In My Footsteps: A Gen-X Nostalgia Podcast

Episode 145: 1980s Educational Kids Shows, The Madness of Playing Tetris, Defunct TV Channels(5-22-2024)

• Christopher Setterlund • Season 1 • Episode 145

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Sharpening young minds with some 1980s kids' television shows. Melting young minds in the 80s with Tetris. Some television channels that are no longer around.
Episode 145 rings in summer (unofficially) as Memorial Day Weekend approaches.
The show kicks off with some of the shows that helped teach the youth of the 1980s. Spanning math, science, and overall basic skills there was no shortage of classic TV shows that glued Gen-X kids to the screen. We're going to look at some of the beloved educational children's shows of the 1980s. How many of these do you remember watching?
Tetris has been a staple of the video game landscape for 35 years. It is so well known that the mention of its name conjures up both the shapes of the pieces and the earworm music that plays throughout. We're going to go way Back In the Day and do a deep dive into the madness and addiction of Tetris.
Today it seems like new television channels are popping up regularly. For the hundreds of channels that exist it is not always a success getting into the tv market. For this week's Top 5 we're going to go over some of the channels that used to exist but don't anymore. Did you watch any of these defunct television channels?
There is a brand new This Week In History and Time Capsule which looks at the creation of the first postcards.
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Speaker 00:

Hello world, and welcome to the In My Footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund, coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and this is episode 145. We're rocketing towards Memorial Day weekend. I've got a laundry list of nostalgia coming up for you right now. We're gonna start it off with a look back at some of the most beloved 1980s educational children's shows. Kids of my era will remember all of these. We're gonna go way, way back in the day and look at the amazing success and slight madness that came from the game Tetris. And yes, you'll be hearing that song for sure. It's going to be a brand new top five that are the top five defunct television channels, TV stations that were there and gone. And there'll be a brand new This Week in History and Time Capsule centered around the debut of postcards, which are things you may be getting on your Memorial Day vacation. All of that is coming up right now on episode 145 of the In My Footsteps podcast. Well, what are we going to talk about this week? Well, we got to kick it off right. I've been doing this as a show closer, but it's going to be a show opener this week. Ooh, energy drinks flowing. Here comes the craziness. Ah, man, I'm going to get all hyped up, so I'll try to get this all recorded before the inevitable crash comes. There is so much to get into this week, even before I start the show off. I had mentioned that I was going to kind of give a review of what it was like to return to racing, to running. I had written a blog post about Basically chronicling everything that happened in the last seven years from my last race to this one that I did a few weeks ago. The problem was there was so much to it, it ended up being a 5,000 word blog post. So trying to cram all that into a little few minutes here on the podcast was not going to be possible. So what I did was something even better. I recorded a special podcast where I basically tell this whole story. And what I'm doing is it's on Patreon, but it's on the free tier. So you don't have to go and subscribe. You can just go and listen. It's about 40 minutes long. Those of you that know me might know a little bit of the story. Some people might know a little bit more, but nobody knows all of it. I'm very proud of that podcast, and I wanted to make sure that I gave the right amount of time to sharing this story. So there's my race review. It's go listen to the podcast on Patreon. And yes, even though that podcast is on the free tier of Patreon, if you want to become a member, $5 a month gets you access to bonus episodes of the podcast, early access to the main show. And what I might be doing, likely doing, is turning my initial impressions 2.0 blog into a podcast. So those have been the bonus episodes of the podcast, or me reviewing the old blogs from 2010, 2011. I liked it so much that I brought the blog back. And I like those so much that I think I'm going to make a second podcast in addition to this one. But I'm going to kind of test run it on the Patreon site. Special thank you to Josh for his donation on Buy Me a Coffee. I don't mention that site as much as I used to because I do Patreon, but if you want to buy me a coffee, you can do that at buymeacoffee.com in my Footsteps podcast. And also, now if you listen through Buzzsprout, which is my hosting platform, you can text the show. That's something new. I haven't got a clue how it works. I haven't got a text yet from anybody. But I'll be interested to see what it's like to get texts about the show. Boy, that was a lot of housekeeping stuff there. I've got more to get into, but we'll save that till the end of the podcast. Right now, what we're going to do, though, is kick the podcast off proper and start looking back at 1980s educational children's shows and see if people of my age group remember all of these coming up right now. Long before the days of internet and cell phones and just access to everything at your fingertips, there were few things more exciting in school than when you would see that television rolled in on that cart. You knew that it was a different kind of day where you get to watch some sort of program. I can't speak for anywhere else except the schools I went to. But growing up in the 1980s, besides the old school film strips and a few educational films, we also got to watch every now and then educational children's television shows. It made school fun because it was something these were shows that I would watch at home as well. So here they were in school and it was, oh, school must not be all that bad. I'll try harder. These 80s educational children's shows, they're all ingrained in my memory, and I'm pretty sure each of these eight examples I'm going to give you will bring back memories. Maybe not all of them, but at least most of them. The number one educational children's show that resonates with me, and it was the first one that I put on this list, was Reading Rainbow.

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Reading

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Rainbow is still around, but I think it's because the show debuted in June 1983. So the summer before I started school. So it was new as I got into school. This was a PBS show, public broadcast system, as I think most of these shows are, hosted by LeVar Burton. It was all about teaching kids to read. It had that theme song that those of you that watch the show can remember. Take a look. It's in a book, Reading Rainbow. That theme song is synonymous with my elementary school years because that's when we would watch Reading Rainbow. And there'd be book reviews by LeVar Burton, but he would always say, don't take my word for it. You know, go out and read it yourself. I was actually surprised that it was on for 21 seasons, but it was only 155 episodes, which I know that's a lot. But I think a lot of it is it was in syndication so long as well that it seemed like there were more episodes. LeVar Burton at the time was most well known for his role as Kunta Kinte in the ABC miniseries Roots that came out in 1977. A big part of the appeal of Reading Rainbow, I think, was the fact that LeVar Burton was really young when it came out. I think he was 26, maybe? When I was watching it, I was seven, eight, nine years old. So it still seemed old to me, but he was very youthful in his appearance and his excitement and the way that he made you want to read. The show was canceled in 2006 and it was actually revived as an app. In March 2022, the show was kind of rebooted as something called Reading Rainbow Live. I don't know anything about that. I would figure anyone out there would be your kids watching it. If you know if it's anything like the old show was. Another show where the intro was so important and it just is an earworm in my head was 321 Contact, which was a science-based educational show. Also through PBS. It was through the Children's Television Workshop, which they did a lot of those shows, Sesame Street.

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So

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This show made science interesting and fun for elementary school kids. It was on from 1980 to 1988. Seven seasons, 225 episodes. The show was different because it didn't have one singular host. It had various hosts. A total of 13 different people were called host of this show. I had no idea until I researched for this segment of the podcast that there was a 321 Contact magazine. I guess it was a lot of the same stuff you would see on the show, just in magazine form. Originally, the developers of the show wanted it to be actual scientists doing experiments. But PBS didn't think that middle-aged scientists would be of any interest to elementary school-aged children. They were definitely spot on. But just because they're middle-aged doesn't mean they can't be interesting. And that leads into the next show I want to talk about, and that was Mr. Wizard's World. Mr. Wizard's World was a staple of the early days of Nickelodeon. Mr. Wizard was a man named Don Herbert. I know some of you out there are sad that his real last name wasn't Wizard. His original show called Watch Mr. Wizard started in 1951. By the time it got to Nickelodeon in 1983, it was the third incarnation of the show. Basically the same idea. This version of the show was on for five seasons. It included the typical Mr. Wizard just doing science experiments. There was also the Ask Mr. Wizard segment, where children of all ages sent in questions for him to answer. Don Herbert, Mr. Wizard, he was in his late 60s when he was doing Mr. Wizard's World, late 60s to early 70s. So I find it funny that PBS didn't want 321 Contact to have older people doing science experiments, but it was successful on Nickelodeon. Mr. Wizard, during its run, was the number three rated show on Nickelodeon, behind only Livewire, which was a talk show, and You Can't Do That on Television, which everyone knows from that era. You can't talk about children's educational TV shows without the granddaddy of them all, Sesame Street. By the time I started watching Sesame Street when I was, I don't know, my mother probably had me watching it when I was three years old, the show had already been on for over a decade. It started in 1969. It's been on for 54 seasons. It was on PBS forever before it got moved to HBO in 2016, and now it's on the Max streaming platform. It's hard to find an accurate episode count, but... As best I can see, there are at least 4,600 episodes of Sesame Street. You imagine trying to binge watch that like a Netflix show? Sesame Street had all these memorable characters, all of the Jim Henson Muppets. There was Big Bird, Kermit the Frog, Grover, Bert and Ernie, and all of the human characters that were on Sesame Street as well. With all of these shows that I'm talking about here, naturally I think in the future I'm going to do deeper dives into each one. In case you're listening to this segment saying, boy, he only spent two minutes on Sesame Street. Oh, don't worry. I'll probably do more on it in the future. Now we're starting to get into a few of the shows that maybe all of you won't remember, or maybe I'm underestimating you. Do you remember Square One Television?

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Square One Television

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The show was on from 1987 to 1992. 230 episodes, another PBS-based show. This show was educational in the fact that it taught about math, counting, arithmetic, some geometry, some probabilities, fractions, things like that that you would learn in your early school years. But there were sketches, there were segments, so that made it fun and interesting. There was Math Man, that was a parody of Pac-Man. And there were game segments. There were also celebrities on there. Weird Al Yankovic did a song. The Judds, a country band, they were on there several times. Another thing that made Square One Television unique was that it had a music video in every show. And these were usually well-known acts. They had the Fat Boys on there. They had Kid and Play on there. I can't remember if this show was ever played in my elementary school, though. One that was every now and then, and a show that likely, much like Sesame Street, you'll all remember, was Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.

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It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood, a beautiful

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day for a neighbor. Would you be mine? Could you be mine? It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Everyone knows that song, come on. Fred Rogers, and the show would start off with him coming home, changing out of his, I guess, work clothes into more casual clothes. Won't you be my neighbor? The show was on from 1968 to 2001. This show, looking back on it today, watching it now as an adult, a middle-aged adult, there's so much good and good feelings and good vibes given off by Fred Rogers. This is a show that I could see us grown-ups in the Gen X generation watching now for some kind of peace of mind when we're not feeling great. There was the land of make-believe. There was a lot of songs on this show. As I got older, I found that I thought that Ned Flanders from The Simpsons was a lot like Mr. Rogers. I don't know if that was the intention. The funny thing is, this show was deemed to be for children ages 2 to 5, but then they said it was appropriate for all ages. So I don't know how old I was when I stopped watching it, but I'm pretty sure I was more than 5, so I don't know. It was above the recommended age range. And as years went on, and now Fred Rogers, he passed away in 2003, so only a couple of years after the show went off the air. But in the years since, so much good has come out about him that he literally was that character you saw on the TV show. Which is great to know because so many times, the people that you saw on TV, as you get older, you find out tons of skeletons in their closet. So it's good to know that Mr. Rogers just had extra sweaters and pairs of shoes in his. Do you all out there remember the show Pinwheel? This was another early years of Nickelodeon show.

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The

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show was on from 1977 through 1984. and a total of 260 episodes, but it remained in syndication on Nickelodeon throughout the 80s, because I definitely remember watching Pinwheel in the later 80s. This had a very trippy intro, sort of animated, and a song that I'm sure most of you remember. It took place in the Pinwheel house, which was a boarding house. There were some puppets, some live-action people that interacted with the puppets. A lot of the educational stuff dealt with things like sharing, being considerate, colors, the environment, basic stuff. But like all these other shows, they didn't beat you over the head with whatever their educational topic was. They kind of wrapped it in something sweeter and fun, sort of like giving medicine to a dog. If that analogy makes sense, wrap their pill in a treat. That's kind of what we kids in the 80s got. Rap our education in puppets and songs. The last show I want to talk about is Zoobly Zoo. I saved this one to the end. I figured this would be the one that the most of you out there wouldn't remember. All of my sisters I know, we all used to watch this show. I bet they remember it. This show was only on from 1986 to 87. It was hosted by actor and singer Ben Vereen. What made this show unique was that all of the main characters were these humanoid, half-human, half-animal hybrids. Or at least people dressed as animals. Think of it as the Island of Dr. Moreau movie, except for children. There are six of these animal friends that each of them are creative. They have their own talents. There were lots of songs in this show. Interestingly, it was really highly critically acclaimed by teachers associations, but the ratings just weren't there. And I don't know if it's because it's such a weird premise or Where there's not humans and animals or puppets and humans or it's not animated. It's humans dressed as animals. So it's kind of creepy and weird. Of course, I say that and I used to watch it. If you've never seen Zoobly Zoo, I would recommend either partaking in an edible or having a drink and sitting back and watching this because you're really going to feel tripped out. But those are some of the classic 1980s educational children's shows that left a mark on me growing up. Which of those do you remember watching, especially when they first came out, those of you that are in my age group? Most of these shows you can find on streaming platforms, you can find episodes on YouTube if you're interested in reconnecting with your youth. And like I said, I'll probably do deeper dives into some of these as the podcast goes on. So if I skimmed over your favorite of these shows, don't worry. There'll be more about them coming up. They are available in racks and racks at every gift shop, every supermarket, every store you can find on your vacation. And this week in history... We're going back 126 years ago to May 19th, 1898, and the introduction of the very first postcards. I love history, obviously, as you can tell by this segment, and I love postcards. They're kind of a connection back to history. And in the vast tapestry of human communication, postcards, they stand as a small yet significant thread, weaving the tales of journeys and sentiments and cultural exchanges. 1898 is where we had the introduction of souvenir cards, and these were small pieces of cardboard designed to be the tokens of travel. allowing the tourists to take a little piece of where they are with them or send it to someone else and show off, look where I am. It was a little more showy way to send a brief message to someone that you cared about or just keep them as part of your souvenirs from your holiday. It was really in the early 20th century that the evolution of postcards into picture postcards came. They would have vibrant images. Capturing landmarks, landscapes, cultural icons. Some of them would be photos. Some would be photos that were painted over so they almost didn't look like they were real photos. There's a lot of Cape Cod ones like that. And what's great is this golden age of postcards from their introduction in 1898 through World War I paints this picture of what the country was like back then. Postcards were invaluable during World War I. They could either be propaganda tools or morale boosters or channels of communication between the soldiers and their families back home. The postcard remained important after World War I and throughout most of the 20th century, but just not as big of a scale because with the increased availability of the telephone and the radio and television, And even cameras becoming more technologically advanced, there wasn't as much of a need to buy a picture postcard from wherever you were at. Many years ago, I bought a disc CD filled with thousands of postcards that had to do with Cape Cod, and it was pretty affordable. But I loved history so much, so I have all these little snapshots from areas I'm familiar with. And I'm not going to lie, over the years I've wanted to do something like make my own Cape Cod postcards to sell. But with everyone's phone having a camera, it's easier for almost anybody to get their own postcard quality shot of something that they're looking at. For me, beyond their aesthetic appeal and the historical value, postcards endure as tangible tokens of the human connection. You can buy some postcards on eBay that have messages on them from people from 70, 80, 100 years ago. I feel that much like vinyl albums are now back in style, that with the advent of all the digital technology, that over time, postcards are going to become more popular as people want something in their hands. Whether they have their own resurgence or not, We can look back 126 years ago, this week in history, to the very first postcards, then known as souvenir cards. Now it is time for a brand new time capsule. We are going back 40 years ago this week, 40 years, to May 21st, 1984. Let's see what was going on in the world of pop culture back then. The number one song was Let's Hear It for the Boy by Denise Williams. This was a single off of the Footloose movie soundtrack. This was Denise Williams' second number one single after the song Too Much, Too Little, Too Late, which was a duet with Johnny Mathis, which was released in 1978. The number one movie was Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. And you could get into the theater with a ticket costing $3.36. This was the highly successful sequel to the highly successful Raiders of the Lost Ark that came out in 1981. Starring Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. It also starred Kate Capshaw and Kihoi Kwan. The movie made $333 million in 1984 on a budget of $28 million. This led to a third movie, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, that came out in 1989. The number one TV show was actually a TV movie, Love Thy Neighbor. This was a romantic comedy starring John Ritter and Penny Marshall about neighbors whose husband and wife respectively run off with each other. And their characters are enemies, but they try to pick up the pieces of their lives in fun and hilarious ways. I'm assuming this movie must have been a hit. It was number one in the ratings, but I can't find much else about it. And if you were around back then, 40 years ago this week, Memorial Day weekend is coming up. You have to get some stuff to prepare either for your vacation, your staycation, or just stuff for your yard as it's now getting warmer out. Well, you're in luck. You could visit one of the 165 service merchandise catalog showrooms around the country. You could get things like the Igloo Playmate Cooler for $12.92. Little Tykes Marina Sandbox for $29.97. Or what looked like several different types of lawn chairs that I specifically remember my grandparents having, Nina, Grandpa, and Nana. Deluxe PVC strap stack chairs for $12.94. The extra long 36 position folding lawn chair. This was the one that was in three pieces. If you saw it, you'd remember this from the 80s. But you could get any of that stuff you want. Just visit Service Merchandise, their catalog showrooms, and get all of your vinyl and PVC lawn chairs you could possibly ask for. That wraps up another This Week in History, another time capsule, and we're going to dive into the top five as we look at some TV channels that came and went right now. In this day and age, it seems like every day there's a new cable TV channel coming out. Some of the major networks have offshoot channels. It seems like channels never go away. They just lose their popularity and kind of flounder, but they never get turned off. And in a lot of ways, that's true. But there are some, there are some channels that actually get canceled and turned off and go off the air. And that's what we're going to talk about this week on the top five. These are defunct TV channels, channels that actually are gone. Sometime in the near future, I'm going to do another top five that are TV channels that got renamed. Because there are a lot of channels I remember growing up that they didn't get canceled. They either got renamed, revamped, rolled into another station. So that's going to be a whole different top five. This here, these are actual channels that are no longer around. And with all of these top fives, there are some honorable mentions here. See if these will stir up any memories of yesterday with these defunct channels. Honorable mentions include Chiller TV, Toon Disney, G4, the gaming channel, and ESPN Classic, which that one hurts for me. I figure at least a few of those are memorable for those of you, depending on your age. If you're older like me, maybe ESPN Classic. If you're younger, maybe Toon Disney. But those are the honorable mentions. The actual top five will be in no particular order. So let's see how many of these defunct channels you have heard of, starting with number one, the Dumont Network. When thinking of defunct TV channels, this was the very first one that came to my mind. The network was the brainchild of Alan B. Dumont, who made the first commercially practical television. The station began in 1940. So when you think about that, I mean, TV was brand new, really brand new. The Dumont Network even had a powerful partner in Paramount Studios, but they were rife with financial problems almost from the beginning. A big problem that the Dumont Network had that the other major stations, ABC, CBS, and NBC didn't have, was Dumont didn't have a corresponding radio network. Whereas the other networks could bring their radio stars to TV, Dumont didn't have that luxury. As TV became more profitable, it became more competitive. So ABC, NBC, CBS, they all started to put the squeeze on Dumont. The very last thing shown on the Dumont network was a boxing match on August 6th, 1956. And in a final irony, the financial problems that the DuMont network had meant that they ended up recording over some of their own TV shows. Like you would do with a VHS tape in the 80s, just tape over it. So a lot of their shows have been lost to history because they got taped over. Number two is the Paramount Television Network. This station was launched in 1948. Even though Paramount Studios had kind of a partnership with the Dumont Network, they began their own TV channel. At their peak, the Paramount Network only had about 50 affiliates, meaning that you really didn't see this channel outside of the West Coast. Their big claim to fame was their Emmy award-winning children's show, Time for Beanie. There was trouble in the 1950s with Paramount being seen as almost trying to gain too much influence in television. with their network, with their stock in the Dumont network, and rumors that they were going to take over Dumont and roll it into their network and then try to really go national. By the mid-1950s, Paramount was losing interest in staking their claim in the television business. And interestingly, their network went under almost the same time as Dumont in the summer of 1956. So those are two really old networks. Let's come forward a little bit with number three, the Fox Kids Network. The Fox Kids Network started in 1990 when the Fox channel was still pretty relatively young. At first, there was a lot of synergy between Fox affiliates and the Fox Kids Network with basically everyone that carried Fox also carrying Fox Kids Network. But after a few years, stations started dropping it. The Fox Kids Network was actually really put together to try to get Fox on even footing with ABC, CBS, NBC. And by the early 2000s, they felt they were there. And so Fox Kids Network wasn't really needed anymore. And in September 2002, Fox Kids became just a memory. Number four. is the Cable Music Channel. This station was launched by Ted Turner in 1984 and was the first direct competition to MTV. If you're sitting there listening to this wondering why you haven't ever heard of the Cable Music Channel from 1984, there's a good reason. This channel lasted all of 35 days. That's right, 35 days and this thing was done. Cable Music Channel tried to differentiate itself from MTV as MTV played more album-oriented rock. So Cable Music Channel could play adult contemporary, country, dance, pop, all that stuff. This was an immediate money-losing proposition as they were having trouble finding cable companies to put them on the air because they were basically like, we already have an all-music channel, MTV. We don't need a second one. The channel went on the air October 26th, 1984. It went off the air November 30th, 1984. The last song they played was Take Me to Heart by Quarter Flash. And then they were off the air, making it one of the quickest stations ever to go under. And finally, number five on the list of top five defunct TV channels is Z Channel. Z Channel was on the air from 1974 to 1989, and it was one of the earliest pay TV channels. It was a movie channel, like HBO. Except they were known for a more eclectic taste in what movies they showed. A lot of B-movies, silent movies, foreign films. Sometime in the mid-80s, Z Channel peaked with about 90,000 subscribers. For comparison, in the first quarter of 2024, Netflix has a total of 269.6 million subscribers. So Z Channel wasn't that successful. The end for Z Channel came in twofold. One with the death of their programming chief, Jerry Harvey, in late 1988. And then them deciding to add sports programming, which kind of changed what the point of the channel was. And on June 29th, 1989, Z Channel faded to black and never came back on the air. So those are the top five defunct TV channels. Do you remember any of those? Like I said, I'm going to do another segment that are going to be channels that either change their identity or change their names, things like that. Because when researching this, I found a lot of those channels and I wanted to make sure this was actual channels that when they went off the air, they didn't come back with a different name but now it's time for me to put some earworm music in your head as we look at the legendary game known as Tetris coming up next Growing up in the 1980s, even though video games were not the main thing in my life, I was no stranger to video games. I had the Atari 2600, had the Nintendo Entertainment System. Later in the 80s, I even got the Game Boy. To top that all off, you could go to the arcade and waste a few hours as long as you had enough quarters. So I definitely had my share of favorite video games. And one that was up there as one of my favorites, probably because it was so addictive, was Tetris. So let's go way, way back in the day and look at the creation of Tetris and kind of why it was so addicting. And I'll share my own fond memories of playing Tetris, complete with the music. So here it is. Oh yeah, stick that earworm right in there. That song is titled Korobeniki. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. It's a Russian folk song from the mid-19th century. Everywhere outside of Russia, that music is known as the Tetris theme song. It first appeared in the Nintendo Game Boy version of Tetris in 1989, arranged by Japanese composer Hirokazu Tanaka. The game Tetris itself, not ironically, was created by a Russian developer, Alexey Pajitnov, in 1984. Pajitnov was a computer scientist, and he developed the game while working at the Dorodnitsyn Computing Center of the Academy of Science of the USSR. Tetris is inspired by a traditional Russian puzzle game called Pentomenos. The gist of the game is it challenges players to manipulate falling geometric shapes, or tetrominoes, to complete lines across the screen and prevent them from stacking up to the top of the screen. And it's just so simple and engaging and fun, and it forces that creative thinking. If you've never played Tetris before, you can go right now, pause this podcast, and go to Tetris.com and play it free. I can just remember playing, and there's the music going, and the shapes would fall, and at first they're very slow, so it's easy. The more lines you get, the more speed these pieces would pick up. You'd be able to see which piece was coming next, so you'd almost have to be planning on where you dropped it before it even showed up. Tetris's impact on the video game industry as a whole, it cannot be overstated. Despite the fact that it originated in the Soviet Union, the game gained international recognition when it was ported to various platforms. IBM PC, Commodore 64, and obviously Nintendo Entertainment System. The success of Tetris helped to solidify the concept of puzzle games as a genre in video games. Think about it, before Tetris came out in the late 1980s, Most video games were action adventure, sports, shooting games, fantasy games. There were so very few that made you actually think. Tetris exploded onto the scene, really, when it became included as a pack-in title with the Nintendo Game Boy in 1989. This is where you got Super Mario Land and Tetris. I got Game Boy as a gift for my 12th birthday. That's one of those things that really changed video games for me, to have that thing that I could sit in my bed and play. So the Game Boy made Tetris successful. Tetris made the Game Boy successful. So one helped the other out. I can remember getting so frustrated playing Tetris because you would get past the different levels where the pieces would pick up speed and you'd just be on a roll. And either you'd hit the button wrong or the directional wrong, and one thing would just spiral out of control, and then all of a sudden the game was over. I wanted to throw my controller or throw the Game Boy, but it was too expensive. I didn't want to break that. My biggest lasting memory of Tetris actually is something that can be connected to the TV show Seinfeld. You remember the episode of Seinfeld where the Frogger arcade game in the pizzeria, the pizzeria was being shut down and George had the high score on Frogger still. So he ended up buying the video game console and trying to get it across the street before the power went out in it and he would lose his high score. When I was in high school, a local sub shop, Harry's Sub Shop, not far down the street from where I lived, They had a Tetris arcade game. And I remember one time playing it, putting my quarters in. I mean, I played it a bunch of times. But one time I played it and I ended up with the high score. And every time I would go in there with friends, I would check the high score and it was still there. So I had no need to play anymore to try to beat myself. Harry's Sub Shop didn't last that long. Three, four years. So that Tetris machine, probably when it got unplugged, My score was gone. CJS at the top of the list erased. I still remember that day that I set the high score because it takes a while to set a top score. I'm pretty sure that my other friends were long done with their food. There I am playing Tetris still. I don't know if they stuck around for me to finish up or if they got on their bikes and rode away and said just catch up when you're done. Beyond its impact on the gaming industry, Tetris permeated popular culture. Like I said, the music, you know the music. Even before I played that clip, when I said the Tetris music, you knew it. It's just simple and hypnotic and just repetitive. The game has been featured in movies, TV shows, music videos. The Simpsons has referenced it, Futurama. Most importantly, though, it had such a huge impact on the players. I spent, I don't know how many hours, playing Tetris on Nintendo or the Game Boy or in arcades. It's like even if you set a high score, it's just so addictive, starting to line up those tetrominoes that you just get lost in it. The addictive nature of Tetris has been the subject of scientific studies. Researchers explore the psychological effects of Tetris gameplay, including its potential to alleviate stress and improve cognitive function. I know at times it alleviated stress for me, but at times it caused it. What was known in my house as Nintendo Attitude. That sudden outburst of anger when you screwed up at a game and either your character died or you lost. Nothing else was going wrong in your life. You just screwed up on a video game and got pissed off at everyone around you. It's interesting because despite the overwhelming success of Tetris, it's a game that's kind of confined. Like you can't really adapt it. Like a Super Mario Brothers game, you can make so many different variations in different worlds. Tetris is kind of just Tetris. It is what it is. So the best that I could find for numbers is that the Tetris game itself has sold more than 170 million copies, including 70 million physical copies and 100 million digital copies for phones, downloads for the computer. It was the most successful Nintendo game in 1990, and it was just a consistent seller after that. I think Tetris, it kind of brings a unity to people because anyone can play the game. You don't need to speak a certain language. It's just lining up shapes. And it reminds me of simpler times. When I think of Tetris, I think of when video games were an option and not what you defined your life by. You know, I would play Nintendo games, but I'd be outside way more than I was sitting in front of a TV. And no, this isn't going to get into the my generation thing and I'm old man yelling at cloud. But it was a simpler time. Even to this day, you can go, like I said, Tetris.com. You can go and play it right now. I might go and do it after I record this podcast. I just have to remember that if I screw up and lose, I can't smash my laptop. Otherwise, I'll be recording next week's podcast on my little handheld digital recorder. which would sound like I was talking through a toilet paper tube. From its humble beginnings in a Soviet computer lab to its status as a global phenomenon, the video game Tetris has left an indelible mark on the gaming industry, pop culture, and the lives of millions of players, including me. Did you play Tetris? I know you did. And don't worry, we're going to end off with some more of the music so I can just make sure that it's in your head and you dream about it tonight. Okay, now that I put the Tetris music earworm in your head, and now that I finished my energy drink, we'll wrap up episode 145 of the podcast. Thank you to all of you for tuning in. A big thank you to my Patreon subscribers, Leo, Laurie, Mary Lou, and Ashley. Like I said at the top of the show, go to patreon.com slash inmyfootstepspodcast. You can listen to the new podcast where I do a deep dive into my return to racing and the seven-year journey it took to get there. That is on the free tier. You don't need to be a paid member to listen to it. It's got some running minutiae in it, but it's a more overarching thing about determination and perseverance. So I think you'll enjoy it. Stay tuned next week for episode 146 as it's Memorial Day weekend. I'm going to share with you the top five underrated cities and towns in New England for any of you that are looking for places to visit when you come up here. We're going to do a new blink and you'll miss it retro segment. This will be the second segment and it'll focus on some TV shows that were here and gone before you even knew they were around. This podcast goes live on Wednesday. If you're in the area on the Friday, May 24th, Come and check me out at the West Dennis Library at 1 p.m. I'll be speaking about The Searching for the Lady of the Dunes book, the documentary by Frank Durant, the case, the website that I built, all of that stuff. If you're interested in any of my nine books, you can visit ChristopherSatterlund.com, my website. It's got links to all of those books. Check out Initial Impressions 2.0, my blog about my... ordinary, wacky, everyday life. It's likely going to be made into a podcast. I'm probably going to debut it on Patreon and see what people think. But I've been looking to do another type of show that's way more suited to my wacky sense of humor. It comes out every now and then on this show, but I am somewhat more subdued as I try to make this informative with actual facts and notes about the nostalgia. But if you've read that blog of mine, that's basically what it'll be. It'll be like five energy drinks in the span of one show. I want to wish a happy 18th birthday. I can't believe 18. To my nephew, Liam, six foot three. He towers over me, but he's been taller than me for several years. I hope your birthday is amazing. The beautiful weather is here. Make sure you get out and enjoy it. Get that sun, the warm air, the vitamin D. It's great for your mental health. Things like sitting out in the sunshine, those are free. And this podcast is free. So sit out in the sunshine with this podcast and just enjoy. Lean into those things that make you happy. I always say, as long as it's not hurting anyone else, go for it. I like diving into batches of old TV commercials on YouTube that might bore some people, but it definitely doesn't hurt them. And that's one of my happy spaces. And that's where I find a lot of inspiration for this podcast, the nostalgia from things like that. And I've got no lack of inspiration, so I'll keep pumping out the content with this podcast. Maybe a brand new podcast. We'll just add that to my plate. The blogs, YouTube videos, all that content. the creativity. I love that stuff. 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 again to everybody who has been tuning into the podcast. I appreciate all of you. This has been the In My Footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund. You already knew that. And I'll talk to you all again soon.

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Christopher Setterlund

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