In My Footsteps: A Gen-X Nostalgia Podcast

Episode 161: Howard the Duck, Nintendo Entertainment System Remix, Passing Fads of the 1970s, Psycho(9-11-2024)

• Christopher Setterlund • Season 1 • Episode 161

Share episode

Send us a text

A movie so bad my grandmother made us walk out? Passing fads of the 1970s? A remix from the first episode of the podcast?
Episode 161 looks ahead toward the fall while looking back with a heavy dose of nostalgia.
It kicks off with a movie widely considered to be one of the worst of the 1980s. Howard the Duck was a somewhat popular Marvel Comics character so how did he end up as a punchline in the annals of terrible movies? We'll get into that plus the story of how my grandmother and I walked out of the theater during the film.
It's a double-dip of Back In the Day as we not only take a look back at the beginnings of the Nintendo Entertainment System but also back to Episode 1 of the podcast as the NES was a part of the very first show. It's time for a retro remix.
Not everything that is popular stays popular. This week's Top 5 is proof of that as we look at the passing fads of the 1970s. Did you partake in any of these?
There is a brand new This Week In History and Time Capsule featuring the release of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, the godfather of slasher films.
For more great content become a subscriber on Patreon!

Helpful Links from this Episode

Listen to Episode 160 here 

Volleybird Subscription Boxes
Volleybird.shop for curated pickleball subscription boxes delivered every 8 weeks

Support the show

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 161. It's almost time for fall, so we're going to fall into lots of nostalgia on this week's podcast. We're going to take a look back at what is widely considered to Howard the Duck. We're going to go way, way back in the day and do a reboot from episode one as we look back at the creation of the Nintendo Entertainment System video game console. There's going to be a brand new top five. These are the top five passing fads of the 1970s, things that were briefly popular for some reason but quickly faded away. And there'll be a brand new This Week in History and Time capsule centered around the release of Alfred Hitchcock's Hitchcock's classic movie Psycho. All of that is coming up right now on episode 161 of the In My Footsteps podcast. Welcome in everybody. What are we going to start talking about this week? I made the joke of falling into nostalgia. There's always the cheesy line in the fitness industry of fall into fitness or spring into fitness. Those types of things to get people into the gym or into your classes. It doesn't quite work the same for podcasts, I guess, or at least my type of podcast, nostalgia based. But weak dad jokes aside, it's going to be a super fun show. Some stuff that I've wanted to talk about for a while and other stuff that I decided to bring back. Before we get into that, I wanted to make sure that I thank all of you that tune into the show, who share, who rate, review. I do my best to include content that is worthy of sharing and telling others about. The nostalgia-based podcast leaves a lot more that I can bring out as far as topics go, and you'll see that as far as we go this week. Thank you to my Patreon subscribers. Lori, Mary Lou, Ashley, Kevin, Marguerite. $5 a month gets you access to bonus podcasts. It gets you early access to YouTube videos, early access to the main podcast, early access to blogs. But if spending your hard-earned money doesn't For a subscription to my Patreon, if that's not feasible, I'm trying to add in a lot more free content over there on Patreon at In My Footsteps Podcast. So go and check that stuff out. Maybe it'll tempt you to become a member, but if not, you're here, you're listening. That's what matters most. Also, a side note before we dive into the podcast. Tomorrow, from when the podcast goes live, it'll be September 12th, it'll be four years since I went alcohol-free. Many of you longtime listeners know the story of how I ended up giving up alcohol. I've done some segments on it on the podcast, episode 16, episode 112. For those of you new to the podcast or those of you that don't want to take the time to go back into the archives... I had an issue self-medicating with alcohol for a few years dealing with losses of loved ones, financial issues, my own battles with depression. The further that I get out from when I stopped drinking, the more I realized that it was an issue for longer than I thought and longer than I let on. The process of giving up alcohol, it was sort of like training for a race. I almost had to prep myself to get ready to give it up. Basically, on September 11th, 2020, I had my last drinks, and it was to mourn 9-11, which in and of itself sounds noble, but what it was was my last grasping at straws, the last excuse I had to keep drinking. because there was literally nothing good in my life that came from alcohol. Nothing. Sure, there were plenty of fun nights and alcohol was kind of on the periphery there, but there was never anything that happened in my life where I say, man, if it wasn't for the alcohol, this night would have sucked. I wrote a blog that I'll share in the description of the podcast about why I stay alcohol-free four years later. I'm also recording that into a special short-form bonus podcast for free on Patreon. So if you'd rather hear my voice, read it, than have your own voice read it. But just know that if I can give up alcohol, then you can. If you're thinking of doing it, that means you probably should. And if you don't need to give up alcohol, that's great. Good for you. I could not do it. It ended up becoming basically a daily routine for months and years. Here, let me get booze with everything else that I did. So the day after this podcast goes live, I'll be celebrating four years alcohol-free. But as we jump into the podcast, I think one of the only things that could drive me back to drink would be having to watch this next movie on repeat. So 80s kids rejoice or recoil in horror as we do a deep dive here into the infamous Howard the Duck movie coming up now on episode 161 of the In My Footsteps podcast. There are some movies that you see as a kid and then you see them again when you're older and you either are shocked that you enjoyed this movie, maybe a little embarrassed that you enjoyed it, Or you have the opposite. You see a movie that you didn't like as a child, and then when you get older, you're shocked that you didn't have good taste when you were eight, nine years old. I know, shocking. This movie, I think, is one that when it came out, it appealed to me. I was eight going on nine years old. Obviously, your tastes when you are in the single-digit years of your life is far different than when you're middle-aged like I am now. But Howard the Duck, the movie, the character, the story of how it became a movie, and ultimately the epic fail that it was, it's a subject that I've wanted to talk about on the podcast for a long time. It really is Howard the Duck. And the reason why is because Howard the Duck is the only movie I've ever seen ever in my life where I left the theater before the movie was done. Now that right there is not a big statement. It's like, well, people do that. Movies suck. You try to beat the traffic. But the best part of this whole anecdote is that it wasn't my choice to leave the theater. I went and saw the movie with my Nina and she hated it so much that she said, come on, we're leaving. That's a big reason why I wanted to talk about Howard the Duck was that This movie was seen as so bad that my grandmother hated it so much that she made her 8-year-old grandson leave the theater in the middle of it. Well, not the middle. Closer to the end. I think she had seen enough. And the best part? I can still remember the scene when I was looking back towards the screen as she was making me leave. But we'll get into my experiences with Howard the Duck a little later on. But there is so much more to Howard the Duck than just a flop as far as movies go. It's one of the most puzzling projects in Hollywood history. But the thing is, some people don't know that Howard the Duck was a Marvel Comics character. Howard the Duck first came into existence in December 1973 in the Marvel comic Adventure into Fear number 19. Howard the Duck was created by writer Steve Gerber and artist Val Merrick. And those of you that are younger that have no idea, Howard was an anthropomorphic cigar-smoking duck who ended up finding himself trapped in a world of humans, hailing from a parallel universe he was pulled into our world by the villainous demon Thog. And the idea of the comics, it was a satirical take on American culture, blending absurdist humor with biting social commentary. And Howard the Duck, the character, it quickly gained popularity, especially when he was given his own series starting in 1976, just titled Howard the Duck. And again, much like his introduction, the spinoff comics stood out for the offbeat humor, surreal storylines, sharp critiques of politics, media, consumerism. It gathered a cult following because Howard the Duck was something different from a traditional superhero. And that kind of success led to possible Hollywood adaptations of the comics. It started in the early 80s with George Lucas, fresh off of the massive success of Star Wars and Indiana Jones. He decided to produce this movie under his Lucasfilm banner, being a fan of the comics, and he saw the potential for it to be a major hit, especially considering his track record of turning unconventional ideas into box office gold. Initially, Howard the Duck was going to be an animated film, much like the comics, but Universal Studios, they pushed for a live-action adaptation, believing that that would attract a broader audience. George Lucas, off of doing Star Wars and Indiana Jones, he felt pretty bulletproof, so he agreed, and the project was greenlit with a budget of around $30 million. And being in late 1985, that would be about $87 million when adjusted for inflation to 2024. The film was directed by Willard Huyck. I hope I pronounced that right. H-U-Y-C-K. The screenplay was written by Huyck and Gloria Katz, both of whom had collaborated with George Lucas on American Graffiti. The cast included some popular faces from the mid-1980s. Leah Thompson from Back to the Future, Jeffrey Jones, who was Principal Rooney from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and Tim Robbins. The Howard the Duck character was going to be portrayed through a combination of animatronics and costume works, with Chip Zien providing the voice of Howard. The expectations were high. George Lucas already had the reputation for creating blockbuster hits, so they figured Howard the Duck, a Marvel comic, it's going to do well. Places were flooded with promotional material, trailers, posters, merchandise. That, coupled with George Lucas being involved, industry insiders figured this was going to be just another hit. Universal Studios even put their money where their mouth was, lining the film up for a prime summer release. And then opening day happened.

Speaker 01:

Every duck's got his limit, and you scum have pushed me over the line.

Speaker 02:

Jimmy, do you like to see what I see? A talking duck? Yeah,

Speaker 01:

that's it.

Speaker 02:

I've been

Speaker 01:

doing

Speaker 02:

too much toot.

Speaker 01:

Shoot! Fly away! No one laughs at a master of quack-foo.

Unknown:

Hang on!

Speaker 00:

August 1st, 1986, Howard the Duck premieres in theaters, and everything goes off the rails. The film had terrible reviews from critics and didn't connect with the audience. In total, domestically, Howard the Duck grossed $16 million, barely more than half of its budget. It is 13% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. But what went wrong with this purported can't-miss hit from George

Speaker 02:

Lucas?

Speaker 00:

One issue was an identity crisis. The film struggled to find its audience because the original comics were edgy, satirical, aimed at an older audience. But the movie was presented as family-friendly, which is why Mynina brought me there. But it wasn't. It wasn't family-friendly, it wasn't appropriate for children, but it also wasn't sophisticated enough for adults. So what you ended up having was a film that didn't satisfy any demographic. I mean, it did have some adult humor and weird situations with Howard the Duck getting in a romance with a human, which that was definitely weird for me to see as an eight-year-old child. Maybe that's why my Nina made us leave. Maybe I asked her, why is the duck kissing the human? The special effects weren't great. The Howard the Duck suit became a source of mockery. It was actually a pretty good technical feat at the time. but it seemed more stiff, unsettling. He had this big round head and it just felt clunky and out of step in an era where new and innovative special effects were rapidly being utilized in films. The special effects probably could have been looked past if the story was interesting, but the script lacked the wit and subversive humor from the comics. And instead it was Weird and bizarre juvenile jokes. And then there was the critical reviews, including Roger Ebert, who was one of the most famous film critics ever. He, at the time, remarked that Howard the Duck was a quote-unquote stupid movie, and that it seemed like it was made by people who had never seen a movie before. So if you were somebody that looked to Siskel and Ebert for guidance to see movies, and they said it was stupid and it was made by people that didn't seem to know what a movie was, would you go see it? And even though Universal Studios put it in the prime of summer in August, the marketing campaign didn't communicate what the movie was about. Trailers and posters didn't capture the film's tone or appeal. Was Howard the Duck an action movie, a comedy movie, a family movie? I'm sure my Nina thought it was more of a family adventure movie with a duck that was the main character. The movie was pretty quickly pulled from theaters, and it had significant repercussions. It caused a rift between George Lucas and Universal Pictures. It also contributed to Lucas' financial difficulties in the late 80s. Naturally, this movie was seen as an embarrassment for all who were involved in it. It became a cautionary tale in Hollywood. Hence the reason why I said I wanted to talk about this on the podcast for a while, because growing up, it was kind of the punchline as far as worst movies from that period. It's either Howard the Duck or Garbage Pail Kids or Grease 2. There's a scene in the movie where Tim Robbins' character and Howard the Duck are trying to escape in this small plane, more like an ultralight plane. It looks like something someone would have made in their garage. that is the scene where my nina was like come on let's go and i can remember Walking with her up the aisle of the theater and looking back and seeing this plane, it was red in color, kind of spinning around in the field on this farm. That's my lasting memory of Howard the Duck is leaving the theater. It's the only movie I've ever walked out on. Now, not by choice, because I didn't pay for the tickets. I would have stayed and watched it. But if anyone ever asked me about my opinion of Howard the Duck... I would say, well, the movie was so bad that my grandmother made her grandson leave the theater in the middle of the movie. But don't worry, it's gained a bit of a cult following that a lot of terrible movies seem to do where it's the so bad it's good. I don't know. That's up to you to decide if it's so bad it's good or if it's so bad it's bad. Howard the Duck has been around, though. He was in Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014 and Avengers Endgame in 2019. Just cameos. But he's still there. You never know. Maybe they'll reboot Howard the Duck. 2026 would be 40 years. I don't have grandkids, but my youngest niece would be seven going on eight in 2026, so maybe I can bring her to see a reboot Howard the Duck and make her leave when the movie's still going on for memory's sake. We go from one of the worst movies of the 1980s to one of the best movies ever. As this week in history, we go back 64 years to September 8th, 1960 and the release of Alfred Hitchcock's classic movie, Psycho. This is an all-time classic horror, thriller, suspense movie known for its shocking plot twists. groundbreaking filmmaking techniques, and the introduction of the modern horror genre. Alfred Hitchcock, already by this point, he was known as the master of suspense. His films often explored complex themes of guilt, fear, obsession, seen in his classics like Rear Window from 1954, Vertigo from 1958. Hitchcock's works are things that are studied in film class. I took an American film course in college. It was basically once a week we would watch a movie. We'd go to the auditorium and watch it, but it wasn't just watching a movie. It was dissecting themes and techniques. The movie Psycho was based on Robert Bloch's 1959 novel of the same name. I'll try not to give too many spoilers, but I'm figuring 64 years, if you haven't seen Psycho yet, You probably should. You probably know the plot twists. Norman Bates, the Bates Motel, following the lead, Janet Leigh, who is Marion Crane, who ends up after stealing $40,000 from her boss, ends up at the Bates Motel. There's the infamous shower scene, one of the most famous scenes in film history. And if you've seen the movie, and I say shower scene, you probably can see it in your head. You can probably hear the violins. What's amazing about that shower scene is that Hitchcock used 78 camera angles and 50 cuts. So you get this sense of chaos and terror, but you don't see anything. And that's so different from most horror movies today that are gore porn. Hitchcock used... Sound and music, he pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in mainstream cinema in the movie Psycho. The movie was a major hit. It grossed over $50 million at the box office in 1960 on a budget of around $800,000. The film's unconventional narrative structure, where who you think is the main character ends up not being the main character, the intense psychological depth... And Hitchcock's ability to manipulate audience expectations, that led to the success. Not to mention Anthony Perkins and his once-in-a-lifetime portrayal of Norman Bates. Because it really blurred the line between victim and villain. Like I said a minute ago, Psycho is credited with revolutionizing the horror genre. Classic movies like Halloween and The Shining... They owe a lot to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. There ended up being sequels to it. Psycho 2 is really good if you've never seen it. It really captures the same feeling as the original. And there was the Bates Motel television series in the 2010s. If you've seen Psycho, you know why it's considered one of the greatest films ever. If you haven't, I hope I did a good enough job enticing you to see it and didn't give too many spoilers. The master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, released his all-time classic movie Psycho 64 years ago this week in history. Oh boy, and here we go. Time capsule time. We're going to stick to that same day. September 8th, 1960. Psycho is released in theaters. What else is going on in the world of pop culture? Well, let's find out. The number one song was It's Now or Never by Elvis Presley. This song was released as a single with the B-side being a song called A Mess of Blues. It's one of Elvis' best-selling singles ever, and one of the best-selling singles ever, period, with more than 20 million units sold. This song and his follow-up single, Are You Lonesome Tonight, which also went to number one, was Elvis' jump back into the mainstream after his time serving in the Army. It's now or never spent five weeks at number one, and is one of seven number ones on the Billboard charts that Elvis had. The number one movie was not Psycho. It was Let's Make Love, and you could get into the theater with a ticket costing 51 cents. This is a musical romantic comedy starring Marilyn Monroe and Yves Montand as a billionaire who finds out he's going to be satirized in an upcoming production, and he poses as an actor so he can get closer to Marilyn Monroe's character. The movie made just over $6 million on a budget of about $3.5 million, so a modest hit. It's 69% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score. The number one TV show was Gunsmoke. Those of you that have listened to the podcast for a long time, you know during these time capsules, typically there's one show from each decade that is the number one show a lot. Usually the 60s, it's Gunsmoke. The 70s, it's All in the Family. The 80s, it's The Cosby Show. The 90s, it's usually ER. Gunsmoke was a Western TV show. It started on the radio in 1952 before moving to television in 1955 and ultimately being on TV until 1975. It centers around Marshall Matt Dillon in Dodge City, Kansas. The television show was on the air for 635 episodes. That was the number one show until The Simpsons passed it as far as total episodes. And if you were around back then, September 8th, 1960, you just got out of seeing the movie Psycho. You need to wash that suspense out of your mind. So you go to Sears. It's their fall sale. You can get yourself any of these assorted evergreen trees for $1.99 each to buy trees. There are such classic trees as upright yews that will grow to 10 feet tall. Juniper stricta, which will grow to be six feet tall. And golden plume retinaspora, which these trees will grow to be 25 feet tall. They come bagged and burlapped and ready to put in your yard for $1.99 each. You could basically build a wall of trees around your house for nothing. That sounds like something I would do on The Sims. But that'll wrap up another time capsule, another This Week in History. But if you didn't want to buy trees cheap at Sears for $1.99, maybe if you were around in the 1970s, you wanted to buy one of these passing fads and immediately regret it after. Ah yes, passing fads. Things that were briefly popular, sometimes extremely popular, but then over time they became quite the opposite. This week's top five, we're going to look at the top five passing fads of the 1970s. Back in episode 35, I did 80s passing fads. And then in episode 72, I did 90s passing fads. So here we are at the 70s. This is going to be a mix of things that you probably have heard of and some that you may not remember, especially if you weren't alive back then, but I mean in general. And I'll say it again, passing fad is something that was briefly popular and the term brief, I don't know how long that is, a few months, a year or two, but all of these are really products of the decade they're from. As with most of these top fives, there are some honorable mentions, and the top five itself is in no particular order. So enough of the setup. Let's kick this off with the honorable mentions. Honorable mentions for passing fads of the 1970s include avocado colors in houses. This could be paint on the walls, colors of furniture, but it's that... muted kind of dark green of an avocado that was hugely popular. I can picture it in my head. There was also Billy beer, which was a beer made by President Jimmy Carter's brother, Billy. If you have unopened cans of that, they're collector's items now, but they were briefly in style. There were puka shell necklaces, a style of the Southern California, Hawaiian surf scene, but then could be worn by anyone anywhere because it definitely fits in in the middle of Nebraska. Puka shell necklaces. There was water beds, which was a rubber bladder filled with water that you would sleep on. My friend Matt, he had a water bed. So in the mid 80s, sleeping over his house, it was fun sleeping on a water bed. And the final honorable mention was fondue parties. You'd have a fondue set of pots, cooking equipment. It would have chocolate melted or cheese melted, and you would have various types of food, whether it was meat or cheese or fruit or whatever you wanted. And people would come over and hang out, and that would be it. Your meal was dipping some kind of food on a toothpick in melted cheese or melted chocolate. So those are the honorable mentions. Did any of you have any of those? Did you go to fondue parties and sleep on a waterbed? Well, let's kick off the actual top five with number one, shag carpeting. A lot of you that are younger or, you know, even into your 30s, you might know shag carpeting as the thing that you need to rip out of houses that you buy where the carpeting was put in in the 70s. I've actually heard that a few times. People buying a house and they go in, well, we got to rip out the shag carpeting. The gist of shag carpeting was that it was a much thicker carpet typically a couple of inches tall. It would feel good walking through it, running your toes through the shag. It was in style back in the 70s. You might see it in one of those sunken living rooms. You walk in and it steps down and there's this little pit in the middle. The major problem with shag carpeting was when it came to cleaning it. If any of the pieces of the carpet were loose and you get the Longer shag stuck in the vacuum. Or you'd never be able to get everything out from in the deep crevices of this shag. It got to be such an issue that a company actually made something called a shag rake. You could buy a rake to clean your carpet instead of vacuuming because the shag was so deep. Rake it like it's a sand trap on the golf course. Look it up. The company I found is called Cedar. There's pictures of advertisements of this woman raking her carpet. Number two is CB radios. Now, obviously, truckers, they've had CB radios, still have CB radios. It's essential for their jobs. I'm talking about CB radios for just the average everyday driver, like in their car. Movies like Convoy and Smokey and the Bandit really popularized CB radios outside of a typical trucker situation, where if you wanted to be cool like Burt Reynolds, you'd get a CB radio in your Datsun or Plymouth or Renault or even in your Ford Pinto. The rise in the popularity of the CB radio came with how it became more affordable in the early 70s. Plus the gas shortage, it allowed truckers and others to communicate with each other and let people know which gas stations were out of gas or which ones had cheaper prices. So it was definitely useful, but way more out of place in a sedan instead of an 18-wheeler. Number three is Earth Shoes. These were released in 1970, only a few weeks before the first Earth Day. They were invented by a Danish yoga instructor and shoe designer, and it was known for its negative heel technology, where the sole of the shoe was thinner at the heel, causing you to walk with a heel-first landing, which supposedly gave you health benefits. They had shoes, boots, sandals, all with the negative heel technology. By 1976, Earth Shoes had sales of $14 million. The reason this became a passing fad was not because they lost popularity, but because the company that was making them, they had to go out of business in 1977 because they couldn't keep up with demand. They basically became a victim of their own success, which is wild. Number four is mood rings. I remember still being able to get these at the corner store in the 1980s. A ring that would change color supposedly to show what your mood was to others. It was a process known as thermochromism where body heat would change the colors so it really didn't change with your mood. And the rings themselves, they didn't have these nice gems on them. They were plastic and cheap. That didn't stop the creators from selling these rings for up to $45 in the 70s. Think about that. Would you buy a mood ring now in 2024 for $45? These only lasted a few years in popularity. They were still around. But once people realized that sweating from excitement or sticking your hand in hot water would elicit the same color on the ring, it kind of lost the novelty. And finally, number five on the top five passing fads of the 1970s is one that I had to include and I saved it for last. And that is Pet Rocks. These are infamous signs from the 70s. A box that looked like what you'd get a Happy Meal in from McDonald's, but inside was a rock with straw. There were holes poked in the box so your rock could breathe. Advertising executive Gary Dahl came up with the Pet Rock in 1975. The craze lasted less than one year, But Gary Dahl sold more than 1 million pet rocks at $4 each. It's pretty simple math. He made about $4 million in less than a year selling rocks to people. That would translate to just over $22 million in 2024. And this is where crackpot ideas come from. The success of the pet rock leads to people thinking of the stupidest thing to possibly have people buy and then making it because you never know. You use the pet rock as inspiration. But there you have it. Top five passing fads of the 1970s. Were you familiar with all of these? Did you have any of these? I would think you'd be most familiar with shag carpeting or pet rocks. And the shag carpet rake, just, I'm still laughing about that. But we go from retro in the 1970s to retro as in episode one of this podcast. As we do our first ever reboot remix on the podcast. As I look back at the Nintendo Entertainment System again right now. When I first was planning and then putting together the first episodes of this podcast in the fall of 2020, I don't think I knew quite what I wanted it to be. Yeah, I wanted it to be a little bit of everything that I enjoyed. Travel, history, nostalgia, fun topics about my own life growing up. But I think I wasn't sure how I wanted to present it, if I wanted it to be more serious, like a news broadcast, or more fun, foolish, free-flowing, many other F-words I could think of. When going back and listening to the first handful of episodes, you can hear in my voice that I'm definitely not as comfortable. When comparing it to now, it's very cringey. So I started thinking, why not redo a few of those segments as we go forward on the podcast? It's a cheap, easy way to get more content. No, that's not why I'm doing it. It's like making greatest hits albums and then putting one new song on it to sucker people into spending $18.99 for a CD. What the hell? Not that I ever did that. I would just buy the CD single for $4.99. That'll show them. What we're doing here is we're going way back in the day, not only to episode one of the podcast, but back to looking at the rise of the Nintendo Entertainment System. Nintendo first made its big break in the United States in the mid-1980s, 85, 86, but video games had been around for decades before that. There was a game, Tennis for Two, that came out in 1958, developed by physicist William Higginbotham, and Space War in 1962, created by MIT students. It was the rise of Pong in 1972, and then Space Invaders in the arcade in 1978. Then that paved the way for Atari with its VCS video computer system, also known as the Atari 2600. This was the first video game console that I ever remember having and playing in the early 1980s, with my favorite game being Pitfall. But there was also Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Missile Command. The popularity of the Atari 2600 led to an oversaturation of the market with low quality games, with the infamous E.T. game for the Atari 2600 being kind of the touchpoint for everyone. when they talk about the video game crash of 1983. E.T. the game, for those that don't know, the rights when bought by Atari, they had unrealistic expectations for the game and a quick turnaround. The developer had five weeks to make the game to get it out for the Christmas season of 1982. So the game stunk and almost tanked the whole video game industry. Nintendo, the company... started in 1889 in Kyoto, Japan. They originally produced handmade Hanafuda playing cards, which are kind of like regular playing cards, just a little bit smaller, but thicker and more durable. Over the decades, Nintendo experimented with other business ventures like taxi service, manufacturing toys, but it was in the 70s that they started developing arcade games. with one of their first successes being Donkey Kong in 1981. Donkey Kong also introduced the world to Mario, which is probably one of the most famous video game characters ever, right up there with Pac-Man. The success of Donkey Kong and a few other arcade games gave Nintendo the confidence to consider building their own home video game console. On July 15th, 1983, Nintendo released the Famicom, which was short for Family Computer. This was their original video game console. It featured interchangeable cartridges and a more intuitive control system compared to previous video game consoles. The library of games that the Famicom had, including Donkey Kong, Mario Brothers, and Balloon Fight, really captivated the Japanese players. Nintendo would have brought their Famicom to the United States earlier, but then the video game crash of 1983 happened, and it left retailers and consumers wary of video games. That's what's wild. We just talked about passing fads of the 70s. If things had been an alternate timeline, video games would have been a passing fad of the 80s, with the Atari basically killing the business. A little bit of time passed, and then Nintendo rebranded the Famicom as the Nintendo Entertainment System, NES, for its US launch in October 1985. Part of their marketing was to brand it as an entertainment system and not video game console to kind of wash off the stigma that video games had. In October 1985, there was the launch of the NES in a limited test market in New York City. In episode 136 of the podcast, I did a segment about the original 17 Nintendo games that came out in this limited release, if you're curious what the first Nintendo games ever available in the U.S. were. Early 1986 saw a nationwide rollout of the Nintendo, and by 1987, it was the best-selling game console in the country. This was the time when I got my first experience with Nintendo. I don't remember if we bought it or if we rented it. Because back then you could rent video game consoles from the video store. Which I think it cost enough to rent it anyway. And I thought you had to put down some kind of a deposit also on the console. So you'd get it back if you brought the console back unharmed. But if something happened to it, you owned it. I can remember renting the Nintendo and going to my Nana's house and my Nana playing Super Mario Brothers. I mean, she was in her early 60s at the time and was a child during the Great Depression. And here she was playing Super Mario and swinging the controller around, thinking that that would make him move. Which is interesting because that's what you had to do with the Nintendo Wii, with that controller. My Nana was ahead of her time. Nintendo's success came down to several things, distinguishing it from earlier consoles, like the game quality and innovation. Sure, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Pitfall, they're all amazing games, but when you get to Super Mario Bros., Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Mega Man, these are all amazing, iconic, groundbreaking titles. Nintendo also introduced the concept of game-saving. So imagine that. Until Nintendo, if you were playing other games, when you died in the game, that was it. You had to start at the beginning again. If I was a teenager when I had the Atari, I would have been smashing that thing with a hammer. Nintendo also differentiated itself from other consoles with their seal of quality. It was a mark placed on licensed games that had met Nintendo's quality standards. And once you build up a little bit of consumer confidence with games like Mario and Zelda, if you see that seal of quality, you're like, well, this must be good too. Nintendo also had a unique controller with the directional pad, the D-pad. That became a staple of console gaming. But they also had the ability to connect other peripheral things, like the Zapper light gun used in Duck Hunt, and then The ROB, Robotic Operating Buddy, which I didn't know about as a kid, but found out later on. Once the ball was rolling for Nintendo, then the marketing strategy with loads of TV commercials, magazine ads. They created their own magazine, Nintendo Power. Tell you about games that were coming up, give you cheats to help you do better in games. There were also in-store demos. These were big. Where you could go into somewhere like Toys R Us or Electronics Boutique or somewhere like that and actually try out games. Nintendo helped to rebuild consumer trust in the video game market. Like I said, Super Mario Brothers, Zelda, Metroid, Mega Man, Castlevania, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out. These are all staples of my childhood. Each of these games I just mentioned, they were so much fun and innovative and different, and they all ended up becoming a series. I think Punch-Out had a sequel, after Mike Tyson's likeness was removed from it. But there was a dark side to Nintendo. You couldn't escape Nintendo attitude. This was something in my house growing up that was coined by my stepfather. Basically, what it came down to was the anger that you felt when you were getting far in a game, and something happened. Either you died, or one of the siblings distracted you when you died, and you would then lash out at them for no other reason than you lost at a video game. One of the most infamous things I remember in my house growing up, ways to screw with one of your siblings with the Nintendo... was because they had those gray cartridges, you would slide in and push down in the Nintendo and then shut the little hatch over it. A lot of you might remember this from the 80s, but if you stomped your foot super hard next to it, the game would pop up and just freeze the TV with whatever scene in the game was going on. The one that sticks out to me the most was when a friend, now former friend, this was probably 1988, was playing Nintendo in my house, and my brother distracted him and he died, and this friend took a swing at my brother who was like four years old. My stepfather went after him and basically kicked the bottom of the door in trying to get him. He ran out of the house and basically never came back. You imagine that? Going to a friend's house and taking a swing at their little brother because you died in a video game? Man. But I digress. The Nintendo, the original NES, sold more than 61 million units. And now it's at the point where you can get the little mini one that has all these games just in it. Which is great for us kids that grew up in the 80s. But you also think about all the money you spent on games or your parents spent. $30, $40, $50 for a game. Now for less than probably what you would have paid for the NES back in the mid-80s, you can get... the mini Nintendo, and 30 games. So Nintendo keeps on innovating. The NES laid the foundation for the modern video game industry. I've said it a million times on this podcast. I feel so lucky to have grown up when I did, where we had things like the NES, but it wasn't the overwhelming dominant presence like video games are today. They were like the appetizer to the rest of your life. but it was a very good appetizer, like the boneless buffalo wings to the rest of your meal that was life. I think I'm getting a little hungry, so it might be time for lunch and maybe trying to play a little Legend of Zelda. But before I get up out of here and go have lunch, that's going to wrap up episode 161 of the In My Footsteps podcast. When I started this show, and I said episode one in the fall of 2020... I said back then I had enough material to probably do three or four years worth of podcasts if I still had the desire to do it. And here we are. November is going to be four years. And I'll tell you, if I didn't do any more research at all, like if I forbid myself from doing it, I could do this show easily for another three years. I love making these shows. I love researching topics. thinking about those of you out there that are my age, around my age, or much older or much younger. And if you'll enjoy the topics, if maybe I bring back positive memories of your own childhoods. You know, when I started this show, I did a lot of Cape Cod and New England-centric history and travel, which I love. I still love all that stuff. But I realized that the overarching nostalgia of growing up just 70s, 80s, 90s, that speaks to way more people. As much as I love Cape Cod and New England, the nostalgia topics speak to everyone that lives in this country and beyond. Next week is episode 162, and it'll be kind of a return to the old school roots of this show because I'm going to do a segment all about my three-day road trip around northern New England that I did a few weeks ago. It was an adventure in and of itself. I also experimented with doing webcam videos I have to edit at the end of each day of the road trip, trying to find new ways for content for me. Because obviously my plate isn't full enough with the podcast, the Initial Impressions 2.0 blog, all my stuff I put on Patreon, videos on YouTube. I might as well add in trying to do video podcasts. And if you want to support my craziness, my content, $5 a month on Patreon gets you all the access to the stuff that I mentioned at the top of the show. You can still buy me a coffee. I have that. I link to it in the podcast description. But basically, once I started Patreon about a year ago, I kind of forgot about that. because I wanted to do something where I give you something in return. If you're interested in any of my nine books, visit my homepage, ChristopherSetterlin.com. We got links to all of those books. I also have copies of several of the books in my possession. If you want to email me, ChristopherSetterlin at gmail.com. You can email me through my website, because you could order them through me, Venmo, PayPal, and I can literally sign them for you and send them out. I wanted to have some of these kind of in stock as the holiday season approaches. I have copies of Cape Cod Nights, which is my nightlife book. The second edition of In My Footsteps, a Cape Cod travel guide. A few of iconic hotels and motels of Cape Cod. and also Cape Cod Beyond the Beach, my photography book. So if you want to add to your collection, or if you know people that enjoy Cape Cod history, photography, travel, I'm your guy. A little bit of an update before I get out of here. I've been mentioning over the last few episodes the severe health issues that my Uncle Bob has had. And for those of you that have been wanting an update or have reached out to me, Things don't look good. It's very much a roller coaster and we are now at the down point. After several massive strokes, he is back on the ventilator. He's very much non-responsive, doesn't speak, can't follow commands. He's got other issues going on. I don't want to get too much into it. I share what I can that my cousin, his daughter, posts, but that Hoping for a miracle seems to get further away and fading away more with each passing day. It's just another reason for you to stay in touch with those who matter. If you're thinking about someone right now as I'm talking, reach out to them. I am lucky that I stayed in touch with my Uncle Bob a lot. A couple times a week we would talk, all the way up until he got sick a month or so ago. You just don't want regrets if the unfortunate happens. When I lost my Uncle Eric, who was my favorite uncle, he was like a second father to me. I didn't find out that he had passed until the day after, and I hadn't been in touch with him as much as I'd hoped, or that I should have based on his importance in my life. You all that listen to this show, you know how important my Uncle Eric was to me, because when he died, I basically had to shut down the podcast for six months. Yes, to finish three books, but also because my head was just not there. I hope maybe I'll have some miracle story about my Uncle Bob in the next few episodes of the podcast, but I don't feel that, unfortunately. And I didn't want to not update anyone who's been listening and was wondering how he was. So just make time for those that matter. 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 so much for tuning in. This has been the In My Footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund, but you already knew that. And I'll talk to you all again soon.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Christopher Setterlund

Host