In My Footsteps: A Gen-X Nostalgia Podcast

Episode 164: Inside the Terrifying Hoosac Tunnel, Rock 'n' Wrestling Connection, Funniest Knock-Off Products, Night of the Living Dead(10-2-2024)

• Christopher Setterlund • Season 1 • Episode 164

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Inside the Hoosac Tunnel aka the 'Bloody Pit.' A look back at the connection between MTV and WWE in the 1980s. The funniest knock-off brand products.
Spooky season kicks off here with Episode 164.
The Hoosac Tunnel in Western Massachusetts is a marvel of 19th-century engineering. It is also one of the most haunted places in the entire state. We take a look at the history of this railway as well as why it is ominously referred to as the 'Bloody Pit.'
Kids of the 1980s very likely watched either MTV, the WWF, or both. We go way Back In the Day to look at the popular and highly profitable Rock 'n' Wrestling connection between the two entertainment behemoths as they were on their way up in the mid-1980s.
Store brand products and knock-off brands can be a good deal. Some of these might be good deals but this week's Top 5 looks at the funniest knock-off products ever.
A fitting This Week In History and Time Capsule for Spooky Season looks at the debut of the monumental horror film Night of the Living Dead.
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Speaker 01:

Hello, world, and welcome to the In My Footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund, coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and this is episode 164. It's October. Spooky season is upon us. We are going to kick off the podcast with a spot I visited on my morbid bucket list. The story of the Bloody Pit, also known as the Hoosack Tunnel. We're going to go way, way back in the day and look at the rock and wrestling connection. The union between MTV and the World Wrestling Federation in the mid-1980s. There's going to be a brand new Top 5. that are the funniest knockoff brand products ever. Some of these are scary how stupid they are. And there'll be a brand new This Week in History and Time Capsule looking back at the premiere of the iconic horror movie Night of the Living Dead. All of that is coming up right now on episode 164 of the In My Footsteps podcast. Welcome in, everybody. Please don't be scared. It's spooky season. We're all safe. We're just listening to a podcast. Does everyone have their Halloween decorations up? Do you have your own pumpkins carved? I am likely getting my pumpkin probably this week when the podcast goes live. I get these little pie pumpkins. They're like the size of a softball with a little stem on it. And I don't know if pumpkins just survive this long, or maybe I have the magic touch. But I'll tell you, if I get this pumpkin this week, it will likely still be alive when it's close to summertime next year. Last year, I got my pumpkin in the middle of October, and the thing was still going strong in early June. Finally, at that point, I was kind of like, okay, we've run our course with Halloween. It's time to destroy this pumpkin, which is what I did. I brought it to a local recreation area. They had a basketball court. And I filmed myself slam dunking the pumpkin on the asphalt. Those were some good times. I can't kick off spooky season without starting the show the way I always do. And that's thanking my Patreon subscribers. Laurie, Mary Lou, Ashley, Kevin, Marguerite, Leo. Thank you all so much for being my backers, helping me keep this podcast going, my content going, YouTube, the Initial Impressions 2.0 blog. I'm celebrating one year of being on Patreon now. I've got so much content up there, bonus podcast episodes for subscribers, early access to YouTube videos, to the main show, and to blogs. but also a growing collection of stuff on the free tier. For those of you that might not be able to pay the $5 a month to support me, but want to check out what I do over there, a major way that you can support the podcast without spending any money is by listening to the show, sharing it, rating, reviewing. September, again, was my best month ever for downloads for the podcast. It's been essentially a steady climb upward since I transitioned the podcast over to nostalgia. So it makes me feel like I made the right choice there. I'll get more into the housekeeping portion of the podcast at the end of the show because I want to dive right into spooky season. There's going to be a lot of fun topics I cover during the month of October. And this first one, I teased a little last week when I was talking about part two of my three-day northern New England road trip, that this was a place on my morbid bucket list. Some people want to go to the Grand Canyon. Some want to visit Rome or take a hot air balloon around the world. I don't know if that's on anyone's bucket list. Me, I want to visit haunted railroad tunnels, or at least one. So let's kick off episode 164 of the podcast and kick off spooky season with my experience and the overall story of the Hoosack Tunnel, also known as the Bloody Pit, starting now. Nestled in the mountains of western Massachusetts, the Hoosack Tunnel stands as one of the most remarkable feats of 19th century engineering. Stretching nearly five miles through the Hoosac Mountain, the tunnel earned the nickname the Bloody Pit for the numerous tragedies that occurred during its construction. The history of the Hoosac Tunnel is not only a testament to human ingenuity, but perseverance. And it's also a tale shrouded in mystery, with many ghost stories and legends still whispered among locals today. The story of the Hoosac Tunnel began in the early 19th century as industrialization swept through New England. By the 1840s, the growing need for efficient transportation routes across the rugged Berkshires in western Massachusetts became apparent. The region's mountainous terrain made overland travel slow and difficult, limiting the economic potential of western Massachusetts. Visionaries and engineers proposed a solution that was audacious for the time. And that was a tunnel through the Hoosac Mountain that would connect the growing industrial cities of Massachusetts, like Boston, to the Erie Canal and the rest of the western United States. The idea for the Hoosac Tunnel was first conceived by Alva Crocker, who was a Massachusetts businessman and politician in the 1840s. Crocker believed that a tunnel would be the key to unlocking the economic potential of the region. After a lot of debate, the Massachusetts General Court approved funding for the project in 1851. But from the beginning, the construction of the Hoosac Tunnel faced enormous challenges. Think about it, in that era, it was before modern drilling technology, so workers had to rely mainly on hand tools, black powder, and the newly invented nitroglycerin to blast through solid rock. And the progress would be slow and arduous, tunneling through schist, granite, and other rock formations. After numerous difficulties and delays, the original contractor, Hermann Haupt, was terminated in 1856, and the state took over the project. Luckily or unluckily, the project took so long to work on that in the 1860s, there had been new inventions and new technology to help make the process a little bit easier. The introduction of pneumatic drills and later the use of compressed air to ventilate the tunnel marked the beginning of a new phase in construction. These technological advancements brought new dangers, though. Nitroglycerin, which is a volatile explosive, was used extensively during construction. And although it allowed for faster drilling, it also led to tragic accidents. And possibly the most famous one is in 1867, when an explosion killed 13 workers when nitroglycerin detonated prematurely. Over the course of the construction of the tunnel, nearly 200 men lost their lives due to cave-ins, explosions, and other accidents. These tragedies led to the Hoosac Tunnel's ominous moniker of the Bloody Pit. In all, it took nearly 25 years to create the Hoosac Tunnel. It was finally completed on November 27, 1874. stretching 4.75 miles. At the time, it was the longest tunnel in North America and second longest in the world. After the tunnel's completion, it did open up avenues for trade, linking Boston to the west and allowing for more efficient transportation of goods over land. But the tunnel's history of tragedy and death left an indelible mark on the region. As much as the Hoosack Tunnel is known for helping open up shipping routes for New England and the Northeast in general, it's known as much or maybe even more for being purported to be the most haunted spot in Massachusetts. Tales of hauntings have persisted for well over a century. One of the most famous ghost stories associated with the Hoosack Tunnel is the tale of the Ghost Miners. According to local lore, after the explosion in 1867 that killed 13 workers, strange occurrences began to happen in the tunnel. Other workers reported seeing full-body apparitions of men carrying lanterns, hearing eerie voices, and the sound of footsteps echoing in the darkness. In one account, a crew of workers entered the tunnel to begin their shift but were suddenly overwhelmed by an inexplicable feeling of dread. They claimed to see shadowy figures moving in the darkness, and some even heard whispers urging them to leave. And terrified, the workers did. They fled the tunnel, refused to come back. They were convinced the spirits of their deceased colleagues were now haunting the site. There's been more paranormal occurrences that have been reported over the years, including the sighting of a ghostly man dressed in old-fashioned clothing near the entrance of the tunnel. Some visitors have reported hearing distant sounds of pickaxes and hammers. In the 1970s, a paranormal investigation team explored the Hoosack Tunnel and recorded unusual electromagnetic disturbances, temperature fluctuations, and naturally skeptics argue that the tunnel's dark and eerie atmosphere can easily play tricks on the mind. When you think about it, if you wanted to go to the dead center of the Hoosack Tunnel, You're looking at almost two and a half miles in the complete darkness. So it will be easy to see how creepy that would be. So that's kind of a brief overview of the history of the Hoosac Tunnel and some of the hauntings. I went there a little over a month ago. As I said, it was on my morbid bucket list. To get to the Hoosac Tunnel, you drive along the Mohawk Trail. At least that's the way I did it. And if you're heading east, East on the Mohawk Trail, you have to take a left and drive down. It's a very, very steep decline and somewhat winding. I would not recommend trying it in the colder months, just in case there's ice. I was shocked at how much of a decline it was to get down to the road that leads you to the tunnel. One thing to remember, if you go to check out the Hoosac Tunnel, it is an active railroad line. This is not an abandoned tunnel. There's a sign that says no trespassing, but most people don't listen. I haven't heard any stories about people being arrested or hit by trains. When I got to the entrance to the tunnel, there's a little gravel parking area along the railroad tracks. And maybe a hundred yards away, the railroad tracks go over Tunnel Brook. And it's another 50 to 75 feet down to the water from there. When I got there, I was shooting some video, just B-roll footage, they call it, for an eventual video about the Hoosack Tunnel. And it was awesome. The atmosphere is very much what you'd expect. It was kind of quiet, very creepy, even outside of it, especially if you go to the Hoosack Tunnel, kind of knowing the story behind it. I was surprised by how many people were there. There weren't hundreds of people, but there was half a dozen. Some people were at the mouth of the tunnel, which is this imposing tunnel, kind of granite stone face with the year it was completed on it. This day that I went there, it was cloudy. It was starting to rain. There were a few people leaving the tunnel, going to their cars to drive away. But I saw two men, probably early 70s, And one of them was a local and an expert on the Hoosack Tunnel and kind of places to go around. Because you can hike up behind the tunnel, up and over it, and there's a couple of waterfalls. I did not go up there because once it started to rain, I said, I want to go in the tunnel. I don't want to waste my time climbing over it and getting my clothes soaked. The guy that was the expert on the tunnel, he gave me some tips, and some of them were pretty ominous. Because it's an active rail line, he was telling me what to expect if I saw the light of a train coming. He said it would appear in front of you as kind of a pinhole light, and it would basically stay that size for a little while as the train slowly came up this incline from the other end. He also said if I was very deep in the tunnel and a train was coming and I didn't have the time to run out the other end, he said, don't worry, there's enough room on either side if you need to press yourself against the wall. The first thing I did was I hiked into the tunnel with just my phone. I took a few long exposure photos. I shot a video of me inside the tunnel just talking as I walked in. All right, so I'm... deep in here in the Hoosac Tunnel. And it's dripping water on me, and it's an active railroad line, and it's purported to be haunted. I can't see much, but I hear a lot. Dripping and splashing. I don't know how much further I'm going to go in. I'm about 1,000 feet, 1,500 feet in. That's why all you see is dark. Hear the noise though? All right, that's good. So there's that clip. I mean, you'd have to envision it in your mind. I went in total a little over a thousand feet. Within the first 30, 40 feet of going into this tunnel, it's pretty dark. The photos I have, it's so creepy looking, the inside of this tunnel. It looks like the inside of a monster, like a throat. It's the only way I can describe it. It's not smooth sides on this tunnel. You can see that it was dug mostly by hand. I realized that I was smart enough to bring my tripod with me on this road trip that I did, so I went back out to my car, grabbed my tripod, brought my regular camera with me, and hiked my way back in. A funny part of this trip into the Hoosack Tunnel was the fact that I was doing long exposure photos with my camera. I have a remote shutter. I plug it into the side of the camera so I can open up the shutter and just let it soak up the light and do a long exposure of as long as I want. I needed my camera to focus on something, so I held my phone in front of it with the flashlight on it so the camera would focus on that light. The funny thing is the first time that I took a long exposure photo, I had gotten the camera to focus, but I hadn't been smart enough to step back. Later on, when I was looking at my photos, the very first long exposure photo on the right side is this ghostly apparition. And when I looked closer, I realized it was my face looking at the camera. Oh man, it's so funny. At first I'm like, oh my God, I got a picture of a ghost. And then I'm like, wait, I know that face. The water was dripping all over the place due to the rain. So it was making noise when it would land on things that weren't dirt. There was debris in there. It's not a mess. It's just there's things on the edges of the tunnels, maybe from other people that have hiked in there. So you get these creepy sounds and I just remind myself it's just the water dripping. By this point, I'm the deepest I went in there. So a little over a thousand feet, if I had to guess. I set up for a long exposure photo. And this one I wanted to be long. I'm talking two, two and a half minutes to really light up the tunnel. And I was smart. I was standing behind the camera holding the remote shutter down and watching the timer tick away on the camera. And when I went to press the button again to close the shutter, the timer wouldn't stop. And I'm pressing it, pressing it. Why is this not working? Then I'm pressing the actual button on my camera to try to make the shutter close. So in my mind, I'm like, oh man, there's some sort of paranormal activity. It won't let my camera shut off. Finally, I just shut the camera off manually. So I lost the photo, which sucked. Then I felt around on the camera and realized the water had dripped where I plug in the remote shutter. So it basically had disconnected the remote shutter. The camera was fine, but I ended up having to retreat because the water was dripping enough. I was like, I can't risk destroying my camera in the off chance that I get some great photo. Still, that lost two and a half minute long exposure photo deep in the Hoosack Tunnel, it's given me reason to go back there. My plan is to, at some point, maybe in the spring, go back with a real flashlight, maybe an umbrella for my camera. And hike a little deeper in there. Because when you get in there and it's dark, it tightens your chest up. I was all gung-ho. My mother said you should ask questions while you're recording. And then when you get back, you listen to it in your headphones and see if something answered you. I was too scared to ask questions because I was afraid I was going to get answers. All in all, it was a super fun trip. Definitely creepy at times. I got a few good photos. If you're planning on going out to Western Massachusetts to go to the Hoosack Tunnel, just be careful. That's the main thing. Remember, it's an active rail line. But also remember, the lights that you see coming at you from deep in the tunnel might not be a train. It could be lanterns from long-dead construction workers. There is a reason why the Hoosack Tunnel has the nickname the Bloody Pit.

Unknown:

Music

Speaker 01:

This week in history, we are going back 56 years to October 1st, 1968, and the premiere of the iconic horror movie classic, Night of the Living Dead. For those of you that have no idea of Night of the Living Dead, this is not only a landmark horror film, but it defined the zombie genre. Although they never called these living dead, they never called them zombies, but that's what they became. It is one of the most influential independent films of all time. Low budget, high profit, although the irony comes at the end we'll talk about in a minute. Night of the Living Dead, to give you kind of an overview, it's set in rural Pennsylvania where eventually seven strangers are trapped in a farmhouse. An unexplained phenomenon causes the recently dead to rise and prey on the living. The de facto leader of the group is a man named Ben, played by Dwayne Jones, and they have to fend off an increasing number of these zombies outside while tensions rise inside. The film itself, it's in black and white. It's marked by its stark atmosphere, tense pacing, the music... And for those that haven't seen it, I won't spoil it, but there's a twist at the end that kind of reinforces the cynical worldview of the late 1960s. Night of the Living Dead, created by George Romero, was not the first zombie movie, but it redefined zombies. Before, they were typically depicted as mindless slaves, controlled by a master, seen in movies like White Zombie from 1932. George Romero's zombies were reanimated corpses driven purely by an insatiable hunger for human flesh and later on just brains. Basically all zombie movies, TV shows that came after Night of the Living Dead were inspired by it. And when you talk about low budget independent films, Night of the Living Dead had a budget of approximately $114,000 in 1968. When adjusted for inflation, that's about a million dollars. At the box office, the movie made just over $30 million, or what would equate to just over $271 million when adjusted for inflation to 2024. So it made about 270 times its budget. Initially, though, when it was released, it received mixed reviews. Some critics praised the shocking content, while others dismissed it as exploitative. There are some shocks and scares and some gore that would have been seen probably as excessive for 1968. Just the way it was filmed, it made it feel raw, disturbing, almost like it was reality that you were watching. The more you watch the movie, the more you can see the political subtext. It's a product of its times with the Vietnam War, racial tensions, breakdown of societal norms. Night of the Living Dead itself spawned a series of sequels, most notably George Romero's Dawn of the Dead in 1978. These expand on the zombie apocalypse theme and that universe of the time. But I said there was an ironic twist here that we'd get into. That is the fact that Night of the Living Dead, the movie, is in the public domain. It's due to an error in originally titling the film. What that means... is I can pause this right now and put in this famous clip from the movie.

Speaker 02:

They're coming to get you, Barbara.

Speaker 00:

Stop it. You're ignorant.

Speaker 02:

They're coming for you, Barbara.

Speaker 00:

Stop it. You're acting like a child.

Speaker 02:

They're coming for

Speaker 01:

you. Look, there comes one of them now. And it's public domain right there. I could just share that famous line with you. I could download the movie, put it on my computer, maybe... clean it up a little using my ClipChamp video editor and put it on my YouTube channel and it's fine because it's not copyrighted. Isn't that insane? The movie Night of the Living Dead that gave birth to the modern zombie and modern zombie film premiered 56 years ago this week in history. Since it's spooky season, we had to have a spooky intro to the new time capsule. We're going to stick to the same day that Night of the Living Dead premiered, October 1st, 1968. What was going on in the world of pop culture back then? Well, let's find out. The number one song was Hey Jude by the Beatles. One of, if not the most famous song by a band that has dozens and dozens of famous songs. This song was actually released as a non-album single, with the B-side being Revolution. You talk about a one-two punch on a single? The song was number one for nine weeks, and it set the record for longest tenure of any song at number one, which it held for nine years. This song is typically on a lot of critics' lists for greatest songs ever written. It was written by Paul McCartney for John Lennon's son Julian as his parents were going through a divorce. It's also one of the longest songs to ever go to number one, with the album cut being just over seven minutes long. The song is also famous because it was the Beatles' first single released through their Apple Records and was basically the public launch of that record label. The number one movie was Night of the Living Dead. And you could get into the theater with a ticket costing $1.31. There's another clip from the movie. Because it's public domain, I'm going to just wear it out. I'll just have clips from that movie all throughout the podcast all month. No, I won't do that. I told you all about the movie. But I'll tell you, typically every Halloween season I watch that movie. I've seen it dozens of times. If you've never seen Night of the Living Dead, I highly recommend you check it out, especially in the dark. The number one TV show was Cat Baloo. Cat Baloo is not a TV show. It is a 1965 Western comedy movie. It starred Jane Fonda and Lee Marvin, with Lee Marvin winning a Best Actor Academy Award for his dual role in the film. And if you were around back then, October 1st, 1968, it's fall season. Maybe you're looking for some new fall fashion movies. Well, you're in luck because if you look in the 1968 Sears Fall Catalog, you could learn what it's like to be a neatnik. What is a neatnik? Well, many of you might know what a beatnik is. It's a young person in the 1950s, early 60s, part of the subculture, the beat generation. So what is a neatnik? According to the Sears catalog, a neatnik can be anyone, as long as you live in the no-iron world of Sears permapressed clothes. There are coats and blouses. There are full outfits that you can buy and become a neatnik. Did any of you out there of that age that would have been around back then, did you buy any clothes from the Sears catalog because you wanted to be a neatnik? Man, talk about cringey. But that'll wrap up a spooky This Week in History and a spooky time capsule with neatniks. But we'll go from spooky to bringing the laughs and shaking your head as we look at the top five funniest knockoff brand products coming up right now. Once you create a successful product, the imitators, the rip-offs, they're naturally going to follow. Some of them are good. Some of them are terrible. Some of them are a mix of both. And some are just funny. But you can't believe that they created these things and thought that people would choose them over the real product. Some knock-offs are actually a pretty good deal. The place where I work at our gym, we have some regular TRX suspension trainers, but we also have the more store brand ones. They're called P3. If you didn't see the label, you wouldn't know there was any difference. So that's, I guess, a quality product. I cannot say if all of these products I'm going to talk about were quality. I just know they're funny looking and can't believe that they were real. Some of them are still around, so if you feel like going to get them, you can. As with most of the top fives, there are some honorable mentions, and the list is in no particular order. And I kind of prefaced this segment, so at some point I will do top five best knockoff brand products and top five worst. But this will be mostly laughs. Let's start off with the honorable mentions, though. I'll briefly touch on these, because I'm figuring... All of these that I talk about, you'll have no idea of. Well, maybe a couple. I don't want to say that. I don't want to sell you guys short. Honorable mentions for funniest knockoff brands include Sprint Soda from Austria. Sprint is very rare from Austria, from the Essaram food brand. What I found funniest is, besides it's a Sprite knockoff, is the fact that Sprint used to be a telephone company in the United States. So that's why I laughed at that one. There's also Two Guys Burgers. It's located in Bellingham, Washington. It's a burger place. Obviously a ripoff of Five Guys. It's like three of the Five Guys got fired, but they just kept going. From what I can see, based on their reviews on Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor, they kind of average about a 3.5 out of 5 rating. We all know, though, that Two Guys Burgers is not the best fast food ripoff. That has to go to McDowell's from Coming to America. Look exactly like McDonald's. Except don't forget, they're nothing like them. They don't have the Big Mac. They have the Big Mick. They both got two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, and onions. But remember the huge difference. McDonald's buns have seeds. McDowell's have no seeds. Please stop me before I just recite Coming to America end to end. Another honorable mention is a game called Don't Fall Down. If you look at the pictures of this game, it's Twister. Different colored spots. You got to spin the wheel and put a hand or a foot on them and try to not fall down. Talk about taking the object of the game literally. There's another game called called ill-tempered birds gee i wonder what that's a ripoff of angry birds it's funny what you can get away with i don't know if ill-tempered birds if the game got sued because the characters on the cover look pretty much like what you would expect in angry birds i don't know if the creators changed the characters just enough so they couldn't get sued Kind of like Vanilla Ice when he stole Queen's Under Pressure song and put like one note in there and said, look, it's totally different. It's not the same music. The final honorable mention is a European game console called Game Child 3. No, it's not Game Boy, and I don't think they ever made a Game Girl, but they made Game Child. It looks exactly the same as a Game Boy, and there are claims, rumors, that there's supposed to be multiple games you can play for this, but I would say don't trust that. Don't get a Game Child. Well, that was a lot of description to get through the honorable mentions. Let's get into the actual top five. Let's start with number one. I can't even get through without laughing. The product's name is Unbelievable This Is Not Butter. Who do you think that's a ripoff of? This is a Taiwan brand, a ripoff of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter. It's just like a different exclamation point. I'm figuring anyone out there could make their own rip off of this, just having a different phrase. Just like, wow, this isn't butter? I can't believe it. Just have the title be the whole front of the package. I've been looking online to see if you can find and order this. I don't know why you'd want to when you can get, I can't believe it's not butter in every store. But if you were curious, there's pictures all over the internet of the packaging, but no way to order it. Sorry. Number two is another one I had to laugh at. Sharp Hand Joe. Now, if I gave you a second to think about what it was, if I said it was a toy, I don't think you'd get it even then. Sharp Hand Joe is a knockoff Freddy Krueger action figure. He's part of maybe a series called Monster Vampire. At least that's the packaging that I found. Instead of a green and red sweater, it's white and red. These were made in China. The name of the company I can't see because all the pictures of the Sharpan Joe in the packaging, his foot is covering the name of the company. The irony of this is not only did it become an internet meme, but if you have Sharpan Joe in its packaging, you can get triple digits, a couple hundred dollars for those. They're more valuable than any Freddy Krueger action figure, real ones. But we'll move on to something that you could actually get pretty easily in the store if you wanted. And that's number three, Hee Haw Soda. It's from the Hy-Vee supermarket chain. And just the name Hee Haw made me laugh as soon as I saw it. I'm like, that's on the top five, no matter what else I find. Hee Haw is, every time I say it, I laugh. Hee Haw is a ripoff of Mountain Dew. Lemon Lime Soda. I do have some bad news, though. Even though Hy-Vee has more than 240 locations, they're all in the Midwest. So if you're listening in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, or Wisconsin, if you're close, you can drive and get Hee-Haw Soda. I don't know. I don't know why they named it that, unless they just wanted people to laugh and then feel good and go buy their Hee-Haw Soda. Here's another one that might make you laugh, though. That's number four, Cat Cot. This is an Egyptian candy bar. Cat Cot. What does it sound like? You're right. It's a ripoff of Kit Kat. Its catchphrase is, have a break, have a Cat Cot. I have no idea if these taste similar to regular Kit Kats or if the Egyptians put their own spin on it. I've tried to find places to shop for cat cot, but it won't give me any links. It just brings me to Kit Kat. And finally, another one that popped right into my head when putting this together was number five, and that is Nice Soda from Walgreens. The reason that this one popped into my head was the fact that it reminded me of my nana, and I'll explain. When we would go over to her house for breakfast, Sunday dinner or dinner during the week. She always made great food. A lot of it would be simple. American chop suey, New England boiled dinner, hot dogs and beans, or more extravagant stuff on holidays. But anyway, when she would make this, if we would ask Nana what's for lunch or what's for dinner, she would tell us the menu like she was trying to sell it to us. And certain foods would be nice. I especially remember nice warm rolls, like she knew we wouldn't like them the most, so she put a little bit of extra pizzazz behind it. So every time I see nice soda in Walgreens, I think that my Nana helped them name it because they knew people wouldn't want the store brand next to the regular ones. If you want nice soda, the Walgreens, not just some nice soda. They've got tons of flavors, cola, black cherry, lemon lime, ginger ale. I wonder if one of you out there listening will buy nice soda at Walgreens, and when you start to pour it, you'll say, hey, it's that podcast guy's grandmother named it. I'm going to put that out there. That wraps up the top five funniest knockoff brand products. Had you heard of any of these? I would think that the sodas may be the ones that you would have heard of, especially Hee Haw Soda. I literally couldn't get through this segment without laughing every time I say it. So there, go get Meta and buy Hee Haw Soda and then watch reruns of the Hee Haw TV show. I don't know why, just do it. Oh man, we're really getting into my wheelhouse of childhood with this back in the day segment. I started watching professional wrestling, namely the World Wrestling Federation, in February 1986. I can still remember the first ever show that I watched that came from Boston Garden. It was on New England Sports Network, Nessun. I don't know if it was the main event, but the match I remember most was Macho Man Randy Savage defeating Tito Santana to win the Intercontinental title using the dreaded foreign object to knock him out. I was eight years old then when I started watching wrestling. I was a huge fan for a long time in my life. The only reason I don't talk more about Pro Wrestling on the podcast is, A, I've got to work it into the nostalgia, but there are also a lot of Pro Wrestling podcasts that have way bigger followings than me, and I'm like, why do I want to bark up that tree when I can try something else? When I started watching the WWF, they were starting to become a national brand. And little did I know when I was that age that they were smack dab in the middle of one of the most important periods in the history of the pro wrestling industry. That is known now as the rock and wrestling connection. That was the connection between the World Wrestling Federation and music television, MTV. So we're going to look at that connection, some of the main players, and some of the main events. We got to start off with the birth of MTV. In August 1981, they launched as the first music television network, and it didn't take long for them to become a cultural force, influencing the youth with its focus on music, fashion, attitude. My family got cable, I believe, in 1985, and that's when I got my first introduction to MTV, and then not too long after, professional wrestling. The WWF, at the time that MTV was starting to make its name, was owned by Vince McMahon Sr., who sold it to his son, Vince Jr. It was Vince McMahon Jr. that sought to expand professional wrestling beyond its smoky, dimly lit arena-type atmosphere. His goal was to make it more acceptable, more mainstream, and he knew that having to do that would mean reaching out to the youth, and tap into that market. It seemed a natural that MTV would be the perfect partner for the WWF to help reach the youth market. So it was 1984 that McMahon approached MTV with the idea of blending music entertainment to create something he would call sports entertainment. This deal would be mutually beneficial, as MTV was still relatively new, and they could capitalize on wrestling's drama, colorful personalities, and that violence. Because even though it's scripted and somewhat choreographed, these guys still get hurt, like really hurt. The level of pro wrestlers to this day that end up with fused necks and backs and dozens of surgeries, it's unbelievable. McMahon was naturally the key player in this collaboration. There were several other major ones, though. Cyndi Lauper, she is probably one of, if not the most important, non-wrestling personalities in the history of the business. Because think of it, she was a pop music superstar. Her debut album, She's So Unusual, with Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, among several other big hits, it made her a major star in 1983. It was that Girls Just Wanna Have Fun video that sort of was the catalyst for all of this, because professional wrestling manager Captain Lou Albano was in the video and played her father. And the two of them got along well, Cyndi Lauper and Lou Albano. And that led to her becoming involved in kind of the kickoff for all of this. It was in the spring of 1984 that Rowdy Roddy Piper, who hosted a talk show segment called Piper's Pit, was trying and trying to get Cyndi Lauper to be on the show. This culminated on a May 29th, 1984 episode of Piper's Pit where Captain Lou Albano, who was a heel on TV, a bad guy, convinced Cyndi Lauper to come on Piper's Pit and the two of them were bullying her until she finally snapped and she was wailing on Captain Lou with her purse and ripping Roddy Piper's shirt. This incident here led to Roddy Piper going to Cyndi Lauper's recording studio and harassing her. The first major MTV-WWF connected event was the Brawl to End It All, and that aired live on July 23, 1984. The main event was a women's world title match between Cyndi Lauper's protege, Wendy Richter, and the fabulous Moolah, who would be managed by Captain Lou Albano. The fabulous Moolah had been women's world champion for almost 30 years at this time. And so Wendy Richter defeating her and that image of her, a wrestling star with one of the biggest pop stars in the world, Cyndi Lauper, that did tons for the popularity of the WWF. The event did big ratings. More than 9 million people tuned in. It made it one of the most watched shows in MTV's history at the time. This all led next to an infamous event where in December 1984, Roddy Piper interrupted a awards ceremony featuring Cyndi Lauper and now a babyface Captain Lou Albano. And this was at Madison Square Garden. Piper comes out, takes this gold record that was in a frame and smashes it over Captain Lou's head. And then it got crazy because Cyndi Lauper went after Piper and he kicked at her. So she was hanging onto his leg and she went flying. Then her manager, David Wolfe, came at Roddy Piper and he power slammed him. Those that didn't watch wrestling at that point in time, you have no idea how hated Roddy Piper was. He was one of those stereotypical wrestlers. They tell the stories about getting stabbed or shot. He would cause riots when he was a heel. But at the end of this segment, Hulk Hogan comes out to save the day. And he's the other massive part of this MTV-WWF connection. Hogan had become a star a few years earlier in another wrestling promotion called the AWA, American Wrestling Association, from Minnesota. But Hogan had become a big star there, coupled with his appearance in the movie Rocky III as Thunderlips. When he signed with the WWF at the end of 1983, Vince McMahon immediately strapped the rocket to him. He was the world champion within a few weeks of signing. This brought in the era of Hulkamania, the golden age of the WWF. This led to the next collaboration with MTV, The War to Settle the Score, that aired live on February 18th, 1985. The main event of this night was Hulk Hogan defending his WWF World Championship against Rowdy Roddy Piper. Cyndi Lauper was in Hulk Hogan's corner. Piper had his friends Paul Orndorff and Cowboy Bob Orton there. Mr. T was in the front row, so this was sowing the seeds. Because the event ended in a disqualification, so Hogan won, but he didn't actually beat Roddy Piper. Roddy Piper was one of the only heels during that Hulk Hogan run that didn't just get fed to him and beaten. That's what made Piper such a huge star. He never got pinned by Hulk Hogan during that era. But after Piper and Orndorff and Bob Orton attacked Hogan, Mr. T kind of made the save. This was another one where Cyndi Lauper kind of got involved. But what it led to was WrestleMania I. This was March 31st, 1985, the first supercard really in the WWF. The main event was Hogan and Mr. T teaming up against Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff. There was loads of promotion on MTV leading up to it with Hulk Hogan and Mr. T being on MTV shows, hosting Saturday Night Live. This point in the mid-1980s was as mainstream as wrestling had ever been. And probably the only time that was as mainstream or more was the Attitude Era, which was the late 1990s into the early 2000s. The first WrestleMania had tons of celebrities, not many great matches, but besides Cyndi Lauper, you had Liberace, Muhammad Ali, The Rockettes, Billy Martin. After that, after WrestleMania I, the partnership dissolved not so long after. There wasn't any falling out. I think by this point, Vince McMahon realized that WWF was so big that they didn't need any help. Same with MTV. They both helped each other grow and gain a new audience. It wasn't the end of the collaboration. In the early 2000s, WWE at the time had their show Tough Enough, which was a reality show trying to find a new WWE superstar. That was on MTV. That kind of crossover period for the WWF, it led to Hulk Hogan's rock and wrestling cartoon. So many of the wrestlers at the time became known outside of wrestling. Hogan, Piper, Jesse the Body Ventura, Andre the Giant, Macho Man Randy Savage. They would all get their own either movie deals or commercial deals. The MTV-WWF connection stayed kind of loose for the next few years because Mr. T got involved during the war to settle the score on MTV, and he stayed connected to the WWF for the next couple of years, even appearing as a special guest referee for matches in the summer of 1987. Once Mr. T stopped being involved, that was kind of the beginning of a slow decline for the WWF that really cratered out in 1995. It's widely considered the worst year of pro wrestling, and I was watching at the time, and yes, I can say it was. When I started watching wrestling, though, in February 1986, it was the lead-up to WrestleMania II. All these larger-than-life characters... It instantly became appointment viewing for me. The weekend shows, superstars of wrestling and wrestling challenge. For me, the biggest one was primetime wrestling. That was on Monday nights from 9 to 11. Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby the Brain Heenan would host the show in a studio and pitch to matches from all around the country. That was my reward that I got for doing well in school. My mother would let me stay up and watch primetime wrestling. As we go forward on the podcast with so much nostalgia, I'll be doing more dives into pro wrestling because I know a lot of you enjoy it or did as a kid. But when it comes to nostalgia, there is so much out there. There's an ocean of fun stuff. I've got so much to choose from. Did you watch wrestling in the mid-1980s, in the 80s at all? Did you watch any of the shows that were connected with MTV? Or remember seeing pro wrestlers on MTV shows, especially Hulk Hogan? He was everywhere. I'd check out one of those early MTV collaborations, even if you aren't a pro wrestling fan, to see the atmosphere and just how big pro wrestling was then. Like I said, it's definitely the wheelhouse of my childhood. But until next time, thank you all for tuning in to episode 164 of the In My Footsteps podcast. If it's your first time here, I got a huge back catalog of episodes, tons of videos on YouTube. Some of them are video versions of segments from the podcast. I'm all over social media, so go follow me. I'm always promoting the show, promoting all my content there. I'm now doing my weekly wrap-up video podcast. I bought the equipment to do that, so I'm fiddling with that. Check on YouTube. See if you like my wackiness. It's my initial impressions 2.0 blog. That's the weekly wackiness of my everyday life. Just in video form with me as the talking head, but also some photos and videos and randomness from the week. Next week, I'll be back with episode 165. It'll be more spooky season as I look at notorious serial killer Haddon Clark, who I have a big connection to thanks to my work on the Searching for the Lady of the Dunes book based around Frank Durant's documentary. Next week, there will also be a story that I've held on to for quite a while to share. I had to do it during spooky season. And that is the brief time in the late 1980s that my siblings and I had a pet bat. You have to hear it to believe it. So all of that will be next week, episode 165. If you like what I do and want to support the podcast, $5 a month over on Patreon gets you access to bonus podcast episodes, early access to YouTube videos, the main podcast. If you want to do single-time donations, you can buy me a coffee. You can go through PayPal. You can go through Venmo. But mainly the best way to help the show is honestly by sharing it, telling others about it. The more eyes I get on the show, the videos, the more downloads and views, the more it helps me to be able to actually monetize these shows. I've said I don't need to make millions of dollars on my content. I know that's not realistic, but to have it be at least a supplemental income would be so cool because I love doing this stuff. I know some of you do that, and I thank you so much. I know not all of my listeners are from New England. I see the analytics, but I know a lot of you are Boston, New York. That's actually two of my top five cities that listen to the podcast the most. But I appreciate all of you that make this appointment listening and that tell others, you know, check out my content because I'm going to keep pumping it out. Like I said a few minutes ago, there's kind of an endless ocean of nostalgia stuff that I can find. I get random ideas. I put a note in my phone and then I put it on my computer. I've got several Word documents filled with ideas. That's how I do my setups for the podcast. I go through these documents and I'm like, what would be fun to talk about with the listeners? And that's where I come up with the MTV WWF Rock and Wrestling Connection. If you're interested in any of my nine books, visit my website, ChristopherSetterlin.com. There's links to all of them over there. Three weeks from when this podcast goes live, October 23rd at 2 p.m., I'll be speaking at the Eldridge Library in Chatham about my Searching for the Lady of the Dunes book. I'll have copies of that book. I'll have copies of several other books if you're looking for holiday gifts because it's coming up. A month from now, my birthday is coming up, and then I get here into my later 40s, Every year at this time, and a lot more of the year, I get very wistful about the old days and remembering people that were and are important to me still, or those that have been important but faded away, or those that are no longer with us. And it always makes me think, and I want to share with you, just if you're thinking of someone, reach out, because you never know Everybody that you know in your life and everyone that you have known, there will be a last time that you see them, and you typically don't know when that is. It can be kind of an overwhelmingly sad feeling. Sometimes that's how I feel, knowing that at some point I am not going to see loved ones again. But it also makes you appreciate them while they're here. I'm not saying pause this podcast and go spend six hours texting and calling everyone you know. But if there's someone on your mind, just reach out. Any little thing can mean the world to someone. 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 we call life because you never know what tomorrow brings. Thank you all for tuning in to episode 164. 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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