Episode 47: Top 5 Christmas TV Specials; Restaurant Storytime IV - Baked Potato Adventures; The Nintendo Game Boy; Colonial Williamsburg VA(12-2-2021)

Episode 47 kicks of the Holiday season in style.  It begins with the hilarious but true stories from Restaurant Storytime III.  These center around what was to be done with baked potatoes that were left over from the night before.
The newest Road Trip is a journey back in time to Colonial Williamsburg Virginia.  It is the largest living history museum that allows you to totally amerce yourself in the lives of 18th century Colonists.
We go way Back In the Day to the release of Nintendo's Game Boy.  It revolutionized video gaming and was at the top of the list for kids at Christmas when it was released in 1989.  What made it so popular?
It's the time of the year for beloved Christmas season television specials.  This week is the Top 5 list of them.  Which ones made it?  Is there a Grinch?  Or a red-nosed reindeer?
Of course there is a new This Week In History and Time Capsule looking back at the release of Michael Jackson's Thriller video.
Be sure to watch for my livestreams called Without A Map Friday's at 8pm on Instagram which serve as a sort of postgame show for the podcast. Find them on IGTV  after they've finished.

Helpful Links from this Episode(available through Buzzsprout)

• Purchase Iconic Hotels and Motels of Cape Cod
• Wear Your Wish
• DJ Williams Music
• Christopher Setterlund's YouTube Channel
• Christopher Setterlund.com
• The In My Footsteps Podcast Blog
• Colonial Williamsburg.org
• Michael Jackson - Thriller

Listen to Episode 46 here.

Transcript

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Intro

Hello world. Welcome in to the in my footsteps podcast. I am your host Christopher Setterlund. Coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and this is episode 47. We are kicking off December with the third installment of restaurant storytime featuring baked potato adventures, you'll have to stay listening to learn what that means. We'll take a road trip to Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. We're gonna go way way back in the day to what it was like when Nintendo Gameboy came out and how that changed video gaming forever. is going to be a new top five featuring the top five Christmas TV specials. Love a new this week in history and time capsule and more coming up right now on episode 47 in my footsteps podcast. How are you everybody? How are you all doing? Welcome in Welcome to December the last month of the year, the month with Christmas. Hopefully everybody has awakened from their food coma from Thanksgiving last week. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. It was a great time to get to see some of the family not all but enough that it made it feel special. Some of the siblings, some of my nieces and nephews, my mom and two stepfathers, it was great. It was a great time. And I made sure to enjoy Thanksgiving and not be like a lot of people that already were watching Christmas movies and putting up the Christmas lights outside in the middle of November. Now that I don't love Christmas, I do but it's something like come on enjoy Thanksgiving first. It's like when some of the supermarkets have Halloween candy up in August. Like the whole just let us enjoy summer, then Halloween, then Thanksgiving, and just take it easy. Did any of you go and do any sort of Black Friday spending like in stores when it's crazy with everyone there? Or did you do online, Amazon or some smaller spots? It is both a blessing and a curse the online shopping craze of the last 20 years because smaller Mom and Pop places may not have websites that deliver goods to you. But on the other hand, if you wait till the last minute to order something, or if you can't think of a good gift for someone, you've got plenty of time. So again, it comes back to being that Xennial that I mentioned in a previous episode, that mix of Generation X and Millennial that I fall into where I'm old enough to remember before there was online shopping and having to go to the stores in the middle of December and the insanity that ensued there. But I'm also still young enough that I can appreciate online shopping and how easy it has made everything. But even if you have to go to the stores to get things for people, and they're out of whatever you're looking at, you can still get gift cards. Remember when they used have gift certificates, the paper ones, and you could buy like a pack of gum and get actual money changed for it. But that was a long time ago. But you can always get gift cards to all these different stores or restaurants. And speaking of restaurants, there's a nice segue right there. We're going to start off episode 47 with part three of restaurant storytime for some laughs to get this thing started, right. So thank you all for tuning in to Episode 47. Sit back, relax and get ready to laugh. As we start off December and we start off this episode of the podcast with restaurant storytime Part Three coming up right now.

Restaurant Storytime 3: Baked Potato Adventures

I love restaurant storytime. This is one of my favorite segments. It's why I added it to my itinerary of podcasts. Because in all my years working in the restaurant industry from the early 1990s Up until a few years ago, it was in and out kind of like a revolving door. But throughout those years, there were so many wild and wacky and funny stories, things that I couldn't believe were actually real and actually happen but they all are and that's why getting to share them with you. So you can kind of get a behind-the-scenes look at some of the foolishness that goes on in some restaurants. I don't know if it's the same now. But back in the day these things. It's amazing. If you haven't heard the first two editions of restaurant storytime I had one that was the story of the snowball fight indoors with a guy who was not prepared for a snowball fight. And I also had the story of the vicious Swan attacks, including one flying into the power lines. You can go back and check those out for more. But this one is going to be just as good. I was laughing just putting the notes together for this. I called it baked potato adventures because there are several stories that have to do with baked potatoes. I’ll start by explaining that for baked potatoes, this was back in the late 90s, I believe, we would have a half a cookie sheet pan, stack them up with baked potatoes, put them in the oven to cook them, so they'd be ready to go. And it would be something like if we sold them all that was great. If not, you'd have these leftover baked potatoes that at the end of the night, you would let them cool down, and they could be used for potato skins, you'd hollow out the insides and you'd freeze the actual potato skin. And even back then we would use the insides of the potatoes and mix it in with corned beef hash. That was kind of a secret recipe, every now and then well, maybe more than every now and then. But sometimes we would have extra baked potatoes, and I mean a lot extra. And it's like you wouldn't need that many potato skins, we'd have buckets of skins and be like, well, we don't need another 20 or 30. So we would end up kind of wasting them. Not all of them. But some. And that's where a lot of these stories come from. The main thing that we would do with these potatoes was basically practicing being an NFL punter, where you would take the potato that had been cooked and cooled, they'd be sitting outside, we had a deck. And since we worked right on a marsh, the idea was to take the potato and basically dropkick it out into the marsh just for fun. And if they had been cooked and cooled, it was kind of like kicking a big hacky sack. There was no sort of issues with pain from kicking these potatoes. And we did this a lot when we would have lots of extra baked potatoes, there'd be three of us out there, grabbing potatoes and just drop-kicking them out into the marsh. And you'd get to the point where seagulls, raccoons and other animals would be out in the marsh not receiving the potatoes like football players, but they would kind of be out there scouring for them, especially the seagulls. And this would naturally be during times in the day when it was slow. When we didn't have the business. It wasn't like in the middle of a dinner rush, we would run outside and start kicking potatoes, it wasn't that bad. I have a couple of potato-kicking memories involving myself that are pretty funny one. And this is an obvious one that you could probably imagine in your head would happen. But if you're on a deck, and it's early in the morning, typically 9am would be when a lot of this kicking would go on. The deck was kind of old and rickety, and it could get slick. So you can only imagine me getting one of these potatoes and just lining up like I'm going to kick a 70-yard field goal. And I reared back with everything I had as I stepped forward and slipped because the deck was wet. And I went ass overhead and just landed flat on my back on the deck. Oh man, it was so funny. I knocked the wind out of myself. I'm laying on the deck and the other cook that was working at the time comes running out. He's like, Oh my god, I saw that. I'm like, Yeah, I felt it. I don't remember if any customers ever caught wind of what we were doing. I think we tried to be discreet. It was a fun way to pass the time. But I think we made sure that customers didn't see because we didn't want to get ratted out, they'd go to our boss and be like we see your cooks Outback kicking potatoes. I'll never forget the time that I was lining up to do one of these potato kicks and the potato I grabbed wasn't cooked. I will tell you there was a huge difference between kicking a cooked potato and kicking a raw one. It's basically like kicking a brick. And when you're not expecting it and it's a little bit chilly out you know how it is you whack your foot or something you get the cold and the vibration in the bones and Oh, it's terrible. And I kicked this potato with everything I had expected to be cooked and a little bit soft. Oh no, it was hard as a rock and I went down Yelling like I had broken my foot, which would have served me right. How do you explain that in the hospital? How did you break your foot? I kicked a raw potato they'd be like get out did put you in the gurney and we'll you outside and leave you there. Like I said before the seagulls would kind of get wind of what we were doing and they were always around there we were by the ocean. And you know how seagulls are they're basically flying rats. They look to get in the dumpsters and they're just really bad to have around restaurants. And I'm sure I'll end up doing a restaurant storytime jest on Seagull problems. But for this one with the baked potatoes. This is not going to paint us in a good light. But remember, this was 20 years ago, we used to use cooked potatoes as weapons to get rid of the seagulls. They'd be in the dumpster. They'd be all over the fences or on the barn across the parking lot waiting to dive down and grab stuff. 99.9% of the time the potatoes that were thrown were basically just diversions and scare tactics because my aim wasn't that good. I did one time hit a seagull with a baked potato. I mean, he lived I didn't kill him, but boy, you could hear that sound that thunk as I whacked him with it. But even funnier than that was the time that they were going on for months and months, where we'd be throwing potatoes at seagulls just to get rid of them. And it got to the point where they would know the motion. So you'd go outside, pick up a potato, caulk your arm back, and they'd be like, oh, man, he's gonna throw that so they take off. And there was one time the seagull was on the dumpster. And I ran out there, grabbed a potato cocked my arm back and I scared that thing so bad that it flew into two trees, it flew into one whack and then hit another one, and kind of wobbled and landed out in the marsh. It was the damnedest thing I'd ever seen the thing hit two trees, because it was so spooked by the potato, I think that potato would have done less damage. But enough about throwing them at seagulls I saved the best part of this segment for last. So this has to do with the same guy that was in restaurant storytime one, he was the one that I went into the prep room with the snowball and scared the hell out of them and hit the clock with it. This guy is like his own segment all on his own. So basically what happened was we were out there, there were three of us kicking the potatoes basically seeing who could kick them the furthest out into the marsh, and me and this one guy kicked him with no problem just like normal because we've done it enough. And the other guy, I kid you not he picks up the potato, and he kicks it with all these gut, the potato goes almost straight up in the air, but his shoe came off and flew out into the marsh. And I mean out into it. Oh my god, we were laughing so hard like tears crying, laughing because he kicked his shoe right off into the marsh. And he's upset standing there with one shoe and one sock. And I'm laughing so hard until I realized that the only person that could go out into the marsh and get his shoe was me. So I had to go walk down, hopped over one of those little rivers that go around the marsh, and walk out there and get his shoe. That's what my life was kicking potatoes and then having to go retrieve a guy's shoe out of the marsh that he kicked off. I don't think he ever kicked potatoes again. After that. I think he was always worried. I told him I said do just tie your shoes. That's all you got to do. But he was worried about it. But those are my favorite stories, the baked potato Adventures of kicking the old potatoes that we didn't need out into the marsh and the craziness that ensued from that. I hope you've enjoyed these restaurants storytimes this was number three, I've got plenty more to come. So if you like them, let me know and I'll return to this topic sooner than later. But until the next time, just imagine me kicking a potato and fallen on my ass or the guy kicking his shoe out into the marsh. All true.

Road Trip: Colonial Williamsburg, VA

All right, we're back with another road trip after skipping last week for Thanksgiving. For those of you that listen to episode 45 We did historic Jamestown, Virginia. This week's road trip is going to basically be the other side of the same coin. We're going to be into Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. This was another spot on my 2019 road trip that was high up on my list of places to see as I love history. So Colonial Williamsburg was a must-see for the nuts and bolts of it. Williamsburg, Virginia, is 45 miles northwest of Norfolk, Virginia. And as of 2019, it had a population of just under 15,000 Colonial Williamsburg itself is basically a living breathing Museum. You can find it at 101 Visitor Center Drive in Williamsburg Park and just go you get your tickets for the museum and you just wander the grounds. Once you're there, and once you're walking the cobblestone streets, you kind of get immersed in it, you feel like you've gone back 300 years in time, whether it's checking out the governor's palace, the Capitol building the public armory, they've got all these places to see these historic buildings. And they've got people that work there. If you're from Massachusetts, or you know, the area, Plymouth Plantation where if you go there and speak to the people that work there, it's like they're from the 17th century. It's pretty much the same thing in Williamsburg were the people there. It's like they're from colonial time. So you talk to them and they speak as if it's the 1770s which is neat to have people that immersed it's like living in a Broadway show where you've got your part to learn, although that must be a pain to get little kids that start to ask you about PlayStation and the internet and things and you're supposed to pretend that you don't know. One thing I found really cool when I got there was the carriage and wagon rides, where you've got the men in the actual old 1700s clothing. And they've got the horse-drawn carriage, which really was neat, I got pictures of that author share a photo on social media of the horse-drawn carriage. I didn't actually go in one because as you've heard through all of my road trips from this 2019 trip, I had only so much time, which at some points like at Colonial Williamsburg, it was like I got just enough to appreciate where I was, but not enough so that I could really get immersed in what it was. There's a beautiful Arboretum and Gardens, and you walk down the streets and the homes there from almost 300 years ago. There are constantly tours with the people that work there. So that if you're walking and you have a brochure and you're kind of figuring it out on your own, that's fine. But you also have these opportunities with the people that are experts to explain why Colonial Williamsburg is important. And the stories behind a lot of the places that you might not normally check out despite being a historical spot historical living museum, they are very much in tune with the modern times, you go to Colonial williamsburg.org You can order online tickets, including single day, multi-day and annual passes. They've even got the America's historic triangle ticket, which like I said, is historic Jamestown, I went to Colonial Williamsburg is part two. And then the third one is Yorktown, which I did not get to visit. But you can get a ticket that allows you to go to all three, which that I would imagine is probably the best way to go. There's also the Liberty ice pavilion, it's like an outdoor skating rink. When I was there, they were setting it up. Typically it runs from the week before Thanksgiving, to the end of February. And I was there right at the perfect time when they were getting ready to set it up. So I was like if I had been a couple of days later, I would have gotten to do the ice skating. If for some reason you go to Williamsburg and you're not really a fan of history, which kind of defeats the purpose of going you can check out visit williamsburg.com and see what else they've got there. And they do have a lot. They have Busch Gardens Williamsburg amusement park, which there's easily a reason to go. It's located at one Busch Gardens Boulevard in Williamsburg. There are more than 50 rides and attractions. They got live stage shows and obviously lots of good food. And Busch Gardens has been voted the world's most beautiful amusement park every year since 1990. There's also the Chickahominy Riverfront Park, which if you listen to the Jamestown episode, Episode 45 You heard me talk about that. But if you didn't, it's at 1350 John Taylor highway in Williamsburg. 140 acres, outdoor facilities with camping fishing, and boating, you can go and check out the Go Ape treetop adventure at 5537 Centerville road. This is not too far from downtown Williamsburg. And it's got zip lines, rope ladders, net bridges, trap pieces. I mean, it's wild. It's gotta be crazy to go there and do all that stuff. Check out go ape.com and see some of the photos to kind of get you primed and ready to go. If you're looking for places to eat, that runs the gamut. They've got more fine dining at a chef's kitchen or fat Canary. If you want something a little cheaper, you can go to food for thought restaurant. If you're looking to go totally unhealthy checkout duck donuts. And like I said all these are located at visit williamsburg.com I would definitely recommend spending the night there getting to really take in Colonial Williamsburg Jamestown, Yorktown there are plenty of places to stay there. If you're looking for something more affordable, there's the Hampton Inn and Suites they've got. But if you're looking to make it more memorable, check out the Williamsburg in and again it's all at visit williamsburg.com. However, after all these things, the other things you can see in Williamsburg and eat and stay in all come back to Colonial Williamsburg. That's why I went that's why I think you should go. It's a great way to step back into the history of the United States way back when it was before it even started before the American Revolution. Seeing what life was like back then. It's like a perfect combination where you can meet George Washington and get a horse and buggy ride, but yet have your smartphone with you. It's the world's largest living history museum at 301 acres so it's easy to get lost in there. 88 of the buildings that you'll see at this museum are originals from the time and this all began in 1926 with a man named William Archer, Rutherford Goodwin, he was a reverend doctor and he got the backing from John D. Rockefeller, to buy these buildings and start to restore them and that's what you see here today. If you love history, it's going to be just right up your alley, just the perfect place to go and visit. If you don't like history, hey, you'll be outside and you'll get some exercise, but I think you'll like it. Go visit Colonial Williamsburg check out historic Jamestown, go to York town, grab something to eat, go to Busch Gardens spend the night there, you can't go wrong. And with the next road trip, I'm going to finally reach the ocean finally reached the Outer Banks of North Carolina and we're going to do a nice road trip to the small town of duck North Carolina. It was a lot of fun. The Outer Banks are awesome. But Colonial Williamsburg is also awesome. And I hope you've been enjoying going through the spots that I visited two years ago as I get to relive one of the best and most fun times of my life. Come back next week for another road.

Sponsor: Wear Your Wish

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This Week In History

This week in history, we are going back 38 years ago to December 2 1983. This was the debut of Michael Jackson's Thriller video. And it literally changed the way that people saw music videos and what they did for the sales of albums. This video was more than a music video. It was an event. It was a short film. It was over 13 minutes long, and you could actually rent the videotape of the making of the Thriller video was just imagine that it's different these days but back then go into a video store to rent a video about the making of a video. By this point Michael Jackson's Thriller album was just a juggernaut it was selling so much it would go on to become one of the top-selling albums ever. And it had so many hit songs Billie Jean beat it want to be starting something human nature thriller though that was the one it just lent itself to become this short film, where Michael Jackson takes his date to the theater. They end up walking home and it's scary and he turns into well he turns into a zombie that he's I don't know he had yellow eyes like a werewolf. But he had Vincent Price doing a rap in it if you don't know Vincent Price, he was a very famous 50s and 60s horror movie actor. The video itself, that came out in 1983 had a budget of $500,000, which when adjusted for inflation is just under 1.4 million. So it actually wasn't that big of a deal. As far as budget goes, there's been videos that have cost several million recently. If you were around at the time and you saw this when it first came out, it's hard to describe to those that are younger how much this changed music and music videos. They had legendary director John Landis directed the video, it kind of created the behind-the-scenes type of documentaries. Interestingly enough, CBS Records released thriller, they didn't want to foot the bill to release a new video after doing Billy Gene and beat it. So Michael Jackson and John Landis had to get Showtime and MTV to actually pay half of the 500,000 each. To get the rights to the behind-the-scenes documentary behind the video. You definitely need to go and check this video out if you haven't seen it. It's got the famous zombie dancing scene that people still try to mimic almost 40 years later. And if he hadn't been cemented by that point, this video and it's Air Play constantly on MTV, and the behind-the-scenes video and the ability to rent it at video stores really cemented Michael Jackson as the King of Pop. And the Thriller video itself debuted 38 years ago this week in history, December 2 1983. And now it's time for another time capsule. We're going to go back 30 years ago this week to November 30 1991. Why did I pick that date? No reason just felt like it. Sometimes they have meaning and sometimes they don't. The number one song was set adrift on memory bliss by pm dawn. This is a personal favorite song. It's got a sample from the song true by Spandau Ballet. It was like the first song that I remember coming out where I knew where the sample was from. The song was from pm Don's debut album of the heart of the soul and of the cross. It was pm Dawn’s only number one song ever although they did have a hit with I’d die without you from Eddie Murphy's boomerang movie, but that did not reach number one which surprising to me. The number one movie was the Addams Family. It starred Angelica Houston, Raul, Julia, Christina Ricci, and Christopher Lloyd. It made $191 million at the box office on a budget of 30 million. And it's obviously based off of the TV show from the 1960s the ghoulish Addams Family Morticia and Gomez and Uncle Fester, and it's got a 65% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes than it was a pretty good movie, so you should definitely check it out. The number one TV show for the first time ever on the podcast was not an actual TV show. It was a football game. It was an NFL game between the Washington Redskins and the Detroit Lions. Washington won the game 45 to nothing behind players like quarterback Mark Rypien, wide receiver Art Monk and running back Ernest Byner. Detroit for their part had no chance because even though they had quarterback Rodney Peete star running back and my favorite football player ever Barry Sanders did not play Detroit did have Tecmo Superbowl legend punt returner Mel gray on the team, but even he couldn't help them from getting crushed by Washington. And if you were a kid back then in 1991, I was 14 years old at all this time, and you were looking for the hottest Christmas toy for teenage boys. The Super Nintendo Entertainment System was that toy and you could get one for $199 or just over $400 when adjusted for inflation to 2021. And that wraps up another time capsule another this week in history. But coming up now we're going to really get into the holiday spirit with a new top five. This is the top five TV Christmas specials coming up right now.

Top 5 Christmas TV Specials

We are kicking off the holiday season in style with this brand new top five. This is going to be the top five Christmas TV specials. Obviously that means the ones that were shown on TV, we're going to be doing the top five Christmas movies next week. This one's going to be a lot of fun. Like I say with all these top fives they all go in no particular order because I figure my choices for the top 5 are going to cause enough discussion that I don't have to put them in a particular order to really make it stand out. I do, however, have a feeling that most of you are going to agree with my top five. And as we go, like I said, I always have a couple honorable mentions. So honorable mentions for the top five. Christmas TV specials include the Star Wars Christmas Special from 1978, and also a Christmas carol the animated one from 1971. It actually got an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. But those are the honorable mentions. We're going to dive right into the actual top five. So here we go. Top five, Christmas TV specials. Number one, A Charlie Brown Christmas from 1965. This one, every kid that's been born in the last 60 years knows this one. It's Charlie Brown trying to find the meaning of Christmas, how it's become too commercial. It's where Linus gives the speech about Christmas and it's got the tree. Charlie Brown gets the tree that's got no needles in anything. It looks just terrible. It's got the famous Christmas time is here song that when you hear it when I hear it, I go right back to being seven, eight years old and seeing it for the first time and they're doing the Christmas play. And there's that famous piano song from Vinson Guaraldi it's just one of those all time classics. Number two is a Garfield Christmas from 1987. This because I'm a huge Garfield fan have been since I was a kid. This naturally was going to make my top five this centers around Garfield and Odie going with Jon Arbuckle to the Arbuckle farm to spend Christmas with the family. The parents read Binky the Clown who saved Christmas book. And of course Garfield just wants to eat but in the end, he finds these old love letters from the grandfather to the grandmother and gives them to her and it's just as nice warm moment. And it's one word Garfield actually is really soft-hearted because he's usually just so mean and just a pain in the ass. But odie makes him the homemade back scratcher and it's one of those where you get to see the other side of Garfield. It's another great one that as soon as I watch it, I go back to when it came out and I was 10 years old. Number three is the Grinch Who Stole Christmas from 1966. This one needs little explanation again, to anyone who's been born in the last 60 years. You know the story of the Grinch. And who the who's from Whoville and Cindy Lou Who the book was written by Dr. Seuss. It has famed horror movie actor Boris Karloff as the voice of the Grinch. It's got famed voice actress June Foray as Cindy Lou Who and it's interesting because it was directed by Chuck Jones of Looney Tunes fame and so despite it being Dr. Seuss, it does have a little bit of that Looney Tunes vibe to it. Who can forget the scene of the Grinch going into all the houses and stealing all of the presents that giant sack on his sleigh with Max the dog towing it with just the one piece of wood as an antler. If you haven't seen this Christmas TV special, I don't know where you've been, but you should go check it out right now. Number four is Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer from 1964. This is one of the originals as far as Christmas TV specials go. It was stop motion animation, which is definitely a lost art that was used a lot in the earlier part of the 20th century. It's got Burl Ives as the snowman who is the narrator who sings all the songs and it's got the abominable snowman and Yukon Cornelius and the Island of Misfit Toys. All the other reindeer are kind of jerks to Rudolph because of his shiny red nose. But then during the big storm, Rudolph is the one who leads the sleigh and saves Christmas is a classic in every sense of the word and another one you got to go out of your way to find. And finally, number five on the list of top five Christmas TV specials. Remember in no particular order. Number five is Frosty the Snowman from 1969. This one's an animated special. It's got Jimmy Duranty, the legendary actor in his last role as the narrator and it centers around the magical hat of Professor Hinkle, who's an adept magician. And the hat gets put on Frosty the Snowman is headed by all the kids and he comes to life. And as the temperature starts to rise and frosty fears he's going to melt they decide to go to the North Pole to bring him there to be safe. It's got the famous Frosty the Snowman song. All five of these are just, you need to see them every holiday season or else it doesn't feel complete, at least in my opinion. But that's the top five Have you watched these I would be shocked if you hadn't. Charlie Brown Christmas, Garfield, Christmas, the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer and Frosty the Snowman. Those were my top five Christmas TV specials. I'll be back next week with another top five. And this one will be the companion piece, the top five Christmas movies

Back In the Day: Nintendo Game Boy

2021 now is we're in the holiday season, you're gonna get a lot of kids and teenagers looking for a PlayStation five and Xbox and Nintendo Switch these amazing consoles with graphics that are beyond anything that I could have imagined when I was growing up. When I was a kid, I had the Atari 2600 To start off, then the Nintendo Entertainment System came out and blew that away. But there was something else that came along that changed the game beyond anything and I think it's still changed the game to this day. And we're gonna go way way back in the day now as I talk about what it was like when the Nintendo Game boy first came out. Granted now if you're going to compare the Game boy, the original from 1989 to a Nintendo Switch or ds or any of those handheld consoles. It's not going to be the same especially if you were born and raised in this era, where the games are just so realistic and detailed. For those of my generation in my age group though, the Game boy changed everything. Because no longer did you have to sit in front of a television with the controller and be kind of in among everyone to play your games. The Nintendo Game boy allowed you to wake up in the morning on a Saturday without school and pull out the Game boy and sit in bed and play super Mario and Tetris. For the specs. It was this little off-white handheld game console, probably a little smaller than a typical VHS cassette tape, which younger people won't get that reference either. Probably a little bit bigger than the largest smartphones that are out there now and a little bit thicker. You stuck these little they look like mini Nintendo cartridges. A little bit bigger than a matchbook. You had a screen that was green tinted and it was eight-bit graphics. The screen was just over two and a half inches diagonal, which is how they measure the screens. I'll never forget getting this and just being obsessed with the fact that I could sit in bed and play video games. It was released in 1989. It was a huge Christmas seller. over its lifetime the original Nintendo Game boy has sold more than 100 million units. The most famous have to be Super Mario Land and Tetris. I was obsessed with Tetris, the music, you can hear it in your head, and you would just play in play and play trying to beat your best score. Super Mario same thing. There were so many other games though that came I'm thinking of when the Game boy came out. So 89-90 When it was hot, you had Final Fantasy and Dr. Mario old-school games like asteroids. And granted the green screen and the graphics weren't great. The music was very much the eight-bit sound, the classic sound from the mid-80s. But the funny thing is, competition came around right away. So Nintendo releases the Game boy, and Atari released the Atari Lynx and Sega released the Game Gear, and those had color graphics, so it looked better, but that didn't make it better, because of those suffered from poor battery life and limited game availability. So the Gameboy just looked better and better. Eventually, Nintendo got with the times and they came out with a Gameboy Color in 1998. That being said, though nothing beat the original. You could typically get 15 hours of gameplay with the batteries, which may or may not be easy to run through a typical weekend for a teenage boy. Despite it being this revolutionary handheld gaming system. It was pretty affordable. It was an introductory price of 89.99 or about $200 when adjusted for inflation. Tetris was the best-selling game throughout that initial run of Game boy which they discontinued the original in 2003, Tetris sold 35 million copies, despite it being discontinued almost 20 years ago, the original Game boy it's actually not that valuable if you still have yours. They don't go for that much. So like I said, they were originally sold for 89.99. If you've got an original in the box, they typically go for like $150. So that's not what you would expect as far as it being a collector's item. It could be because of the fact that over 100 million had been sold, so they're not that hard to find. When the Game boy was released, it came with six titles, not all with it, but those were the launch titles. Like I said, Super Mario World Tetris, there was a baseball game a tennis game, an alleyway, Jaco man, which was like Mahjong, the cheapest of the games would cost, like $20. If you went to Toys R Us or KB toy store or child world, or any of those ones that were open back then, they could go up as high as $40. If you wanted the highest of the highest quality games, Game boy was so much more successful than some of Nintendo's other ideas. Like I don't know if anyone remembers the Power Glove. I might do a back-in-the-day segment on the Nintendo Power Glove. But that was a huge, epic fail. Like I said they had the original Game boy, game boy color. Then in 2001 they had Game boy Advance, so it kept going, but the originals Would everyone remembers. I keep going back to Tetris and Super Mario World because those were my two favorites to play. But you plug in your headphones. I had the cheap ones with that foamy over the ear. headphones with like the metal bar that went over your head. That was like what you would get with a Walkman. And I put that over my ears and just have the Tetris music playing all night. Did any of you out there have the Game boy or any of the games? I mean, where your favorite games different from Tetris and super Mario world. I don't know what happened to mine. I got it, obviously, Christmas 1989. So I was 12 years old, I would think that I would have been careful enough with it that I didn't break it. I don't remember that I have no idea what happened to it. For its time though, it was so revolutionary, despite the fact that the screen was green, and it didn't have any back-lighting to it. So you couldn't really play in the dark. And it was just simple with the control pad, the directionals the AB button, select and start. And sure, maybe at times, you had to blow in the back when you put the game in, just like with the regular Nintendo. Or if you got mad at Super Mario, you just yank the game out right in the middle of playing and the music would just freeze. The screen would be all ruined. I was checking as I was doing some research for this segment, it appears as though Nintendo is going to make the original Game boy games available for the switch through its online subscription service. I don't know if it's come out yet. But that's great. If people that grew up with the Game boy and now like their kids have the Nintendo Switch. You can get Tetris and Super Mario World and then commandeer their switch and play your games on it. I know that all things 80s and 90s are now retro chic. A lot of things are coming back around, whether ironically, or as a novelty. I don't think the Game boy will make a comeback like that. Because once you've advanced to where these games are today with the graphics and the interplay and depth of the stories, I don't think anyone wants to go back to the eight-bit games and eight-bit music. Unless it's for kind of a chuckle to look back at what used to be, it would be like making a phone call with an old rotary phone. It'd be fun to do it once. But then once you've done it, it's like okay, that's good. I'm all set. I'll go back to my smartphone. The original Game Boy changed everything when it came out in eighth 1989 It changed the way that kids played video games. You could be outside with your friends still, but be playing games. It's hard to believe that was over 30 years ago, and I did I just looked on Ebay. I could get myself a Game boy for $90 I don't know how good it would be 30-something years later, but hey, maybe I'll take a trip back in the day and get myself a Game boy play some Tetris, get some Doritos and Mountain Dew and just reminisce about being young and a teenager. But I'm sure I'll be back around in Episode 48 with another trip back in the day, remembering the good old days now that I'm old enough to be able to say that.

Closing

That's going to wrap up Episode 47 of the in my footsteps podcast, I thank you all so much for tuning in. And hopefully you enjoy it and share it telling other people to check it out. I have a lot of fun picking out topics, researching them, recording this and sharing it, and then seeing what people think of it. It's a lot of fun. I love the creativity, the creative outlet. It's something I need, and I strive for. And I've told a lot of people, I'll say it again, any of you out there, you could all do your own podcast. Everybody has something they're passionate about a knowledgeable about, it's just a matter of sitting down and putting it together the kernel of the idea and letting it grow. But you all could do it. Tune in every Friday at 8pm on Instagram, where I do my without a map live stream. We talked about the podcast, I tried to go a little more in-depth I tried to interact with any of you that come into the chat, because it's a lot of fun. That's the way that you build an audience and interact with people that enjoy your work. Live streams are amazing. for that. Visit my website, Christopher setterlund.com. It's got links to all of my books, either through Schiffer Publishing, Arcadia Publishing, or amazon.com. They're also in local Cape Cod bookstores. If you're interested in my newest book, iconic hotels and motels of Cape Cod, I have a few copies in my possession that I'd be glad to sign if you want to buy them. I got other kinds of little tidbits of merch that I can stick into the book there. Shoot me a message on any form of social media. Well, especially Instagram, that's the easiest one, or email me Christopher setterlund@gmail.com. I'm gonna put a blast out on social media to see if anyone's interested. It's perfect for a holiday gift. For people that grew up on Cape Cod and visited Cape Cod, we aren't considered the vacation destination for nothing. Check out Mind Body spine Chiropractic in Brewster. That is where I ply my trade as a personal trainer, trying to help people of all fitness levels just have a better overall quality of life. If you're looking for gifts for Christmas, like I said, besides my books, visit Wear your wishes.com. And if not, make sure to shop local if you can, and shop online to the big places only if it's the last resort. Help out the small people. That's what keeps the gears of all these small towns going. I'm going to try something new for episode 48. Coming next week. I've got two ideas for the main subject, the main story of the podcast, I'm going to put it to a vote to see what you people want. It's going to go up on Instagram, Twitter, they both have to do with snow. I thought this was too funny to pass up. So it's December it's Christmas time you think of snow. There's two different subjects. You can either pick Edward Rowe Snow, who was known as the flying Santa, or you can pick Edwin Ray Snow, who was a murderer. So you're going to either get Santa or murder. Go on there and vote and you'll find out next week, episode 48. which one wins out? And like I said there'll be a new road trip to duck North Carolina. A new top five that will be the Christmas movies. We'll go back in the day again. We'll have a new this week in history and Time Capsule All that coming up next week on episode 48 of the podcast. I wanted to wish a special Happy birthday to my nephew Lucas, who turned 10 years old December 1 I can't believe he's 10 already. That night you were born was wild with all of us waiting for your mom to have you. There are still so many photos I can remember that night like it was yesterday. And the funniest thing I remember about that night that Lucas was born was when I got out to my car. I said whatever song comes on my iPod first is going to be the one that I always associate with him. And it was funny because the song that came on was hot fun in the summertime by Sly and the Family Stone December the first and it's too bad because ironically the next song was we all go back to where we belong a song by REM that really fit the mood more. But oh well. It's funny and I always loved telling that story. So happy birthday Lucas I'm sure I will see you or have seen you by the time you hear this or your mom plays it for you. So happy birthday from your crazy uncle. And as the holiday season kicks into high gear make sure to check in with those you care about friends and family. This is the time of year it can be the best time of year for a lot of people but it can all also be a time of sadness and depression. If you're not around those you care about or if you're living more of a lonely life, just lean into your own happiness for your mental health. I've been having a blast going through my old videotapes and editing, old skits I made in high school, that brings me joy, and editing old photos to send to family members. Just fun things that make you happy. Whatever it is, who cares if you've got to explain it to anyone if it makes you happy, and it's not hurting anyone? Lean into that that's what's most important. And 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. Because you never know when the next sunset will be the last sunset. It's better to live big and live happy than live small and have a lot of regrets when you get older. But have a great weekend. Have a great week. Tune in next week for episode 48 tune into the live stream. I will talk to you all again.