Episode 55 starts off with the story of the wreck of the schooner Montclair off of Nauset Beach. Destroyed in a storm in 1927 the vessel remains a part of the beach itself, being revealed and hidden repeatedly over the years due to shifting sands. How did it end up there though?
A very special Road Trip takes us to the beautiful Cape Hatteras National Seashore in North Carolina. Located on the Outer Banks it features a pair of historic lighthouses and so much more. Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was in fact the end game for the epic 2,100-mile jaunt in 2019.
The king of parody music, Weird Al Yankovic has been making fans laugh for over 40 years. Parodying songs from Michael Jackson, to Queen, to Nirvana, and countless more, Weird Al has a timeless appeal that we dive into going way Back In the Day.
Do you remember many of the popular and iconic product mascots of the 1970's? We're going to talk about the Top 5 including Morris the Cat, Woodsy the Owl, and more!
There is a new This Week In History and Time Capsule as well!
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)
Listen to Episode 54 here.
Episode 55 starts off with the story of the wreck of the schooner Montclair off of Nauset Beach. Destroyed in a storm in 1927 the vessel remains a part of the beach itself, being revealed and hidden repeatedly over the years due to shifting sands. How did it end up there though?
A very special Road Trip takes us to the beautiful Cape Hatteras National Seashore in North Carolina. Located on the Outer Banks it features a pair of historic lighthouses and so much more. Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was in fact the end game for the epic 2,100-mile jaunt in 2019.
The king of parody music, Weird Al Yankovic has been making fans laugh for over 40 years. Parodying songs from Michael Jackson, to Queen, to Nirvana, and countless more, Weird Al has a timeless appeal that we dive into going way Back In the Day.
Do you remember many of the popular and iconic product mascots of the 1970's? We're going to talk about the Top 5 including Morris the Cat, Woodsy the Owl, and more!
There is a new This Week In History and Time Capsule as well!
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)
Listen to Episode 54 here.
Intro
Hello World, and welcome to the in my footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund. Coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and this is episode 55. We're gonna have a lot of fun this week. It's a stacked show. We're going to start off with a classic Cape Cod shipwreck tale, the wreck of the Montclair off of Nauset beach, and how my buddy Steve and I found it. There'll be a road trip to one of my favorite spots, Cape Hatteras National Seashore down on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We're gonna go way way back in the day to talk about the genius that was and still is Weird Al Yankovic is going to be a brand new top five, with the top 5 1970s product ad mascots. There'll be a brand new this week in history and time capsule. All that more coming up right now on episode 55. In my footsteps podcast. Welcome in everyone. Have you dug out yet? How are you liking the snow? We finally got hit the worst one, I guess in a few years. I was hoping it would be not as bad as they said. But you know, it could always be worse. But yeah, these types of storms are not as much fun when you're out of school, and you've got to shovel your way out and go to work in it. But if it's any consolation, when this podcast goes live, we're looking at a little over six weeks until spring. So just hang in there. But if we do happen to get another storm in the next several weeks before spring arrives, you can always binge-listen to my podcast now that we are up to 55 episodes, including this one. It's a lot of room a lot of stuff I've covered. And I just want to reach out and thank all of you that have been listening, checking out the live streams, I really appreciate it. And it gives me even more motivation to keep doing these. I mean, I like doing it anyway. But knowing that people enjoy and listen, it's great. I'm sure I'll promote it more in the coming episodes. But I just wanted to throw out there that my friend crystal, you heard me interview her on episode 51 for her new book KeeKee’s Cape Cod kitchen, the cookbook, she is having her first ever event her book launch event coming up Saturday, February 19 at 4:30pm at the loft restaurant at the cove in West Yarmouth. I'll be there. Hopefully, some of you will be there to support her. It's a great place. It's going to be a great event. I can't wait and you'll hear more about it naturally in the weeks until it actually happens. But until then, we've got episode 55 to start right now. And I'm excited to tell this tale, the wreck of the Montclair, which is a shipwreck along Cape Cod, you've got a lot of shipwrecks loads of them, that some are further offshore than others. Some will get exposed in erosion and the shifting sands and the Montclair is one of those. So coming up right now on episode 55 of the in my footsteps podcast. Let's listen to the tale of the Montclair.
The Wreck of the Montclair
So like I said, Cape Cod has seen countless shipwrecks over the centuries. Its shifting shoals and sandbars have always been hazardous to passing vessels, especially on the Atlantic Ocean facing coastline. Between Race Point Beach in Provincetown, and the southern tip of Monomoy Island and Chatham, there is nearly 50 miles of some of the most dangerous waters in the world. estimates by the National Park Service say that there are upwards of 1000 Lost vessels in what is commonly referred to as an ocean graveyard. Legendary Rex include the 17th-century sparrowhawk the 18th century with a pirate ship, the 19th-century Portland and the 20th-century Pendleton even vessels as large as the 473 foot Elvia which was grounded on Nauset beach in 1984 have not been able to escape the pull of the Cape’s sandbars, and I spoke about the Eldia earlier way back in episode 21 of the podcast if you want to hear about my firsthand eyewitness accounts of seeing that, but some of these vessels like the sparrow hawk, they've been revealed due to the shifting sands and had their wooden carcasses removed and put on display in local museums. One wreck that has been appearing and disappearing over the last decade is that of the Montclair located on Southern Nauset beach. It's a glimpse into the history and an adventure to explore. However, beyond that, it is a real ship and a real tragedy with numerous lives lost which happened nearly a century ago. Oh, the vessel known as the Montclair was a three-masted schooner. The 371-tonne wooden ship was built in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada in 1918 and designated a transport vessel. It was owned by Captain CB Martin of Partridge Island, Nova Scotia. On Tuesday, March 1 1927, the 142-foot Montclair set sail from Halifax, in route to New York City, with a cargo of 2.5 million wood laughs It was headed by Captain William McLeod with a total crew of seven men. That same day a British vessel, the Frederick H, also left Nova Scotia with New York as its destination, but neither would reach it. The very next day, the vessels began to feel the effects of a strong late winter storm raging in from the southwest winds of up to 60 miles an hour toward the ships as they rounded Providence town and headed down through the shoals of the Atlantic side of Cape Cod on March 3. Captain McLeod though he had the utmost confidence in his vessel and pressed on, the wind and waves pounded the Montclair and began pushing it towards the shore, as it headed past Nauset beach. The ship lost two of its three masts, the four and mizzen masts, unable to control the vessel, they could only hang on as it was pushed into the sandbars, roughly a mile offshore just south of Nauset beach. It was at this point early on March 4, that the parallel of the Montclair awaken Captain Edward L. Clark, Clark was part of a skeleton crew of three men at Coast Guard station number 40. Located just east of little potsherd Island, two and a half miles south of the current Nauset beach parking lot New Orleans. The station had been designated inactive in the early 1920s. Ironically, due to the fact that there had not been any shipwrecks in that area for decades. Clarke notified the province town and old harbor Coast Guard stations and people rushed to the scene. After one last attempt to swing them on clear of the shoals. It was tossed up onto the sand where it was beaten by the waves of the high rising tide. The brave Coast Guard crews headed out into the wind and waves for an attempted rescue. Even managing to shoot three waited lines over the stern of the crippled ship. Five members of the ship's crew grabbed onto one line, while the other two men grabbed another before the Montclair was broken in half near the middle. The five crew members on the one line including Captain McLeod, were washed overboard, while the other two men were picked up and brought back to shore. The splintered ship was eventually lifted off the sandbar by the tides, where it was tossed up onto the sands of Nauset Beach. Its cargo of wood laughs scattered for miles along the sand. The two survivors of the wreck, Nathan bag and Gartland short, were treated for hypothermia and hysteria at the Coast Guard station. The body of Captain McCloud was quickly recovered, while three of the other four missing were also quickly pulled from the water as the storm subsided in the sea calmed. The fifth and final deceased member of the Mon Claire's crew was discovered March 15, on North Beach and Chatham by Wesley Eldridge mostly buried under the sand. Much like with the grounding of the Eldia decades later, countless residents came out to see the wreck of the Montclair, with some of them helping themselves to the unbroken wood laughs that had been deposited all along the coast. Considered to be the worst maritime disaster on the cape and more than 25 years, questions were raised as to whether more lives could have been saved if the Orleans Coast Guard station had been active. The Frederick H, which had left Nova Scotia the same day as the Montclair also ran into the same destructive storm as it sailed around Cape Cod, badly damaged as well. It managed to limp its way into vineyard Haven, only thanks to the constant pumping of water from the hold and galley of the vessel by the crew. Interestingly, along the coast of Cape Cod at the same time, author Henry Beston was residing at his Fo’Castle beach shack, writing his soon-to-be classic The outermost house, the news of the wreck of the Montclair made its way to Beston who immortalized the disaster in his book sixth chapter. Deputy collector Thomas Finnegan reported to the scene from New Bedford with a team of eight men as the Montclair had been a suspected rum-running vessel. He questioned the two survivors, but did not secure any useful information. One blessing from the disaster was the Orleans Coast Guard station was restored to full strength after it happened. The shifting sands have buried and uncovered the remains of the Montclair several times over the decades. In the 2010s. It was revealed repeatedly, each time slightly more decayed than before. The wood is soft and rotting away while the iron is rusty and gives the ship a ghostly skeletal appearance. Currently, it is nearly a two-and-a-half mile walk over the sand to reach the remains of the Montclair, though an interesting adventure taking the walkout to find its remains. It's a somber and solemn reminder of the dangers of the sea. It's important to remember the five men who lost their lives aboard the Montclair as well. They were William Downing, William Stewart, George canes, Jerome Butler, and Captain William McLeod. And like I said, my buddy, Steve and I, we walked out there two years ago, basically, this week, I think it was, and found the remains of the ship. I'll throw a photo up on social media so you can see the skeletal appearance of it, you may still see it, I have not been back out there since. So I'm not saying you should go walk out to find it. Because it may not be there, it does get covered with sand and then revealed and with the storms that we've had recently, I don't know its condition of it. If you do see it, you'll know it because there's a whole bunch of iron rods sticking up, it looks almost like a pin cushion coming up out of the sand. But like I said, seemingly every time it gets covered and then revealed again, it's slightly more decayed, which at some point, it's going to just fall apart and rust and all the iron will be gone and the wood is almost gone as well. That's the story though of the Montclair one of so many hundreds of shipwrecks all around Cape Cod. It just goes to show you that you've got to respect the sea. Because as we see with these huge winter storms that we've been getting, the sea can just take things away real quick. The erosion on Cape Cod is legit, it's constant. And honestly, who knows what the next big storm with the erosion who knows what it might reveal it may be it'll be another shipwreck that has been long since forgotten like the Montclair was.
Road Trip: Cape Hatteras National Seashore
This road trip here, is one that I've waited quite a while to do. When I began talking about my epic 2100-mile road trip. Way back in episode 31. I had this episode in particular in mind marked down that I couldn't wait to talk about the entire basis of that road trip came from me wanting to visit Cape Hatteras lighthouse on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. So this road trip segment is going to be basically me gushing about my time down at the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. So the nuts and bolts of the seashore. It was founded in 1953, and it comprises 47 square miles, and it extends from Bodie island south to Ocracoke Island. But the thing is that the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, at its narrowest is 150 yards wide. So that's why 47 square miles is actually not that big. Considering the amount of linear distance I had to drive to get to Cape Hatteras lighthouse. For comparison, the Cape Cod National Seashore is 68 square miles. Like I said, though, if you've been listening to the podcast, you know how much I love lighthouses. So Cape Hatteras lighthouse was on my bucket list of places to go see. And so this road trip became basically an excuse to go down there and see it. The interesting thing was, when I got there, I had just gotten to the Outer Banks a day or so ahead of a big storm that had washed out some of the beaches. If you remember in Episode 43, I did a road trip to Appomattox, Virginia, and I talked about the rainstorm. That's the same storm that washed out a lot of the roads. So basically, I had bucket loaders and stuff down there trying to clear the roads. And for me, this was my big this was why I went on the road trip. So there was actually it was up in the air whether I'd be able to drive out there or not. I was worried for a little while that I would have done this amazing road trip but the one place that was at the top of my list to see I wouldn't have seen. Luckily I got to go down there and to give you an example of just how far it is to get there. I was staying in Kill Devil Hills. That's where my hotel room was. To get from that hotel to Cape Hatteras lighthouse, it's 60 miles, and there's one road well basically one road one main road. And at times you could see the water on either side it was just driving in a straight line most of the time. And on the way down, you could see the trucks working on getting rid of some of the sand that had washed over. One thing that I did not expect was that it kind of sticks out in my head. There's a spot along Highway 12 As you drive south, it's called the Oregon inlet. And there's a bridge that goes up over it and the views are amazing. As you go over the water down there. They have brown pelicans that are as common as herring gulls or seagulls are up here in New England. And the thing is that the updraft of the wind and the bridge, the pelicans would come flying up over the sides of the bridge, they whip right in front of you. As I went up over this bridge, there were just scattered carcasses because I'm assuming they flew too close to cars and trucks passing by. So going over the bridge, there was just a bunch of pelicans just scattered everywhere. Cape Hatteras Lighthouse itself is in a town called Buxton, you go south, on highway 12, you get to Buxton. And then to continue on, if you were to keep going on the Outer Banks, you essentially go west or west southwest. The lighthouse itself is 193 feet tall. And when you're driving south to go to it, you can see it from several miles away. It's a weird, optical illusion, where you think this lighthouse is right over the next hill and it No, it's miles away. It has a black and white striped diagonal going up looking like a black and white barbershop pole. It's very unique. And if you see a photo, you definitely have seen it, I bet even if you don't know it. And when I got there, there were maybe one or two other cars in the parking lot. So I had this lighthouse, all to myself, and I had been waiting years to get to see it. So I was so excited, I took so many photos, and I had to pack way off to be able to fit the whole lighthouse in the photos. It's the biggest Lighthouse I've ever seen. And that's with good reason because it's the tallest lighthouse in America. The funny story was I wanted to try to take a selfie of myself with the lighthouse. And it was impossible with my phone. And there was a nice older couple walking their dog around the grounds. And they offered to take a photo of me. And they're probably not too familiar with smartphones. So I handed off my iPhone, and they took a couple of photos of me. But the lighthouse in the background you could only see just above my head. So it was like the first 10 or 15 feet of the lighthouse. And it was so bad. I looked at the photos and I did not want to say anything because they tried their best so I just thank them, but I immediately deleted all of them. The lighthouse was built in 1870 and a couple of 100 yards from the actual beacon is the old Keeper's house. I had to walk over there and set up my camera to get a selfie of me with the lighthouse. That's how far away I had to be. I'll try to remember to post that photo on social media so you can see how big the lighthouse is compared to me. I hung around down there for a little while because I wanted to after taking photos and videos just kind of soaked it in because this was the reason I was there. Cape Hatteras lighthouse was the reason I did this road trip. So I got to just sit and enjoy it and that was a lot of fun. But there was a bonus. As I said the Cape Hatteras National Seashore starts at body Island. And so driving back north after seeing Cape Hatteras Lighthouse naturally I was gonna stop at Bodie Island Lighthouse as well. This was an amazing twofer to get to see both lighthouses within an hour or so of each other. It was amazing. Bodie Island Lighthouse also has black and white stripes, but these are just straight horizontal, there's no diagonal to them. And although it's shorter than Cape Hatteras lighthouse, it's still 156 feet tall. So it's another monstrous lighthouse. And I got there just before sunset. So I have the sunset photos of this amazing Lighthouse with the trees all around it on the Outer Banks. It's one of the favorite sunsets I've ever seen in my life. One thing, in particular, I remember about Bodie Island Lighthouse, there's a way to walk out. There's a boardwalk leading to kind of this overlook you go up some sets of stairs. It looks like a little gazebo. It gives you this amazing panoramic view. And that's all well and good. But as you're walking out because it's kind of a marshy upland area. There are signs that say do not get off the boardwalk because there are poisonous snakes everywhere. So I just I stayed right on that boardwalk because I did not want to be the one to take a chance to get a different vantage point and then get bit and then my road trip ends with me in the hospital after getting bitten by a poisonous snake. I soaked in that sunset and just stayed out there to try to ingrain the memory in my head. Because for all the photos that I took, there's only one time that you can actually experience it for the first time. And that's why I did this road trip to experience all these places for the first time. I'd love to go do it again and see things and appreciate it even more, but there was only one first time. Another little interesting thing I remember about Bodie Island Lighthouse was getting right up next to it and taking a panoramic photo of it. So if you flip your iPhone to the side and do panoramic, you can shoot upwards. And so I shot the lighthouse from like 20 feet away. And because of the height, and the panoramic effect, the lighthouse seems to curve away from me. And I had people saying that I did Photoshop effects to it. It's like no, it's just the panoramic and the lighthouse was so big. There is so much more to see on the Outer Banks. In these last several episodes of the podcast, I've told you some stuff, the things that I saw and appreciated, you need to go to outer banks.com and get the full scope. Because this ends the Outer Banks portion of the road trip I've got one more trip to go that's going to be coming up next week. If you want to learn more about the Cape Hatteras National Seashore in particular, go to nps.gov. I'll put a link in the description of the podcast as I always do. Even if you don't like lighthouses like I do. There's so much to see out there. Just take your car and drive just go wherever. I wish I had had more time to see more down there. But that gives me another reason to go back I suppose. It was amazing to get to cross Cape Hatteras Lighthouse off my bucket list and get all these photos and have this experience of being there. And like I said, You all may not like lighthouses but think of something that's on your bucket list of places to see and then imagine how you'd feel if you saw it. That's the way I can relate to it. But that's going to wrap up the Cape Hatteras lighthouse in Cape Hatteras National Seashore road trip. Next week will be the road trip season finale for this 2100 mile road trip. We're going to go to Assateague island in Maryland, which is home to beautiful wild ponies. And I had quite an experience there too. So come back for that fun, final road trip bit from this epic one from 2019.
This Week In History
This week in history, we are going back to the dawn of America's pastime. 146 years ago this week, February 2 1876. And the National League of baseball was founded. I had thought this would be a perfect time to do this on the podcast because it kind of lines up with spring training will be in a couple of weeks. But unfortunately, at the time of this recording, there's a lockout going on. The American League came along much later in 1901 and in 1903, the very first World Series was held. Actually, the National League was not the first professional baseball league that was actually founded in 1871. The National Association of Professional baseball players was established as baseball's first major league. Two years earlier in 1869. The Cincinnati Red Stockings became the first professional baseball club. The very first baseball game took place in June 1846 in Hoboken, New Jersey. The reason the National League was formed was that the National Association of Professional baseball players was seen to be corrupt and mismanaged. So the National League was founded by Chicago businessman William Holbert. And they had eight original teams they were the Cincinnati Red Stockings, Hartford, dark blues, Louisville, grays, Mutual of New York, Philadelphia Athletics, the St. Louis Brown stockings, the Chicago white stockings now known as the Chicago Cubs, and the Boston Red Stockings, who are now the Atlanta Braves. The first-ever game was played on April 22 1876, between Boston and Philadelphia, with Boston winning six to five. Interestingly, the Philadelphia and New York teams both fell way behind in the standings in the first Season, and they began to refuse to make West Coast trips because they figured they were losing money, and they were actually expelled from the League after the 1876 season. The winner of the first ever pennant in the National League was the Chicago white stockings, with a record of 52 and 14 led by Deadball era legends like cap Anson, and Ross Barnes. And the National League of baseball was founded 146 years ago this week in history. And now it's time for another time capsule and this one is definitely appropriate. We are going back 29 years ago this week, February 3 1993. The reason I picked that was that the classic comedy movie Groundhog Day was released on Groundhog Day in 1993. And if you've never seen that movie with Bill Murray, Andie, McDowell, and more, it's a classic you need to see it if you haven't. But surprisingly, the number one movie in America that week was sent of a woman starring Al Pacino, Gabrielle Anwar, Chris O'Donnell, Philip Seymour Hoffman. It made over $134 million on a budget of $31 million and has an 89% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. And now Pacino won an Oscar for Best Lead Actor for his role in this movie. The number one song was I Will Always Love You by Whitney Houston. This song everyone knows this song. It was from the soundtrack to the movie The Bodyguard, and was actually originally written by Dolly Parton. The song was number one for 14 weeks, which was a record at the time and became one of the top-selling singles ever. The number one TV show was home improvement, which was all about Tim Allen's family Tim the tool man Taylor, this was a 90s classic. It was on the air for eight seasons 204 Total episodes. It also starred Patricia Richardson, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, and was the launching point for the career of Pamela Anderson, which I always enjoyed, and is one of those quintessential 90 shows. And if you were a kid like me freshman in high school, and you needed an alarm clock to make sure you got up for school, you could get the famous GE digital clock radio number seven dash 4612 a look it up. You know it everyone had one of those, but you could get it at Radio Shack for 1999 or just under $39 today, and I bet you if you got one back then it probably still works now. But that's going to wrap up this week in history and another time capsule. And now we're going to dive into a fun brand new top five. This is going to be the top 5 1970s TV ad mascots coming up right now.
Top 5: 1970s TV Ad Mascots
This is going to be a fun top five. I'm a big fan of retro commercials, retro everything but retro commercials mascots that give you that warm and fuzzy feeling going back to childhood. Back in episode 28. I did the top 5 1980s commercial mascots. So now it's only appropriate to do the 70s. This is going to hit you with some classics here. But like I said, the top five is always in no particular order. And we have some honorable mentions. So let's get your brain warmed up for the memories with the honorable mentions for 1970s TV ad mascots. Like I said it's not cereal ones because they're gonna get their own lists as we go. Honorable Mentions include the Vlasic Pickles stork that was like Groucho Marx, the Meow Mix cat that just sang meow, Rosie the waitress from bounty paper towels, and Mr. Owl from the Tootsie Pop commercials. Those are all classics. But now let's get into the actual top five. So here we go. Top 5 1970s TV ad mascots number one is Morris the cat from nine lives. He was the finicky cat with that voice that I can hear it in my head. But he always hated everything and hated everyone that owned him. But then when you gave him nine lives, he was happy. Morris actually debuted in 1968, and he was voiced by a man named John Irwin, but he was there throughout the 70s the orange tabby cat was in 58 commercials between 1969 and 1978 when the original Maurice died number two is Charlie the tuna from StarKist. He was originally created in 1960 One and is actually still around today but I think of it is from the 70s Mostly. Charlie the tuna was based on a man named Henry Nemo who was seen as the creator of jive. And he's a blue tuna fish that talks and he's got the beret and he talks kind of like a Beatnik. Herschel Bernardi did his voice throughout his tenure until he died in 1986. And so, Charlie the tuna was retired until he came back in 1999. Number three is the Kool-Aid man. Kool-Aid was originally introduced in 1927. But the Kool-Aid man didn't come around until 1974. And he's an anthropomorphic pitcher of Kool-Aid, usually with a Hawaiian shirt with a face on it crashing through the wall. It was originally voiced by Richard Berg until the mid-1990s. I should say that the Kool-Aid man didn't get his clothes until like 2000. So from my time growing up, he was a naked picture of Kool-Aid without clothes. And everyone knows his famous catchphrase, which was just Oh, yeah, as he crashed through everything. Number four is Ronald McDonald from the McDonald's fast food franchise. So technically, Ronald McDonald first came out in 1963. But I associated more with the 70s because that was when McDonald land came around that kind of expanded the universe and brought in all the other characters like Hamburglar. Mayor McCheese grimace, the fry kids, all of them. If you're my age, and you remember Ronald McDonald, he was played by a man named King moody, from 1969 to 1985, and then squire for Dell from 1986 to 1991. Those are the voices you probably would most associate with Ronald McDonald. And he's still around today just not pushed as heavily towards kids as he was in the 70s and 80s and 90s. And finally, number five on the list of top 5 1970s TV ad mascots is woodsy the owl. He is the mascot for the United States Forest Service, give a hoot don't pollute. And all the commercials, especially in the 70s the PSAs with all the kids singing keep America looking good. He was originally created in 1970 as this like a real mascot like you would see with a sports team, a giant owl with a green hat. When I was a kid in the 80s I remembered woodsy owl being voiced by a man named Sterling Holloway, you might not know him by name, but he also voiced Winnie the Pooh. So you might notice that woodsy owl and Winnie the Pooh sound exactly the same at that time. But that wraps up the top five in no particular order. If you're my age, or maybe a little older. Do you remember those mascots, Morris the cat, Charlie the tuna, the Kool-Aid man, Ronald McDonald, and woodsy owl. If you miss them, you can always dive into YouTube and look them up and see all the old commercials. It's nice to go back down memory lane like that. But I'll be back next week with a brand new and very random new top five.
Back In the Day: Weird Al Yankovic
When you're a kid growing up, your sense of humor is a lot different than it will be as you age. I know looking back as a child of the 1980s that the kid shows that I watch and the humor on them. They haven't aged that well. I don't find those to be funny anymore. But one thing that has stood the test of time and continues to this day is the parody song. It's an art that has been lost recently, songs making fun of other songs making fun it's childish humor and for me, there was only one king of the parody song and that was the man named Weird Al Yankovic and I wanted to talk a little bit about those songs and his genius and he's still going today. If you were younger, born in this century, the name Weird Al Yankovic may not mean anything. But if you were a child of the 80s, or even before that in the 70s, you would know who he is. Weird. Al had a very unique look, especially back in the 80s with the frizzy hair and the glasses and the thinner mustache and the loud shirts, typically Hawaiian shirts. He is actually out on tour. Oh, he'll be going on tour in April of 2022. So that's one of those things where you can relive your childhood if you're my age, visit weird Al.com And you You can see all the tour dates if you're interested in going I know he's going to be in New Bedford, weird owl. His real name is actually Alfred Yankovic. So it's not a stage name. He was born October 23 1959 in Downey, California. So he is currently 62 years old, which is wild because he's been around forever. His first foray into kind of the spotlight was in 1976, with the Dr. Demento show. Dr. Demento was the OG of parody music. And that first song that got him airtime was called Belvedere Cruisin. So that's the trivia answer of Weird Al's first song from 1976. So think about that. He was basically 17 years old high school, you'd be forgiven if you didn't know that song. I didn't until I researched the segment for the podcast. I'm more familiar with in 1979. He covered the knack’s my Sharona, and he called the song My bologna. And you can find these on YouTube. If you're not familiar with them. You've got to at least check out one of weird Al songs. He's got a unique voice and he plays the accordion a lot, not in all the songs but he would have these polka interludes in some of the songs and on his albums, he'd have polka parody songs where they wouldn't be parodies of known songs it would just be making fun of life songs. In 1980, Weird Al did another one rides the bus which was a cover of Queen's song Another one bites the dust. And this was on Dr. Demento. And this got him really noticed. He was on the tomorrow show with Tom Snyder. So Weird Al had kind of an underground cult following, but it was the next year in 1981 when MTV was born, that really it was like they went hand in hand. MTV, Michael Jackson Weird Al Yankovic just the perfect marriage. His first album had I love Rocky Road, which was the cover of I Love Rock and Roll and Ricky which was a takeoff of Tony basil's Mickey song. These are ones I'm naming names, so you can go and find them and listen for me I can hear them in my head. But like I said, it was the connection to Michael Jackson. So Weird Al second album, Weird Al Yankovic in 3d came out in 1984. And that's when he did the cover song, eat it, of Michael Jackson's Beat it and it became the video was so huge. This was kind of my introduction into weird Al, because I was already a Michael Jackson fan as a kid from the Thriller album. So I knew the beat it video with that leather jacket. And then to see this white guy with this frizzy hair and the mustache kind of doing the dance moves. Who is this guy? And I became hooked. I didn't do it then. But you know as you get older, if you're interested in that type of parody music you want to find your own songs to write your own lyrics to make fun of it. I guess we did different things as kids of the 80s back before smartphones and before video games were everywhere. We tried to write lyrics to songs to make fun of them. The song eat it went as high as number 12 on the Billboard chart, it would be Weird Al's top charting single until 2006 when he released the song white and nerdy, which was his first and so far only top 10 hit. I remember though, when he did the even worse album in 1988. And he covered Michael Jackson's bad he did the song fat, where he was in that black leather suit with all the zippers on it. And he just inflated and became this fat guy. I love that saw the video is just so funny. And maybe it was just me being 11 years old and thinking that it was funny to see the guy in the fat suit swinging around. Even if you didn't appreciate the humor of weird Al he was everywhere. When it came to MTV. These videos would get played a lot because they were funny and they were not risky. It was his humor was always clean. He ended up he did MTV specials. And this all led to 1989 when he actually had his own feature-length film called UHF, which I mean, I don't understand if you've never heard of it. It was very low budget. I mean, it had a budget of $5 million, but it only made 6.1 million at the box office. The plot line is that weird Al ends up running this UHF television station and his program choices that are just wacky and off the wall end up being successful. It didn't do well critically, so the reviews weren't great. It currently has a 61% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes so it is seen as barely fresh which is good. The movie's not as bad as critics would say. I would say watch it and make your own mind lined up. It did leave weird Allen kind of a slump creatively. But then he covered Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit and did smells like Nirvana and that kind of brought him back to the forefront. Especially when Kurt Cobain praised it saying that when Weird Al covers you, you know you've made it which is kind of true. I remember being obviously a huge Nirvana fan, as you know, from listening to this podcast, when Weird Al covered them. I felt the same way. I was like, Oh, they're legit because Weird Al did a song about them. And the songs that he did, they became fodder for childish humor, where I remember one time calling up our local top 40 station at the time was Cape 104.7. And I dedicated the song fat to my friend Matt was, the DJ was like, wow, with friends like you who needs enemies. It was just appropriate. That was kind of like, Weird Al helped us insult each other. He remained popular through the 90s and even into the 2000s. Like I said, white nerdy, that's 2006. But weird. Al hasn't released an album since 2014. And that one was called Mandatory Fun. But like I said, he's still touring. And he's only in his early 60s And he's been around for over 40 years. It made a lot of 80s kids, especially 80s. Young boys think they could make a career out of parody song lyrics. But Weird Al, he actually has talent. He's had five Grammy Awards, he's won, he has sold at least 15 million albums worldwide. He starred in feature-length films, he's written children's books, which kind of is appropriate for him. Like I said, at the top of this segment, if you're younger, you may not be familiar with him. But if you're a child of the 80s, or 90s, and I say Weird Al Yankovic you're gonna think of at least a song. And he was a big part of my childhood and a lot of people's childhoods. And if you want to go way, way back in the day, I would say go on YouTube and find eat it or fat. Or you can watch the Amish paradise video that was a takeoff of Gangster's Paradise by Coolio and know that Coolio didn't want him to do it at first, but I guess now they made up but Coolio was pissed off about it. Which I always find ironic because Coolio Gangster's paradise is basically a sample of Stevie Wonder's pastime paradise, so it wasn't really an original song either. I always couldn't figure out why Coolio got mad. Because it's like, Dude, you basically copied Stevie Wonder so what's the difference? But Weird Al, he's always a little bit different. little eccentric, a little weird, like his nickname. But the dude was a genius. He still is his music holds up. parody songs, I guess will always be funny to me. But go check out some of his videos. And then if you are a fan, check out weird al.com and see if you can get tickets and go see him play the songs in person.
Closing
And that's gonna do it for episode 55 of the podcast. Thank you so much to everyone who has been tuning in. I hope you have enjoyed the content that I've been creating. I'm going to keep going at it. So be ready. There's going to be a new episode coming next week. Check out the live streams Friday at 8pm. They're called without a map on Instagram. They're a lot of fun. We dive into the most recent podcast episode. And then it usually goes off the rail just chatting a lot of family and friends in there. But you're all welcome. You can find me all over social media. Besides Instagram, I'm on Twitter. Follow me on YouTube. We'll see how springtime brings more videos hopefully, check out Christopher setterlund.com my homepage created updated and run by my oldest friend Barry Menard there you can find all six of my current books, links to old podcasts links to the in my footsteps podcast blog. And of course, right on the front is the link to my appearance on Chronicle a few years ago because I need to have that out there so I can show you I was on TV once. You may have noticed that there was no ad for where your wish this week. They're currently restocking things and re-updating the website. So if you go to where your wishes.com and put in your email, you will be alerted when they reopen the site and the shop. I just didn't want to do an ad for it. And have you all go there looking to buy something and they're down right now. If you ever have any questions or comments, you can always DM me on social media but you can also shoot me an email Christopher setterlund@gmail.com. Someday we'll do a q&a segment on the podcast but not yet. I don't want to ask questions to myself and answer them. I need you to help me with that. Go to Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Pick up a copy of Kee Kee’s Cape Cod kitchen, and then go to the book signing the book launch Saturday, February 19. At 430 at the loft restaurant at the cove in West Yarmouth, it's going to be a blast. Hopefully, as you're listening to this, you have dug your way out of the snow. I'm assuming when this drops, we're going to be five days out from the storm. So we got buried, but um, hopefully, it's not still buried. And hopefully, that's it for the winter. But we all know how it is in the Northeast. We go through the winters and then the gray and rainy springs to get to that summer is like chasing the dragon. Tune in next week when we've got episode 56 Coming up, it's going to be great. We're going to have the dedication to the craft part three. This is going to be the story of a very famous sunrise photo shoot at Race Point Lighthouse with me and my buddy Steve, and just the insanity that we go through to get some of these great photos that we share. We're going to conclude my 2019 2100 mile road trip with a stop at Assateague Island and Maryland with the wild ponies. We're gonna go way way back in the day as I talk about my fun and frustration with playing Mike Tyson's Punch-Out on Nintendo. There's going to be a brand new top five, all about the worst movies I ever saw in the theater the worst I've ever paid money to see. There'll be a new this week in history and Time Capsule also, coming up next week on episode 56 of the podcast. I hope that everyone out there has got something in their life that they can lean into for happiness because now we're deep in the winter with the snow in the short days and the cold. You need something to make you happy, something to focus on. It's all different for everyone. But the main thing is take care of your own mental health because this is the time of year that's just so depressing. Especially when you live in the Northeast where we get a lot of snow and cold. If this is your first time checking out the podcast and you're in one of these cold areas. You can binge all the other episodes. Hopefully they bring you happiness. I've got so many topics that I've talked about so far, and so many more to come. So thank you to everybody who's tuned in. I get a lot of viewers locally, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, New England, but I get some from elsewhere too. I get lots from New York. I've got DC Minnesota, over in Germany and France. I'm so appreciative to people that tune in to this my passion project. I love it. Thank you so much. And remember in this life, don't walk in anyone else's footsteps. Create your own path, leave the biggest footprint you can in this world because you never know what the next day might bring. Thank you all so much again. I will see you next week. Till then, have a great weekend. Stay safe, stay warm. And I'll talk to you again soon.