to be clean. Zestfully clean.

Speaker 03:

These

Speaker 00:

were always people in their shower singing the you're not fully clean unless you're zestfully clean. And they had a towel standing there that would cover up their bodies, but it had the zest logo on it. I don't know what exactly zestfully clean is, but I don't think I ever used zest soap. I don't think I could convince my mother to buy me that because I wanted to be zestfully clean. But it's still around. I could buy it now. Or zest body wash. Oh man, you never know. I may not be zestfully clean right now, but I do have the best part of waking up.

Speaker 03:

I actually

Speaker 00:

do have Folgers coffee, and I think part of it is because I remember that jingle from the 80s. I am positive this commercial and this jingle got thousands of people to start drinking Folgers coffee because it was always heartwarming moments. Either family coming home from college or a holiday and they'd start making the coffee and people in the rest of the house would be asleep. They'd wake up and come downstairs and, oh, it's you from college. Oh, and the coffee, which is better than you. I might joke, but I've got it here, so it obviously worked. The one thing I think of after I think of the Folgers jingle is a joke by comedian Mike Birbiglia. It always makes me laugh because he always says the line when it comes to Folgers. He says, if the best part of waking up in my life is Folgers in my cup, I don't know if I want to wake up. I don't know. That always made me laugh. Do you remember Flintstones, kids?

Speaker 03:

Yes,

Speaker 00:

10 million strong and growing. I'm pretty sure I had Flintstones chewable vitamins when I was a kid at least once. This was always cute little kids doing kid stuff and then basically saying it's possible because Flintstones vitamins are helping them grow. It's geared towards parents. Like, don't you want your kids to be strong and growing? Well, buy these vitamins. Next is another one that I immediately thought of when putting together this list.

Speaker 03:

My buddy, my buddy, my buddy, my buddy, wherever I go, he goes. My buddy, my buddy, my buddy, my buddy, I'll teach him everything that I know.

Speaker 00:

Oh man, my buddy. That lives rent-free in my head. Especially after my buddy was basically the prototype for Chucky in the Child's Play movies. Then they had Kid Sister, which wasn't as good. Probably because I was a little boy then. Like, why would anyone want a girl doll? These were larger dolls, the My Buddies, with their overalls. Big enough that you could probably dress similar to them in similar clothes if you were a smaller kid. But you could take My Buddy with you everywhere. That's what part of the song is. It wasn't too long after Child's Play came out that Hasbro discontinued My Buddy, with then PlaySchool taking over and changing things about it, how it looked. One commercial jingle that was a personal favorite of mine was Seagram's Golden Wine Coolers. Look

Speaker 03:

here! Seagram's Golden Wine Coolers Seagram's Golden Wine Coolers It's wet and it's dry Golden Wine Coolers

Speaker 00:

This Bruce Willis singing, this was before I had seen him in Moonlighting or Die Hard. It was the guy singing Seagram's Golden Wine Coolers. I didn't realize back then that famous actors, actresses sometimes did commercials after they were famous. So I was under the impression that Bruce Willis went from being that Seagram's guy to Moonlighting, Die Hard, Seagram's Wine Coolers was the ones before Zima, before Mike's Hard Lemonade or White Claw or whatever that kind of trendy drink is. Briefly trendy. It makes me wish the Bartles and James old men had come up with their own song for their wine coolers. I got one more for best commercial jingles of the 1980s and it's this one.

Speaker 03:

All

Speaker 01:

right,

Speaker 00:

so that's a little bit of a cheat since it's just two words, hefty and wimpy. But come on, you know when you shut this podcast off that's going to be in your head and you're probably going to sing it in your car. These were just glad, hefty trash bags. They could fit more trash in them, so the hefty ones you could throw trash in, they wouldn't break. The wimpy, you'd pick it up and trash would go everywhere. Then you'd have the exasperated people holding their foreheads mad because there's trash all over their floor. This is just one of those things that's so 80s that it worked. Because I would think if a commercial like this came out now for a different product, I'd look at it and say, God, you got no creativity. This is awful. But because I grew up in the 80s, hefty, hefty, hefty. Now, like I said at the beginning, I had a hard time finding commercial jingles I didn't like. And at first I thought maybe I'm just biased because I grew up as a child of the 80s and I think all the commercials were good. But no, I had to just look harder and find ones where I said, oh man, I remember that. I didn't like it. So the first one I came up with is this one.

Speaker 03:

God,

Speaker 00:

stupid skip it song. I don't know why it annoyed me. Maybe the song Count Your Score and see if you can skip a whole lot more. I'm sure some of you out there hear that Skip It song and probably think it's the greatest, and that's fine. Another one of the worst that there was was this stupid one.

Speaker 03:

I

Speaker 00:

was like, they didn't really sing? Well, they sung a little bit, but it was stupid hand clapping rhythms that they did? Oh man, this was just terrible. I mean, I'm sure they got paid well for the commercial, but I wouldn't want to be an actor having to do that stupid hand slaps. That's actually how I remembered this and came up with it. I was like, what was that stupid McDonald's commercial with the hand clapping? And the third one, the only other one I could really think of as far as bad commercial jingles was this one by Mazda.

Speaker 02:

And at $57.95, it's also the lowest priced truck in America with all

Speaker 03:

that standard equipment.

Speaker 00:

It's like, what does Sakes Alive mean? That's what your slogan is? That sounds like something my Nana would have said or people growing up in the 1880s would have said. That's how you sell your car. So those are a few of the worst and a lot of the best. Do you remember any of these or all of these? That's why I put the clips in there. Like I said, sometime in the future, I'll do a similar segment for each different decade of commercials that are best and worst. They don't have to be just jingles. So there's ones if you think I missed that I maybe didn't qualify as a jingle. But that's going to wrap up episode 159 of the podcast podcast. Happy birthday to my oldest friend, Barry. We go back like 40 years. I think I was six years old when I first met Barry. My aunt Esther, who was my grandparents' friend, so she wasn't aunt by blood, but she lived in this housing development. And every now and then I get dragged over there to visit Esther. And I remember at one point, Barry, who lived a couple of houses down, was outside and I kind of looked at on Esther and said, I'm going to go see that kid over there. And the rest was history. It's amazing to think that so many memories I have of Barry growing up with him, meaningful moments that we both went through. He is one of those people that even though we don't speak as much as we used to because he doesn't live around here, he's one that I cannot talk or text with for months. And if I bump into him, it's like time stood still. He's one of rare few people in my life whose presence helped define me as a human, if that makes sense. Like the truly important people, friends and family that without them, you don't know what your life would look like or have looked like. And I'm lucky I've got several of those friends and family. And if you're listening and thinking it's you, you're probably right. Happy birthday, Barry. I hope this episode was worthy of being kind of a gift. I tried to choose other topics I thought you would enjoy because all this nostalgia is stuff I enjoy anyway, which is why I've done 159 and next week will be episode 160. And with it being after Labor Day weekend next week, we're going to look at some of the things about school in the 80s that are different from today. And it's not going to be just clothing and music. It's going to be actual things about school. For those of you curious, those of you that heard last week's podcast when I talked about my Uncle Bob and the really rough physical shape he was in, I wanted to share an update, and it's a good update. It's a long road, but he may be on the road to a full recovery. He's off his ventilator. He can speak a few words. He remembers who he is. He can move limbs on command. All these little things that a major stroke would really affect. It looked really dicey last week. Like he may not make it through the night. But his daughter, my cousin, she did her own research into another condition that my uncle has that might have impacted his health. And she was right. And when he got sent to Mass General Hospital, they started treating this other condition and he started getting better. So there's still a long road to go. But the fact that there is still a road to go for my Uncle Bob is just, it's a shocking miracle. Not a bad shock, but just from where things were left. So I wanted to thank everyone who reached out and sent prayers, good vibes, messages to me about my Uncle Bob. I really appreciate that. For those interested, I have several copies of recent books, Searching for the Lady of the Dunes, Cape Cod Nights, Cape Cod Beyond the Beach, my photography book, the second printing of the In My Footsteps Cape Cod Travel Guide. These are ones that if you want to buy a copy, I can actually sign and send to you. And if you're interested, reach out, shoot me an email, ChristopherSetterlin at gmail.com or go to my homepage, ChristopherSetterlin.com. That has links to all nine of my books, but you can also message me through there. I get a lot of bots that message me, more so to join my newsletter that never materialized. So I get bots subscribing to my newsletter that hasn't been a thing for about 13 years. I'm going to get angry bot emails. Where's my newsletter? This has been a lot of fun, this podcast, this episode, but in general, I have so much fun doing these. And I appreciate all of you that have made this appointment listening for you. I'm basically a Cape Cod author that loves talking about nostalgia. And I'm going to keep on pumping out the content. More videos on YouTube. Go subscribe there. I'm trying to make it at least a weekly thing because full audio podcasts now go up on YouTube instead of Google Podcasts. But I'm also trying to take segments from the podcast and make videos of them. I am sure that memorable 1980s commercial jingle segment I just did will end up being a video. But until next time, folks, 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. Thank you all again so much for tuning in. This has been the In My Footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund. You already knew that. I'll talk to you all again soon.

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