In My Footsteps: A Gen-X Nostalgia Podcast

Episode 172: Rise of Home Shopping, the Original 'Smart' Toy, Most Hated Video Games, California Gold Rush(12-4-2024)

• Christopher Setterlund • Season 1 • Episode 172

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The dawning of home shopping. The original 'smart' toy. Some of the most hated video games ever.
The Holiday season is upon us and the podcast has some fun nostalgia gift-wrapped for you.
Episode 172 kicks off with a look back at the beginnings of home shopping. From its accidental roots to becoming a staple of the 1980s home shopping redefined consumer spending habits.
Today everything is 'smart.' Smartphones, smart watches, smart devices that control every aspect of your home. However, as we go way Back In the Day there had to be a first. We are going to look back at the original smart toy. 2-XL was an educational robot that made its debut in the late 1970s. How did it change the world?
There are plenty of video games that end up being unpopular. It takes a special kind of failure for a game to be downright hated. A new Top 5 is going to look at some of the most hated video games ever made. Whether unfinished, too difficult, or unbelievably offensive, there are no winners here.
A brand new This Week In History and Time Capsule will look back at the dawning of the California Gold Rush and how it changed America.
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Speaker 08:

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 172. It's December. The holiday season has started. Here is my first gift to you, this podcast. Don't worry, I kept the receipt if you want to return it. We're going to kick this show off with a look back at the rise of home shopping, the precursor to online shopping. We're going to go way, way back in the day and look at the first ever smart quote-unquote toy, the 2XL Robot. There'll be a brand new Top 5. These are the Top 5 most hated video games games ever made. And there'll be a brand new This Week in History and Time capsule looking back at the beginning of the California Gold Rush. All of that is coming up right now on episode 172 of the In My Footsteps podcast. Yes, I kept the receipt for this show if you're not satisfied with it at the end. I am back after taking last week off for Thanksgiving, so this is kind of the food coma edition of the podcast. For a real food coma, check out last week's episode of the Webcam Weekly Wrap-Up. I recorded that the day after Thanksgiving, so boy, that was really food coma. I'm surprised I didn't fall asleep on camera. We're at that time of year where I'm going to start asking you if you got all of your holiday shopping done. I have not, so don't feel bad if you haven't. I can't start off this podcast without thanking my Patreon subscribers. Laurie, Mary Lou, Ashley, Kevin, Marguerite, Leo, Neglectoid, Crystal, thank you all so much for putting your money where your mouth is, supporting the podcast, supporting my content. 2024 has ended up being my most prolific year ever for content in general. Podcasts, videos on YouTube, the video podcast, blogs. repurposing some older content just to pad my resume. What I mean by that is blogs, specifically looking back at my poetry, my life in poetry form. I go year by year starting in 1996. I'm doing five each week throwback Thursdays. So those are a fun look into my mental state at different points in my life. On Patreon, though, $5 a month gets you access to bonus podcast episodes, early access to the main show, early access to YouTube videos. In my increasing folder of free content, I'm going to be starting to put up pieces of my Las Vegas journal. Boy, this is an interesting one I'm hesitant to share. It's a look back at what my life was like living in Las Vegas after moving there when I was 22 back in 2000. It's going to be a redacted version. There are names named, and I'm not sure if I want to have all of these people know what my thoughts were. It's mainly girls that I was interested in, and I'm kind of like, yeah, I'll keep those vague. But those Vegas journals, they're going to be on the free tier on Patreon. I would not make you pay to read my thoughts back then. But yes, this has been a very prolific content year. I shouldn't be surprised. I take 15 to 20 hours every week doing some kind of content work, editing, marketing. It's a labor of love chasing my dreams. And I appreciate all of you that listen to the show, watch the videos. I especially am grateful for you, my Patreon backers. But enough of the sucking up to everyone listening wherever you are. Let's get into the first podcast of December and look now at the rise of home shopping. Globally in 2023, online shopping made up 19% of all retail shopping. The website Statista predicts that in 2027, that number will grow to 25% or one quarter of all retail shopping will be done online. Here in the mid-2020s, it's common to just go online, find what you want, Amazon, Target, Walmart, click a few buttons, and then a few days later, you've got packages on your doorstep. The younger generation has no idea what it was like before then. You go back 50 years, there was no such thing as shopping besides going to the store, maybe mail-in catalogs. There was this intermediate time, this go-between, that existed in between the only being able to shop in stores and the massive rise of online shopping. This is something that I became familiar with as a child of the 80s growing up, and that is home shopping online. Yes, I know some of you are saying, yeah, well, online shopping is home shopping. I'm talking about home shopping as in on TV stations, seeing things you like on TV, calling a phone number and placing your order. So what we're going to do now is we're going to take a little trip down memory lane, the history of home shopping from television to the digital age. Home shopping as a retail format began as a novel experiment in the mid-20th century. The concept came as a solution to consumer convenience, making it easier for people to get what they needed without having to drive possibly long distances, hours, to get what they needed in-store. The home shopping slash electronic retail industry came about in 1977 as a mainstay. This is when small market talk show host Bob Sercosta was asked to sell avocado green colored can openers live on the air. This was under orders of station manager Bud Paxson. And this was because an advertiser traded 112 units of these avocado green can openers instead of paying their bill. And it should come to no surprise to any of you, those that heard my passing 1970s fads segment on the podcast, that these can openers were avocado green because that was every color back then. Both Bob Sercosta and Bud Paxson were pleasantly shocked when all units of those can openers sold out within an hour. I guess the idea of being able to purchase one avocado green can openers on the radio rather than driving to Kmart or Woolworth or Sears was too much for people to pass up. Things grew slowly with home shopping, but the pivotal moment occurred in 1982. And this was when Bud Paxson and his business partner, Roy Speer, founded the Home Shopping Network.

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Live from Tampa Bay, Florida, it's the Home Shopping Club, America's original live discount shop at home TV service. Millions in bargains, thousands in prizes.

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Bob Sercosta left the radio gig to go and become the first on-air home shopping television host. Over the following three decades, Sercosta would sell more than 75,000 products on Home Shopping Network and log more than 20,000 hours of television time. The idea of Home Shopping Network was so novel. Granted, you didn't get the options like you do online shopping. It was kind of things were placed before you, whether it was jewelry, appliances, furniture. But I guess it was sort of, you didn't know you wanted it until you saw it. That kind of led to some sales. This form of home retail started to gain traction. Parents that were home on their days off. Seniors that didn't have access to vehicles or transportation. Or kids like me, home from school sick and scrolling around the new Cape Cod cable vision box that we had in the mid-80s. and wondering if I could afford the payment plan on a brand new stereo. It didn't take long for the Home Shopping Network model to be copied. The next one that came out was QVC, Quality Value Convenience, and that network launched in 1986 and quickly became a major competitor.

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QVC

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Live from QVC, America's quality cable shopping channel. It's time for ideas to help you look your best. Specially selected QVC values that will bring out the best in you.

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Because if you didn't like what they were showcasing on Home Shopping Network, you just changed the channel to QVC. Maybe they've got something better. QVC was able to expand a little bit on the home shopping layout. They had high production values, charismatic hosts, and a wide array of items. Like I said, it's common to have jewelry, beauty products, electronics, home goods. The home shopping channels, HSN, QVC, they had a little bit more in the way of organization. These were not like the infomercials that are so cheesy if you go back and watch from the 80s and 90s, where it's 30 minutes talking about the same one product, trying to get you to buy it. The home shopping channels became staples in households in the 80s and 90s. You had hosts like Joan Rivers presenting her own jewelry collection. Things like that became synonymous with the excitement of televised retail. It was interactive. You'd have certain time limits if you wanted to get a product. There'd be a countdown clock to entice you to quickly call and place your order. Or they'd have the number of items left and you'd see it ticking down. Please don't let it sell out. And viewers were encouraged to call in and speak live with the hosts. So it felt like you were a part of the show if you were sitting around watching, considering if you needed another dining room table set. You could hear Luann from Ohio call up and freak out about getting the same dining room table set. Maybe they were actors, I don't know. As the years went on, HSN, QVC, there were smaller niche programs that started to appear on their 24-7 programming focused on specialized goods like collectibles, toys, fitness equipment. These shows further diversified the offerings and demonstrated the potential of televised shopping. You figured as the years went by and these networks expanded what they carried, they'd probably find something you wanted if you just happened to stumble upon the channel. It was fun for me sometimes on those sick days from school to watch Home Shopping Network or QVC for a few minutes. It was like a reality show with a sense of urgency and exclusivity. The limited time deals, like I said, special offers, countdowns. I'd be watching to see if they'd tick down to zero products left. We're hearing the host just go crazy begging you to buy this product before time ran out. It was great for these brands. It was more and more popular brands that started selling their stuff on home shopping networks because it offered direct access to a nationwide audience. Why spend millions in advertising on network television when you can put your product on QVC or HSN? Home shopping was the main non-traditional retail format through the late 1990s. It was the advent of the internet and its rise in popularity in the mid to late 90s and early 2000s that ushered in a new era for home shopping. That was the rise of e-commerce giants like Amazon, eBay. This was so much different because you had all the options at your fingertips. You weren't at the mercy of the television hosts. You'd get a broader array of products along with user reviews, price comparisons, seamless checkout processes. Obviously, some reviews were meant to be taken with a grain of salt because someone could just go and troll and say whatever they got was terrible. Recognizing this shift, traditional home shopping networks adapted by launching their own online platforms. HSN, QVC, they expanded through their own e-commerce websites and mobile apps. They integrated live streaming programming and online exclusive deals. And then over the years, new players emerged in online shopping like Etsy, Shopify, and these empowered small businesses and artisans to sell directly to customers. At some point in the future, I'll do a full segment just on the rise of online shopping. But the home shopping networks, they're still around with 5,000 channels on cable. and dozens of streaming platforms, I know they could get lost in the shuffle. I don't think as many people go seeking out QVC or HSN. But they're still there, 50 years after Bud Paxson had to have Bob Sercosta sell more than 100 avocado-colored can openers. Home shopping that has kind of morphed into online shopping, it's continually adapted to meet the needs of evolving customers. And hopefully it'll stick around and offer future generations new ways to connect with products. Maybe they'll bring back the cheeseball infomercials. We can only dream, right? This week in history, we are going back 176 years ago to December 5th, 1848, and the unofficial beginning of the California Gold Rush. The Gold Rush goes back to January 24th, 1848, when James W. Marshall, who was a carpenter working for John Sutter at Sutter's Mill near Coloma, California, made a discovery that would change the course of history. He discovered glimmers of gold in the American River, and despite initially trying to keep the discovery a secret, word quickly got out. The authenticity of this discovery of gold in California was confirmed by President James K. Polk in his State of the Union Address, December 5, 1848. His proclamation, his confirmation of the gold, it catalyzed the gold rush. It sent thousands of people westward with dreams of striking it rich. By 1849, the gold rush was in full swing. These prospectors became known as 49ers. They came from diverse backgrounds. California's population skyrocketed, increasing from about 14,000 in 1848 to over 100,000 by the end of 1849. Towns and cities sprang up overnight, with San Francisco growing from a sleepy village into a bustling port city. Not only did you have miners being lured to California, but entrepreneurs who established businesses to serve these prospectors. General stores, saloons, boarding houses. The gold rush significantly boosted the American economy, with the sudden influx of wealth into California spurring the development of banking, transportation, and industrial sectors. The gold extracted in California helped to stabilize the U.S. economy and funded infrastructure projects, including construction of railroads that would eventually connect the east and west coasts. California's rapid growth led to it being admitted as the 31st state to the Union in 1850, just two years after the discovery of gold. It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. There were challenges, particularly for Native American populations suffering displacement, disease, and violence. The influx of miners exacerbated racial tensions. Environmentally, the gold rush left an indelible mark on California. Hydraulic mining eroded hillsides, polluted rivers, disrupted ecosystems. All in all, though, the California Gold Rush was a defining moment in the westward expansion of the United States. It accelerated the settlement of California, contributed to its economic and political significance, helped establish it as a key player in the nation's development. And the Gold Rush really symbolized the American Dream. If you take the chance to uproot yourself and or your family and head west, you could end up with a life beyond your wildest dreams. It's that same sort of idea with buying scratch tickets, lottery tickets, that hope that you scratch the right numbers. Only the big difference is, if you lose at scratch tickets, you can just throw them away. If you lost at the California Gold Rush, you could end up in a grave. And that California gold rush was confirmed in the State of the Union address by President James K. Polk 176 years ago this week in history. Let's go to a golden age of nostalgia as we open up a brand new time capsule. This week we are going back 45 years to December 6th, 1979. Let's see what was going on in the world of pop culture back then. The number one song was Babe by Styx. This was Styx's only number one song ever. It was the lead single off of their album Cornerstone that ended up selling more than 3 million copies. All in all, Styx has sold more than 54 million copies of their albums. And they had tons of other great songs, Come Sail Away, Too Much Time on My Hands, Lady, Mr. Roboto. So Styx, they're actually underrated, I think. The number one movie was Star Trek The Motion Picture, and you could get into the theater with a ticket costing $2.46. Ah yes, the first movie with Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, the rest of the crew of the Enterprise. The show obviously was based on the Star Trek television series that aired from 1966 to 1969. It was a big hit back then, grossing $139 million on a budget of $44 million. But it is only 52% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, so I don't know. The number one TV show was Alice. The show starred Linda Lavin as the title character Alice, who moves back in with her son and gets a job at a roadside diner as she tries to put her life back together. The show was on for nine seasons and 202 episodes between 1976 and 1985. And if you were around back then, December 6th, 1979, maybe you are looking for the hottest new gift for the holiday season. Oh, well, you're in luck because this is the period of time that the revolutionary Sony Walkman makes its debut. You could get your Sony Walkman at fine stores everywhere for the cool price of $200 or about $869 when adjusted for inflation to 2024. So you're going to spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $900 in today's money for a Sony Walkman in 1979 or Audio cassettes only made up about 17% of music sales, barely 1% more than 8 tracks, and trailing vinyl by a lot, which was 66% of music sales. So it would be cool to have one of the first Sony Walkmans, but they wouldn't really become a big deal for a few more years and really take off in the 80s. That wraps up a new time capsule, a new This Week in History. Now we're going to look at some video games you probably didn't want under your tree. Maybe you did. We're going to look at the top five most hated video games ever made right now. These are the games that you would not want to have under your Christmas tree. Whether poorly made, unfinished, too difficult to play, or unbelievably offensive or stupid, I scoured the internet to find some of the most hated video games ever made, and we're going to go through some in this week's top five. I tried to find a good mix of games that were hated for all those reasons I just stated. I also tried to have games from most eras as well because there were so many that I found that it would be easy for me to make a part two for this. Some of these games I can't believe are real. And I've done weird video games or movies made into video games. I've done those segments before. But the search term I used here was most hated. So this is what I found. As with many of these top fives, there are some honorable mentions and the top fives in no particular order. With the honorable mentions, I won't just fly through them. I'll try to give you a little bit of info, but kind of keep the pace moving. Let's get right into it. Here are the honorable mentions. There is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which was a 1988 Nintendo game based loosely on On the Robert Louis Stevenson book, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, there is Family Party, 30 Great Games, Obstacle Arcade. This is a 2012 game for the Wii. For some reason in my notes, I forgot to put a comma between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Family Party. So it looks like it's one game, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Family Party. So someone get on making that game. Another honorable mention is Leisure Suit Larry Box Office Bust. This is a 2009 game for the Xbox 360 and PS3, part of the infamous Leisure Suit Larry franchise. If you don't know it, Google that. Another honorable mention is Shaq Fu. This is a 1994 Super Nintendo game, and it's Shaquille O'Neal, but it's not basketball. It's a fighting game like Mortal Kombat. And the final honorable mention is Busby 3D. This was a 1996 game for the PlayStation and was part of the Busby franchise. So those are the honorable mentions. Those games were all hated for different reasons. You can go and look them up to get more information if you want. I haven't looked, but I am sure some of them are available to play over at our friends at retrogames.cz. But to be honest, there's probably not many of these that you would want to play, maybe for the novelty of it for a minute, and then you'd be done with it. But let's get into the actual top five. Top five most hated video games ever made. We're starting with number one, Custer's Revenge. This game was released in 1982 for the Atari 2600, and it was basically Exhibit A for me for most hated video games because they were so offensive. The game is centered around General George S. Custer. In this game, he is not killed at the Battle of Little Bighorn, and he gets his revenge on Native Americans. I can't believe this game was greenlighted even back in the early 1980s. It's a side-scroller. George Custer is mostly naked. He's running across the screen, trying to avoid arrows being shot at him. And what is the goal for this game? General Custer wins by sexually assaulting a Native American woman tied to a pole. Yes, you heard that right. That is the goal of this game, Custer's Revenge. It is beyond belief that this was thought of And then actually made into a game. Because games don't get made overnight so you had to be working on this. Making the animations. It only gets weirder though because the full name of this game is Mystique Presents Swedish Erotica Custer's Revenge. Unreal. Number two is Hong Kong 97. This game is an unlicensed shoot-em-up game. that came out in 1995. It was published by Happy Soft, and the main character in this looks exactly like Bruce Lee. The game was originally released in Japan. It ended up on the Super Nintendo. The game is supposed to take place in China in 1997, and you play Chin, who is a distant relative of Bruce Lee. The game was designed by Japanese game journalist Kaolun Kurosawa. who made it in seven days, and it was supposed to be a satire of the video game industry. Reviews at the time called this game dreadful, incomprehensible, although in recent years it has gotten a reputation as one of those so-bad-it's-good games. And it's really hard to find, but you can, if you scour the internet, find bootleg copies of this game. Number three is Night Trap.

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This

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was a 1992 game for the Sega CD that also doubled as an interactive movie. The main player, you are overlooking a group of young girls at a sleepover inside this house that you don't know is infested with vampires. The cast for this movie included Dana Plato, who was the actress from Different Strokes. Night Trap was part of the 1993 congressional hearings on violent video games, with Night Trap featuring gratuitous violence and overwhelming sexual aggression towards women. As a result of these hearings on December 9th, 1993, Night Trap sold 50,000 copies the next week, but was then pulled off the shelves in the two biggest toy retailers in the country, Toys R Us and KB Toys. Number four is plumbers don't wear ties. I saw one review refer to this game as the video game version of Skinamax. It's an adult-oriented romantic comedy video game. I didn't know they made those. This game came out in 1994 for the 3DO Interactive Player. First of all, there was lies about the game as it was supposed to be. It was advertised as a full-length movie or full-motion movie, and it was actually just a slideshow. You get to choose storylines and then advance in these storylines. The lackluster production values, nonsensical storylines, poor acting, and weak humor are some of the reasons why this game is considered one of the worst ever. I saw another review that said that this was a shallow, hateful waste of a game that might have killed the 3DO console. I can't find any way for you out there to play this game if you wanted to, but on YouTube there's plenty of videos discussing it, and I'm sure those have clips in it. And finally, number five on the list of top five most hated video games ever made is The Guy Game.

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The Guy Game

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This game came out in 2004 for the PS2 and that generation of consoles. It's another adult game. It's a trivia show style game featuring lots of scantily clad women on spring break. The point of this game is to not just earn points, but to accumulate points for something called the Flash-O-Meter. And when you fill up the Flash-O-Meter... It progressively removes the censorship of women exposing their breasts. It's like a video game version of Girls Gone Wild. One of the women that was in this game exposing her breasts sued the guy game creators, saying she was a minor at the time. She won and there was a temporary injunction against further creation of the games. After that, the creators' top-heavy studios ceased further creation of the guy game. Besides reviews saying it was tasteless, it was seen as slow-moving, boring, with a lack of content as well. Just a win all around there. But those are some of the most hated video games ever made. Have you played any of these? I've heard of many of them, including Night Trap, because I had the Sega CD. Rumors going around school about this game. But I don't know, I never believed it to be real. I never got it. Toys come in all shapes and sizes. Action figures, board games, video games, remote control cars. You imagine it, you can think of what I'm talking about. With the rise of artificial intelligence and with it being so easily accessible, I thought it would be fun to look at a different kind of toy. These were the so-called smart toys. They were revolutionary, interactive, adaptive, and for the most part, educational. I'm talking about toys like the Speak'n Spell, Teddy Ruxpin, the game Simon, the Omnibot and Alfie robots. These are all from around the same time. But when it comes to the smart toy, the OG is something called the 2XL. And for those that didn't grow up in the late 1970s through the 80s, this toy here, the 2XL, is not going to seem very smart. But for the time, it was a game changer. For those of us that did grow up then, we know that few educational toys have achieved the charm, engagement, and nostalgic significance of 2XL, the talking robot that captured the imaginations of kids in the late 70s and beyond.

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This is 2XL, the electronic robot who talks to your kids. Who's the

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fastest pitcher? The smallest man? The biggest

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fish? He even has a sense of humor.

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Know the rope joke? Well, skip it.

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2XL was created by Tiger Electronics and its story begins in 1978. When the toy was first introduced by Megocorporation, a toy manufacturer that was known for its popular action figures, including their 8-inch superheroes action figure line, 2XL was short for 2XL, which E-X-C-E-L the word. It was the brainchild of a Dr. Michael J. Freeman, a psychologist and inventor who sought to create an interactive toy that could make learning fun. And all of us kids that grew up back then, you know, if you could make learning fun, you became a legendary teacher. Dr. Freeman's vision was to develop a robot that would ask questions, provide feedback, and teach kids in an engaging, gamified manner. To really date when 2XL came out, it originally operated using 8-track tapes. And this allowed for multi-path playback. A unique feature made 2XL feel interactive, as it could ask questions and respond based on the track selected by the player. The original 2XL, it's white in color. It's got a round head with visor over the eyes that would have blinking eyes, an expressive faceplate. Its midsection is where you would put the 8-track or later cassettes. It had a handle on its head for easy carrying. Meggo Corporation went bankrupt in the early 80s, and 2XL seemed destined to fade into obscurity. It was in 1992 that Tiger Electronics revived the brand with a modernized version, modernized, that had cassette tapes instead of 8-tracks. So it's like replacing one outdated technology by today's standards by another one that is now also obsolete. This 90s version of 2XL became wildly popular. It gained traction as both an educational tool and a source of entertainment. The cassette tapes covered a wide range of subjects as you'd expect. Science, history, math, pop culture, with titles often themed around superheroes, outer space, and dinosaurs. 2XL engaged children in a way few toys could, blending learning and play seamlessly with a humorous and curious personality. By this time though with 2XL, like I said, there were other smart toys like Teddy Ruxpin, Speak and Spell, the game Simon, etc. So what made 2XL unique? There was the interactive learning, and that was by asking questions and providing immediate feedback. 2XL created a personalized educational experience. It had an engaging personality, and so the 2XL robot's voice was provided by Dr. Freeman himself.

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This is 2XL. You can pretend it's a talking robot. Slip in the tape and the

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fun starts. Do you know why the elephant was the last animal onto Noah's Ark? You functioned an answer. You are correct. You must be some kind of computer brain or something. It's full of questions, answers, and jokes.

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It was seen as warm, humorous, and quirky, making the learning process enjoyable. It was also reusable content. The eight tracks or the cassettes later offered replayability. Kids could explore different answers and paths within the same program. And I'm sure as parents, you know, there's nothing worse than getting your child a toy that they get bored with really quick. It's like just taking your money and burning it. There was also the multimedia appeal, as 2XL's combination of sound, light, and storytelling made it a full multimedia experience before that term became widespread. There were some unique attempts at content with the 2XL, including a full board game known as TrillX that was one of the last tapes that the Megacorporation released with 2XL. It's kind of a combination of Checkers and Connect4. But it's interesting because it's a game-playing AI-type feature that was more than 40 years ago. There was even a television show called Pick Your Brain, where the 2XL was the assistant to the host Mark Summers of Double Dare fame for you kids of the 80s. It was also the spokes-robot for Michael Jordan's charitable foundation in 1992 and 1993. The best I can find in my research is that the 2XL, at least as far as being a new product, was discontinued in 1996-97, around then. So when you think about it, it had a pretty good run, closing in on 20 years. The 2XL robot demonstrated the potential of interactive learning long before the advent of apps, tablets, AI. For many, 2XL was more than a toy. It was a cherished companion that sparked curiosity and a love of learning. Although it was hard plastic, it was kind of like having a stuffed animal friend that also spoke to you. I guess Teddy Ruxpin would be more along those lines, telling you stories instead of making you answer questions. And just hearing that voice, seeing the commercials, it sparks up that wave of nostalgia in me. I don't remember if I ever wanted a 2XL. It would have been released when I was a year old. And then by the mid-80s, when I would have been of the age to maybe want it, the megacorporation had gone under, so 2XL really wasn't being produced. You can find yourself 2XL on eBay. There are dozens of tapes that were made for this. I can't promise you that if you buy one on eBay and you get the tapes, the tapes won't immediately break when you try to play them, but who knows. I also wanted to talk about a few of the other early smart toys, the robot ones, specifically Alfie and Omnibot. Alfie also came out in 1978. It was released by PlaySchool, and it was for probably a younger audience.

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The

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original

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Alfie had a rectangular face with a big smile on it, big red and yellow buttons down its chest. It had interactive cards that you would insert into the chest, and that would teach basic early education skills. Math, shapes, letters, simple puzzles. There were lights and sounds when kids would get the answers correct. And that with the friendly face, it made it something that wouldn't give kids nightmares. Alfie was also relaunched in the late 2000s, so there's a more modern version. But you can't go wrong with the original from 45 years ago. And then there was Omnibot that was released by Tomy in the early 1980s.

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Impress your

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teacher. Impress your girlfriend. The original Omnibot looks way more like R2-D2 than it should. Omnibot was meant to be more of a companion and less of a teaching aid. It had programmability, so you could program it to move forward, go sideways, turn around, either by remote control or onboard buttons. Omnibot had a cassette deck, and you could actually play regular tapes in it. It had a storage tray so it could carry things around. I don't know how well it would do in the early 1980s going to the fridge and getting you a drink, but I think that was kind of the idea. It could carry something somewhere. Much like Alfie and 2XL, this was battery powered as well, but also had a remote control. That made it different. There have also been improvements and upgrades as far as this goes with Omnibot 2000 and Omnibot Junior. If you go on eBay, I have seen some Omnibots in their box. I don't know if they've been opened or not. Some of them are affordable, but I think there was more power in my flip phone cell phone from 2003 than Omnibot had. So I don't know how much money you want to spend on that thing that'll probably get stored in your closet. But all of these interactive toys, smart toys, 2XL, Alfie, Omnibot, they're a testament to the power of innovative design, the enduring appeal of making education fun, whether it's 8-track tapes with 2XL or cards with Alfie or a cassette deck in Omnibot. They may not seem like smart toys today, but to us kids that grew up in the 70s and 80s, It was like a whole new world had opened up. But until next time, that's going to wrap up episode 172 of the In My Footsteps podcast. Thank you all again so much for tuning in, for sharing the podcast, sharing my content. Few things mean more to me as a content creator than those of you out there that I don't even know that enjoy my work and share my work that found me. I know I have a lot of listeners from my general area, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, New England, the Northeast. But I track my downloads and I can see the different cities, the different countries where people are listening to this show. Because I think nostalgia branches across all lines. Nostalgia never changes and it only gets stronger the older you get. I mean, I'm now at the point that I'm longing for the good old days of the early 2000s. You don't have to become a Patreon subscriber to support me sharing my content. It does wonders. A few weeks ago, I had the best week ever for downloads for the podcast yet again. And I never take that for granted, being over four years into doing this show. And next week, we're going to keep the train rolling with episode 173. I'm really excited about this. It's going to be part two of classic mall stores from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. Back in episode 129, I did part one of classic mall stores. 15 of my absolute favorites. Next week, there's going to be another 15. So that'll be a lot of fun. Reliving the mall rat days. It's always a lot of fun to come up with the future podcast episodes, thinking of subjects that I think you will enjoy because a lot of you are my age or around my age. If you go mid to late 30s up through mid to late 50s, that's kind of my wheelhouse with Gen X nostalgia. So when I find something like the 2XL robot, I'm like, oh, everyone's going to remember that. And if you're younger or older and don't remember it, you get kind of a fun education on it. If you enjoy my work, you can find me all over social media. I've got a Facebook fan page. I'm on Instagram threads. I am no longer on X, but you can find me on blue sky. I even reopened my Tik TOK page, but that's basically, I do it on my laptop and I post videos, clips of the podcast. I'm not going to start doing dance crazes and such trying to get views. It's just for promotion. If you're interested in any of my nine books, visit my website, ChristopherSetterlin.com. It's got links to all the books there. If you're interested in my true crime book searching for the Lady of the Dunes, visit the website I created, theladyofthedunes.com. It is way more basic than my actual homepage because that was made by a real graphic designer, my oldest friend, Barry. I'm working on finishing up creating the inmyfootstepspodcast.com website. There's so much I'm putting there. All the back episodes. I'm going to put all the links that I've ever shared in all these shows. I'm probably going to do a whole section with the stories behind a lot of the subjects I talk about. I'm going to try to make it all inclusive. And that makes it take a long time to finish. But I figure if I keep mentioning it enough, you'll know that I'm serious about it, even if I can't tell you when it's going to go live. I'm thinking the first part of next year, which isn't that far away. Oh, I got to get on it. Like January or February 2025. I hope that wherever you are listening from, whether it's New England, the rest of the United States, or a country far away from me, I hope that your holiday season is already going well. If you're in the U.S., I hope that you've recovered from Thanksgiving and get ready for the hit that Christmas is going to bring you. It's like, why even bother trying to eat right when you've got those days that you're going to eat like three or four days worth of food in two hours? But lean into the things that make you happy, whether it's certain people, certain places, certain foods, certain podcasts. Enjoy every moment. 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 happens. You never know what tomorrow brings. 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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