In My Footsteps: A Gen-X Nostalgia Podcast

Episode 174: Iconic Christmas Commercials, Remember LaserDisc?, Advertising Mascots In Comic Books, The Simpsons Debut(12-18-2024)

• Christopher Setterlund • Season 1 • Episode 174

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Hitting all of the feels with beloved holiday commercials. The wild hype and ultimate failure of LaserDisc. Some strange advertising mascots that starred in their own comic books.
Episode 174 is like sitting beside a crackling fire with a cup of hot cocoa, only in podcast form.
It begins with commercials. You've heard of The Twelve Days of Christmas? Well, this is twelve of the most iconic and beloved holiday ads of all-time. They might promote beer, soda, candy, and more, but they are chock full of warm and fuzzy nostalgia.
Some technology changes the world, like radio, television, and the Internet. Other technology comes in with hype and departs a failure. We go way Back In the Day to look at the history of LaserDisc. It promised to change the landscape of visual media and ended up a footnote in the technological trash bin. But why?
X-Men, Superman, and Batman these are not. In a new Top 5, we look at some strange and often hilarious advertising mascots that graced their own comic books. An added bonus is the DC/Marvel crossover that could still happen someday.
This Week In History and Time Capsule will be centered around the debut of The Simpsons television show 35 years ago!
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SPEAKER_00:

Hello world, and welcome to the In My Footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Sederlund, coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and this is episode 174. The holidays are in full swing. Christmas is a week away, and I've got more nostalgia to stuff under your Christmas tree. We're going to kick it off with a look back at some iconic and beloved Christmas commercials. You've heard of the 12 Days of Christmas. This is 12 beloved Christmas commercials. We're going to go way, way back in the day and look at what was seen as cutting-edge technology that ended up being an ultimate fail, and that was LaserDisc. There'll be a brand new top five looking at the top five advertising mascots that had their own comic books. These are a slice of corporate fun. And there'll be a brand new This Week in History and Time capsule centered around the very first episode of The Simpsons television show. All of that is coming up right now on episode 174 of the In My Footsteps podcast. What are we going to talk about this week? The fact that I've got pretty much all of my holiday shopping done. I hope you all do too. Most of it was done online, although I did venture out to some of the stores just to get that nostalgia of the insanity of trying to find whatever it is you want in amongst crowds of people. Because Christmas falls on a Wednesday next Wednesday, there won't be a new podcast episode next week. I've said it before. I said it with Thanksgiving. I don't want to put a lot of effort into a show and have it kind of get lost in the shuffle. I'd much rather skip a week and come back with some craziness to kick off 2025. Wherever you are, wherever you're listening from, I hope you're having a great holiday season. I know a lot of my listeners are from the New England area, the Northeast. But I have plenty from all over the U.S. I've got international listeners. Canada, Germany, France. I check my stats. I know where the majority of you are from. And I have to just thank you all so much for tuning in, for finding the show if this is your first time. My biggest thanks naturally go to my Patreon subscribers. Laurie, Mary Lou, Ashley, Kevin, Marguerite, Leo, Neglectoid, Crystal, thank you all so much for being my backers. You'll see next week on Patreon, there's something I'm leaving under your tree, and I hope you'll enjoy it. Hopefully that'll entice some of you to go over to Patreon to see what it's all about.$5 a month gets you access to bonus podcast episodes, early access to YouTube videos. There's an ever-growing free tier, which has a little teaser for what my Christmas present is for my Patreon subscribers. But you don't have to become a Patreon subscriber to support me and support my content. The best way you can do that is sharing it and actually listening, watching, reading. I've got so much content everywhere. A, because I love all this creation. Writing, podcasting, videos, video editing. But also, I figure if I have a big enough portfolio of content... It's more ways for people to find me, rather than just a podcast or just videos, etc. We're going to kick this show off right now, episode 174, as I run through a dozen beloved, iconic Christmas commercials, complete with clips to give you that warm, fuzzy feeling. So let's get into those, starting right now.🎵Obviously, those of you that listen to this podcast know that I love nostalgia. I changed the name of it to reflect that. But holiday nostalgia, that's like turning it up to a hundred. As much as I love nostalgia about random days from the 1980s, there's something about memories of holidays, specifically for me, Christmas, that really, really gets me right in the feels. And I was thinking of the best way to kind of share some of that holiday nostalgia with all of you. And what I came up with was commercials. These were ones that were really popular, really unique as far as the messages they conveyed, I guess. What I ended up doing was I thought of the 12 Days of Christmas, the song. So I figured I would kind of copy that and do 12 iconic and beloved Christmas commercials. I was able to come up with more than half of these right off the top of my head pretty quickly, just based on my own memories of childhood. And these are all in my wheelhouse as far as nostalgia goes. The most recent commercial I'm going to talk about is from 1996. And because there's 12 of these and I'm going to be putting some clips in there, I will try to just fly through them as best I can. And not drag it down with me just waxing nostalgic about how much I loved these, because it's obvious that they're on this list. And no, I won't be singing the 12 Days of Christmas along with these commercials, so sorry to disappoint any of you. The first commercial is from Campbell's Soup from 1993.

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Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. Nothing melts away the cold like a delicious hot

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bowl

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of Campbell's

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soup. Let it snow, let it snow. This is the commercial where the little snowman comes walking in from out in the cold and when it gets to the dining room table and sits there, there's a hot bowl of Campbell's soup in front of it and slowly the snowman starts to melt. And finally, at the end, you see that the snowman was actually a little boy. This one was an early one with a bit of CGI in it, but it harkens back to those days for those of us that are older now, when we would just come home from school or even better be on a snow day, get in our snow pants that vinyl that would, when you rubbed your legs together, they would make noise. And just run outside and play in the snow until you were almost frostbitten. And when you'd come in, your parents would have something there for you to warm you up. I remember I'd come in the back door. My mother would be like, take everything you've got on off and leave it there so you don't just track snow and sloshing dirt through the house. The second commercial is an M&M's commercial from 1996.

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This

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was one of the first ones I thought of as far as putting a list together. The M&M's guys coming out red and yellow with Santa coming down the chimney and they bump into each other and red M&M and Santa both pass out when they see each other. It's just so simple, but yet it gets right to the heart of the holidays and that warm, fuzzy feeling. I don't know how to describe it. You know what I mean. This is the newest commercial on my list. It came out after I was out of high school. And again, it's the early days of CGI with the M&Ms that seem to be alive, anthropomorphic. I don't know if this is still shown on TV. Some of these are actually still shown on TV to this day, or at least some variation of it. And that jumps right into the third commercial. This is from Hershey, 1989. Ah! That one there, another one that is just right at the top of my list when I think of commercials I remember seeing as a kid during the holidays that just were imprinted on me, that gave me those good memories. The different colored Hershey Kisses that were bells. This is one I'm pretty sure that it's still shown today, but I think that they have remade it. I don't think it's the same one from 35 years ago. I bet a lot of you that are... Of my age, around my age, as soon as you heard that clip, we wish you a Merry Christmas. You can see those Hershey Kiss bells playing, can't you? For me, and I can only speak for me, this next commercial, the fourth one, this is my A number one favorite holiday commercial. It's from Budweiser from 1987. Oh!

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The people who bring you Budweiser wish you and yours the very best of everything this holiday season.

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I don't know if it's the visual of the Clydesdales in the snow, if it's the song in general, or if it's the fact that it brings me back to when... I don't think I still believed in Santa Claus when I was 10 years old, but it's right around that time where the holidays are just magical, I guess. Like they were just going to be amazing. You didn't have to do anything. The holidays can still be amazing now, but you've got to kind of put in more effort to make it so. But those Budweiser Clydesdale horses pulling the sleigh, going through the snow. I mean, you talk about something that gets you right where it counts. And when it came out, I was 10 years old. So I've seen it ever since then. And I don't ever remember it making me think about going to buy Budweiser. It was always more just about enjoying Christmas and the wintertime. The fifth commercial is from McDonald's from 1982. Oh.

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is

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This one's a harder one for you if you don't see it to kind of understand it. This is the one where there's a bunch of kids ice skating on a frozen pond and there's one little boy that can't skate and Ronald McDonald shows up and he's bringing all the kids around. They're like a human chain and the one little boy is sad until Ronald comes and picks him up and kind of spins around with him and it's just this wondrous time with this fast food clown. What I made sure I did with this list of 12 commercials is that it had to be one product each, because there were a lot of McDonald's ones I could have used. There were a lot of M&M's ones I could have used. But we had to go one of each to kind of spread the wealth around. We're halfway there, though. The sixth commercial really tugs at your heartstrings here. It's from Folgers in 1986.

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ah

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yes the best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup This really gets you in the feels. If you're a parent and your child is away, or if you've got relatives you don't see that often, and they show up for the holidays and it just makes everything better. It's like a Hallmark movie. They're all so happy to see Peter, and then the smell of coffee is just what ties it all together. Okay, so we're at the seventh commercial. This is another brand where I could have made a whole list just for their holiday commercials. This is from Coca-Cola in 1993. This is another commercial that it pays to be able to actually see it, because with these polar bears, and this was their debut, it's a lot of just the polar bears making noises, so there's not many... words with this it's polar bears it's the north pole it's coca-cola it's early cgi these polar bears have been in a ton of commercials especially in the mid to late 90s they were all over the cans during the holiday season the coca-cola cans There were a lot of fun ones with the polar bears. Just them, or the polar bears watching the northern lights, or polar bears and penguins sharing Coca-Cola. What I like about these commercials, the ones I've got listed, is yes, you know the products that they're for, but it's not so much of a hard sell on buying their product. It's more the holiday feeling first, selling their product second. For example, the eighth commercial. This is from Corona in 1990. This is another one. You just hear it. There's no words. It's whistling, oh Christmas tree. But you know what it is. You can see in your head... The little beach shack, the palm trees, and one of the palm trees lights up with Christmas lights. This is another one that it's still played to this day, but I'm almost positive they remade it more recently. I don't think it's the same commercial from 1990. Much like the Budweiser Clydesdales, this is the one where it didn't make me think about drinking Corona. Maybe because I was 13 when it came out. But it was more about that cool holiday feeling, liking the aesthetics of the beachfront with the palm trees, but also feeling bad that there was no snow for whoever this guy was whistling. The ninth commercial. This is one that I think is one of the first that I can remember as a kid, and it's from Toys R Us in 1981.

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This

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was back when Jeffrey the Giraffe was still a cartoon instead of that bigger mascot live action with Jeffrey. And it's Jeffrey and whoever, his wife and child, and they're driving around in the snow, but then they're also at Toys R Us. I like it because it really dates when it's from, because those of us that grew up in the 1980s, we can remember when Jeffrey the giraffe went from a cartoon to a live-action mascot. Oh, we're closing in on the end of this list. We're at the 10th iconic beloved Christmas commercial. This is from Norelco Razors in 1976.

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Christmas is a time for closeness, and closeness is what Norelco Razors are all about. The rotary razors with 36 blades. They come in cord and rechargeable models.

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This is the oldest one on the list and the only one that was out before I was born. It's kind of stop motion. Santa Claus riding on the Norelco electric razor through the snow. Sure, it's advertising the product, but it looks more like what you would see in some kind of holiday stop-motion special like Rudolph. That's partially why I like this commercial, because it looks like when it's from. They don't do stop-motion stuff anymore. It's all CGI, so you can tell it's from the 70s. Maybe it was on when I was a little kid, but I don't remember it. But it's that whimsical time, holiday season, when I was little and still believed in Santa until I found some of my Christmas gifts in my mom's closet when I was probably six years old and opened everything. God, I couldn't imagine my mother and stepfather buying us kids' presents and then having us find them weeks ahead of time and opening all of them. It's like, what do you do? Okay, we've got two more left. The 11th commercial. This is from the Yellow Pages in 1991. Good

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old Yellow Pages.

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That's really dated right there. Yellow Pages. This is where there's a young girl standing in a nice, homey, decorated living room in front of a fireplace with mistletoe. And the little boy's coming up to give her a kiss, but he's too short. So he goes and finds the Yellow Pages book, puts it down in front of her, and then stands on it so he can give her a kiss. It's very sweet and very dated. Because let's be honest, you out there that are... 25 and under, you've probably never looked at the yellow pages. And the rest of us that are older, it's like, when was the last time you looked at the physical yellow pages? I think they still make them, but it's more like a novelty now. Oh, but I saved the cheesiest for last, and it's Hallmark from 1990.

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............

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choices

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this one here it's like a short film this commercial for hallmark cards and just holidays in general it's two and a half minutes long and it's this little boy who's probably eight, nine years old, that always sings for the family with his older brother, Tom. But Tom isn't there. He's been away. And so the little boy is singing for the rest of his relatives. But in the background, you see Tom coming in. And then in the middle of singing, Tom chimes in. And it's this big emotional moment. The family's crying. I laughed when I... I remembered this as a kid, but I also laughed when watching it for research purposes, saying, of course, it's Hallmark. Of course it would be the most sentimental and cheesy that you could get. But there you go. Twelve beloved, iconic Christmas commercials. How many of those did you remember? How many, when I played the clips, did it immediately bring you back to whenever you first saw that commercial? All of these commercials you can find on YouTube if you want to really dive into the sentiment. But I hope you enjoyed that look at some beloved, iconic Christmas commercials. This week in history, we are going back 35 years ago. to December 17th, 1989 and the very first ever Simpsons episode. I will never pass up a chance to talk about The Simpsons, one of my favorite TV shows of all time. It's also not lost on me that 35 years the show is still on the air. Whether you think the quality has dropped or not in the last 10, 15 years, there's no denying that at one point this was one of the most revolutionary shows ever. The journey of The Simpsons began back in 1987 when producer James L. Brooks approached cartoonist Matt Groening to create animated shorts for the Tracy Ullman show on Fox. Groening, who was the creator of a comic strip Life in Hell, hastily sketched a dysfunctional family during a meeting with Brooks, mostly because he didn't want to give up the rights to his comic strip. But The Simpsons, made up of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie, were all born on that day in 1987. The shorts on The Tracy Ullman Show were generally about 30 seconds, characterized by crude animation, especially compared to how the show looks now in HD. and its offbeat humor. The Simpsons quickly gained a cult following thanks to being on The Tracy Ullman Show, and by 1989, Fox saw potential in expanding the concept of The Simpsons into a half-hour primetime series. This would mark the first time that an animated show had been in primetime since The Flintstones in the 1960s. The very first Simpsons episode... entitled Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire. Debuted as a Christmas special, Homer loses all of his money, but they end up betting money on Greyhound Racing and the dog they pick, Santa's Little Helper, is the worst dog and he loses and he gets thrown out by the owner or manager of the dog track. And that's what ends up being the happy ending is that Homer thinks they're not going to have any presents, but he gets the dog. The Simpsons became a cultural phenomenon immediately. At its core, the show was about an average American family, but they weren't ordinary. It cleverly mixed satire, cultural critique, and absurd comedy. Those first few seasons, for those of you that have watched the show for a long time, The Simpsons were way more relatable, way more normal. the situations they would get into weren't that far-fetched compared to what especially has been the last 10 to 15 years. Back in episode 132, I did a segment just called I Love the Simpsons, where I talked a lot more about the show. Because here I'm trying to sum up The Simpsons, at least their intro into the American zeitgeist, and it's hard to try to keep it manageable. because I haven't even started talking about how Bart Simpson became an American icon, eat my shorts, don't have a cow, man, or the endless litany of famous guest stars that have been on the show or classic episodes. And in the future, I will do more Simpsons-related content, probably top five lists. But to sum it up, the Simpsons, they... haven't just entertained. It's redefined storytelling, satirized societal norms. It's brought animation into the mainstream. These are all things that are common now, but 35 years ago, it was far different. And that very first full-length half-hour Simpsons episode, Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire, debuted on the Fox network 35 years ago this week in history. Oh, there's that music. I debated putting some kind of Christmas song in there for the time capsule, but I figured keep some consistency there. Speaking of consistency, we're gonna stick to the same day that the first Simpsons episode debuted, December 17th, 1989. What was going on in the world of pop culture back then? Let's find out. The number one song was Another Day in Paradise by Phil Collins. This is a sad song about a homeless woman. It was Phil Collins' seventh and final number one on the Billboard Hot 100. And as a bit of trivia, it was the last number one song of the 80s and the first number one song of the 90s. The song was off of Phil Collins' album But Seriously. which was a massive hit selling well over 10 million copies. The number one movie was National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and you could get into the theater with a ticket costing$3.99. Oh, the classic, the third in the Vacation series starring Chevy Chase as Clark Griswold, he and the family hosting the rest of their family for the holidays. The movie is 71% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, and it's one of the last great Chevy Chase movies, at least in my opinion. It made over$73 million at the box office off of a budget of$25 million, and despite having kind of mixed reviews from critics, it became a Christmas classic. The number one TV show was Cheers. This was the ensemble comedy show... about a Boston-based bar named Cheers based on a real bar in Boston named Cheers. Starring loads of people. Ted Danson, Shelley Long, Woody Harrelson, Kelsey Grammer. And it revolves around the bar and all the patrons in there and just the hijinks that goes on. The show was on for 11 seasons and 275 total episodes between 1982 and 1993. And the spinoff show Frasier, based around Kelsey Grammer's Frasier Crane character, kept that Cheers storyline going for many more years. And if you were around back then, December 17th, 1989, maybe you're looking to win Christmas as a parent, looking on TV to see what the biggest toy was for the holiday season. Well, the number one toy for Christmas in 1989 was the Nintendo Game Boy. You could pick yours up at Toys R Us or Child World or KB Toys for$89.99. This was the little handheld gaming console, the original. It came bundled with Tetris. Maybe it would come bundled with Super Mario Land. Some of the other iconic games, the originals from the Game Boy included Tennis, Baseball, Alleyway... radar mission. I loved my Game Boy. I played that thing forever. Or at least until the batteries would die. Granted, compared to what you have today for handheld consoles, the Game Boy is extremely primitive. But when you were 12 years old in 1989 and you had a handheld Nintendo that you could just sit in bed and play, it was one of the greatest things ever. But that wraps up another time capsule, another This Week in History. Now we've got a kind of unique top five. I didn't know really how to describe it. These are comic books that have been based around advertising mascots or some kind of corporate tie-in. They'll make you laugh and maybe scour eBay to find copies of them that you can buy. So Superman, Batman, X-Men, these are some of the most famous comic book characters ever. I don't claim to be the biggest comic book fan or have tons of comic book knowledge. I'm sure some of you that have that knowledge are hearing me mention Superman, Batman, X-Men and saying, why don't you mention these other characters as famous comic book characters? With my nostalgia brain, instead of looking at the most popular or well-known comic book characters, I went looking the opposite direction. Kind of the weirdest ones to have comic books. And what I ended up settling on was advertising mascots slash corporate comics. You'll see with this top five what I'm talking about. It was hard to describe and nail down to kind of a tagline. What I was looking for was... advertising mascots that you'll probably know all of these advertising mascots or corporations but they're diving into comic books whether just a couple or several in a series so i guess this top five would be the most surprising advertising mascots to have their own comic books I will say, I think that if some of you out there have some of these comic books in mint condition, they may be worth something. I don't know. I used to collect baseball cards, so I had a better knowledge of what was valuable or what I thought was valuable. So I don't know. Maybe all these comics aren't going to be worth anything. As with most of these top fives, they're in no particular order. I have some honorable mentions here. And I will say I will likely be doing another kind of top five to do with either weirdest or funniest comics. There are tons of other comic book podcasts, so I'm not looking to step on anyone's toes. I'm just looking to bring the nostalgia in and branch out as far as I can. So let's jump into the honorable mentions. I'll kind of briefly touch on these. So honorable mentions for advertising mascots with comic books include Hostess Snack Cakes. These were in the 1970s and 80s, short comic books featuring Twinkies, cupcakes, and fruit pies being part of whichever main character they would use to subdue the villains. There was Combos. There were comic books with Combos, man. These were in the early 1990s with combos man's powers coming from the combos snack foods. Like using the combos as a shield with a big C on his chest. Another honorable mention was the Big Boy chain of fast food restaurants. These started in the mid 1950s featuring Big Boy who was the cherub like chubby mascot with the red and white checkered overalls. They usually involved Big Boy and his friends solving some kind of problem. And there'd be coupons and such and promotions for Big Boy in there, so it was a double win. The final honorable mention is McDonaldland. The only reason why this is in the honorable mentions is I may end up doing a full segment just on McDonaldland comics. But these were in the 1970s featuring all of those famous characters we remember. Ronald McDonald, Grimace, the Fry Guys. But seeing as how I'm probably going to be doing a full segment on the McDonaldland comics and another one on the beginnings of McDonaldland, I figured I'd mention it just in case some of you out there were wondering where it was. But those were the honorable mentions. So let's get into the actual top five advertising mascots that had comic books. Starting with number one, Kool-Aid Man. Kool-Aid Man comics were actually what gave me the idea for this list. I don't remember where I ended up seeing them, but I said, boy, that's interesting that this pitcher of Kool-Aid with a face had his own comic books. These comic books were launched in the early 80s, part of a broader marketing campaign for Kool-Aid. These were typically given away as part of promotions, and originally they were distributed by Marvel Comics. So Kool-Aid Man was a Marvel Comics character? For those of you that know Kool-Aid Man, he was very jovial. His powers included busting through walls, just like he would do in the commercials. And he would also use Kool-Aid to thwart his... Typically, his enemies were the Thirsties. And there were messages in these comics, you know, teamwork, solving problems. Some of the comics had puzzles, adventures in them that kids could do. They were all lighthearted, a bit over the top, meant for kids, obviously. Some of these are valuable to this day. They were only around in the 80s, early 90s. Marvel didn't distribute them totally. At some point, they ended up being transitioned to Archie comics. So you collectors, go check your collection. If you've got mint-conditioned Kool-Aid ones, you could sell them and make some money because they were basically given away back then. Number two is Captain Crunch. Yes, the cereal mascot, Horatio Magellan Crunch. That was his full name. These comics in the 70s, early 80s, they were part of Quaker's initiative to try to get more eyes on their Captain Crunch product. Usually these were giveaways too, just like Kool-Aid. The main idea of them, besides getting more kids to buy their product, was to enhance the lore around Captain Crunch. Because I know that's what all of us kids wanted to know, his backstory. The comics surrounded Captain Crunch and his team of friends. Alfie, Carlisle, and Dave, his crew. Sea Dog, which was the name of his dog. and Jean LaFoot, who was the enemy. All of these, or most of these, took place on Crunch Island. These were what you'd expect for kids, whimsical with bad puns, emphasizing courage and teamwork in the adventures. And of course, with all of the corporate-slash-advertising-mascot comics, there'd be tie-ins to the foods so that you would be tempted to buy more of it. Speaking of cereals... Number three was Diggum the Frog. Diggum is the frog, the mascot from Honey Smacks. I think it's now just Smacks. Back when I was a kid, they were Sugar Smacks, but sugar became an evil word. Much like Captain Crunch, these were around in the 70s, early 80s. Part of these comics, all of these advertising mascot ones, it was to give kids more to do, to kind of flesh out their products. I know I spent many Saturday mornings in the 80s reading the back of cereal boxes, so I think kids of my age, we were looking for more than just staring at the same 9x12 box back. Dig'em the Frog was cool and upbeat and kid-friendly. These comics were typically in the cereal box, smaller, pocket-sized. with them being like what you'd expect for kids, lighthearted, going on simple adventures, the jungle, futuristic cities. They weren't covering any deep topics like the after-school specials would. There'd be basic villains trying to steal Diggum's cereal, and he would use his bravery and quick thinking to stop them. These, like all the rest, they typically relied on childish puns, simple humor... And of course, promotions for Honey Smack cereal and puzzles that would reveal codes to give you promotions for the cereal and such. Number four is Colonel Sanders, the Kentucky Fried Chicken Colonel. This is an unbelievable one. I mean, I guess Colonel Sanders, Harlan Sanders, the real man, his story was definitely something you could see made into a movie, but I don't know about comic books. These first came out in the 1970s, and unbelievably, they were first released by DC Comics. So you could have had a Marvel vs. DC comic book that featured Kool-Aid Man fighting Colonel Sanders. Somebody needs to get on making that cover art for that. In my research, I think that the Colonel Sanders one in the 70s, I think it was a one-shot deal, and it just portrayed him as he was seen in the commercials at the time. Friendly, warm-hearted, wise, solving whatever problems he had with his wit and charm and his bucket of chicken with the 11 herbs and spices. Mmm, it's got me thinking, I haven't had KFC in quite a while. Maybe I should go get some. Interestingly, these comics made a comeback not that long ago, 2015-16. with Colonel Sanders teaming up with his Earth 3 planet counterpart to solve problems. But nothing would beat the Kool-Aid Man versus Colonel Sanders crossover. And finally, number five on the top five advertising mascots with their own comics is Tony the Tiger from Frosted Flakes. So three of the five are serial mascots. Tony the Tiger was created for Frosted Flakes or Sugar Frosted Flakes in the early 1950s, and the comic books featuring this character began in the 50s. These were typically mini-comics, inside the cereal boxes, or promotional mail-in ones. It just reinforced Tony the Tiger's positive, fun-loving attitude. He was usually a mentor-type character, just like in the commercials, with him always saying his catchphrase, they're great. These comics centered around sportsmanship, competition, the value of perseverance. There'd be some crossovers with famous athletes, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Nolan Ryan, Ozzie Smith. These were later on in the 80s. These were interactive, like much of the other ones were, puzzles and games for kids to do, mazes. The irony is that Pretty much all of these comics that I went over in this top five were around when I was in my heyday as a child and I don't remember ever reading them or getting them. So I'm very sad. I have four siblings. I don't know if they would steal the comics out of the Frosted Flakes or Sugar Smacks before I got them. But that wraps up the top five advertising corporate mascot comic books. Have you heard of any of these? Do you have any in your possession? They might be worth something on eBay. But now we go from things that might be valuable on eBay to something that might not be worthless. But if you've got them in your possession, they're likely better used as a coaster on your coffee table as we look at the history of LaserDisc coming up right now. The automobile, television, radio, computer, internet. These are some of the biggest inventions of the last 150 years. Phonograph, vinyl albums, audio cassettes, VHS, DVD. These are all ways to consume media over the last century or so. But not all inventions stand the test of time. Not all of them leave a huge legacy of importance. And of course, we're going to talk about one this week as we go way, way back in the day and look at the history of one form of media consumption that really never took off in the 1980s, and that was Laserdisc. Do you remember Laserdisc? Those of you that grew up in the 1980s... For those of you that have never heard of Laserdisc and the younger listeners, I wouldn't blame you. It's basically like a gigantic CD or a gigantic DVD. They would be in these packages that looked like what vinyl albums would come in. I think my family might have had one Laserdisc. Maybe it was by accident. This was in the heyday of VHS, VCRs. The LaserDisc was an optical disc format. It promised to revolutionize home entertainment. It was offering a new era of high-quality video playback and sound. Think of it almost as like a DVD, but about 20 years too early. The original LaserDisc was developed by a team led by two men, James Russell, who was a physicist at MCA, which was Music Corporation of America, and David Paul Gregg. who was an engineer at Pioneer Corporation. And the idea came from Russell's earlier work on the CD, the compact disc. His concept for a video storage medium using lasers was inspired by the potential to deliver higher quality, longer lasting, and more durable media than the VHS tapes. Because when it comes to inventions, when something gets hot, it's always natural to look for what is the way to improve it, the next big thing. Sometimes they work, sometimes they fade away quickly. The LaserDisc was officially introduced to the public in 1978 under the name DiscoVision, so that really dates when it came out. The specifics were, LaserDisc was a large 12-inch disc. It resembled a vinyl record, like I said before, came in the same sort of packaging. But it was much thinner and capable of storing up to 60 minutes of video per side. And by the early 80s, this was rebranded as a LaserDisc, basically because Disco had died. Why would you want to have your product branded with that failure? Now, from its inception, the LaserDisc was hailed as a groundbreaking product that would change the world of home entertainment. Unlike VHS, which used magnetic tape, LaserDisc used a laser to read video and audio data. This allowed them to deliver superior quality. And those of us that grew up in the 80s with VHS with tapes getting eaten every now and then by the VCR, I'm sure the idea of having something that wouldn't get eaten was appealing. Although if you stomped around next to a CD player, you'd make it skip, so I'm sure the LaserDisc would skip. The LaserDisc format supported high-definition video, but this was in an era when standard-definition television was the norm. Think about when did HDTV become the norm, like the mid-2000s, 2004, 5? So we're going back 20 years before that when I don't think people realized there could even be anything better than standard deaf. The idea with the HD visuals and stereo sound made it the first consumer product to offer the potential for movie quality viewing. It'd be like going to the theater. And the promise, the idea of Laserdisc was really compelling. It had no moving parts. Like I said, the tape and the VHS players that could get eaten, which theoretically meant there'd be less wear and tear. Sort of like the difference between audio cassettes and CDs. Think about it. Do you have any of your audio cassettes from the 80s? I don't know the ages of all of you that are listening. I know that I have some CDs from the early 90s that I could still play, although a few have CD rot on them. Which, for those that don't know, CD rot, it kind of looks like you have scrubbed off some of the shiny surface on the bottom of the CD. Some of the early adopters of Laserdisc even believed that it could eventually replace traditional film projection in theaters due to the crisp picture, reliable playback. Think about that in the early 80s, the hype around Laserdisc. This wasn't like Betamax and VHS, where it was kind of improving on the same product. This was totally new. I was a little kid when Laserdisc was first coming out, so I don't remember the hype around it. I just remember it being a punchline. But I'm sure some of you that are a little bit older than me, maybe early 50s, you probably remember Laserdisc being hyped as the thing that could revolutionize visual media. It also offered interactive features like scene selection, pause and slow motion capabilities. Laserdisc had chapter navigation for films, for TV shows. If all of this sounds familiar to you, it really is like a DVD, but 20 plus years early. Obviously, you know from history that Laserdisc failed, but why did it fail? Well, the first and most obvious problem was the size. 12 inches in size. They were about the size of a vinyl record, way bigger than a VHS tape. which meant that the large format was cumbersome. The players were expensive. A Laserdisc player often cost over$1,000. So for example, let's say that you went to buy a Laserdisc player in 1985 for$1,000. When adjusted for inflation at 2024, that's almost$3,000. VCRs were way more affordable and reliable. They had a track record. I sure hope none of you out there bought Laserdisc players for that much money and still have them. Another big issue with the Laserdisc was the lack of recording capabilities. So VHS tapes you could record and record over and over and over on the same blank tape. Laserdisc was strictly playback only. So if you bought a movie, that was it. You couldn't buy blank Laserdiscs. You couldn't record over a show if you hated it. This was a major turnoff. So the player costs over$1,000. You can't record your favorite shows. So there's two strikes. Another strike was the timing and consumer awareness. Because by the time Laserdisc was well established, I guess, in the mid-1980s, VHS was already the norm as far as playback for visual media, recording your favorite shows. So consumers were hesitant to embrace a new format that was way more expensive, and despite being better in visual quality, didn't give you some of the features that a simple blank VHS tape would give you. Laserdisc quickly became a niche appeal. People that were cinephiles, movie collectors, videophiles, a way smaller market than VHS. It wasn't too long after Laserdisc kind of flamed out that competing technologies like the DVD, which first came out in 1995, they offered better quality than VHS, which was what Laserdisc offered, but it was smaller, cheaper, and more convenient than the Laserdisc. DVDs became the norm, I'd say, in the early 2000s, because I can remember even me being hesitant to switch from my trusty VHS tapes to DVDs. I know in the late 1990s, my family, we used to rent Best of South Park collections from the video store from season one and two, the VHS tapes, which is now 25 plus years ago. Another issue with Laserdisc was the limited software support. They had a decent selection of movies, but the library of titles in general was way smaller than that of VHS or later DVDs. And it was also not compatible with the upcoming world of digital formats and streaming services that would soon take over. It's almost like the 8-track tape of movies, where if you go online on eBay... I know for a fact, because I'm looking for one, I can find audio cassette to MP3 conversion software. It's like a Sony Walkman that you plug into your laptop to get your audio cassettes digitized. I can't find anything like that for 8-tracks, so it's similar for Laserdiscs. It's like you buy the movie and that's it. Watch it and then when you're done with it, it's useless. Laserdisc didn't succeed in the consumer market, but it did leave behind a significant legacy, helping to lay the groundwork for DVDs. And that's not to say that no Laserdiscs have any value, like if you have a collection of Laserdiscs, which I'm sure is about two of you listening. But if you look on eBay or other websites, there are some rare Laserdiscs that are actually valuable. And I'm not talking thousands of dollars, sorry, unfortunately. Maybe a couple of hundred rare, rare ones. But the LaserDisc was ahead of its time in many ways. It just faced too many obstacles to break into the mainstream market. Trying to break into the home video market when VHS was at its peak was kind of impossible. Like I said, even in the late 90s when the DVD was starting to come around, it took it... Five, six years for it to become the norm. But Laserdisc did offer a view into the future. It's just the high cost, bulky size, and lack of flexibility led to its failure. But did any of you out there have Laserdisc players? Did you spend like basically two or three months worth of home payments to buy a Laserdisc player? I'm so sorry if you did. Oh, well, at least if you have a LaserDisc 8-track or Betamac collection or all of them, you can throw them in your fireplace to keep you warm through the winter. But until next time, that's going to wrap up episode 174 of the podcast. Thank you so much to all of you who have been tuning into the show, sharing the show over these last four plus years. I had my best single day ever for downloads of the podcast just a few days ago from when this show goes live. Best days, best weeks, best months ever. They seem to happen more and more frequently, and I'm never not grateful to those of you that listen, who share, who support me on Patreon or buy me a coffee, who subscribe to my YouTube channel where I've got hundreds of videos. visual segments of the podcast that I do a lot of, the webcam weekly wrap-up podcast. I'm all over the place. I never thought growing up that I'd have such a big imprint, I guess. I'm nowhere near an influencer, but if you look me up, you can find me all over social media, threads, Instagram. I got a Facebook fan page. I'm on Blue Sky, TikTok, Like I said, hundreds of YouTube videos, hundreds of blogs, hundreds of podcasts. The content creation, that's my passion. I love the creativity. All of this stuff, the podcasts, the blogs, the videos, all that, it's all from my mind. And that's what I feel my contribution is meant to be to the world. I'm not saying my Gen X Nostalgia podcast is changing the world, but if it distracts you from whatever you've got going on in your life for an hour a week, then I'm definitely doing my job and doing a service, a good service for the world. And with that said, I was saying at the beginning of the show that this was going to be the last episode of the year, but the more I went along doing this, I started to think I had an idea for episode 175, which will drop now on Christmas Day. It'll be kind of a best of the year and a preview of 2025. It's not going to be a clip show, but it'll definitely be a lot of review. I'm hoping that some of you out there or some new people that have never heard the show will find that one next week and hear me talk about my favorite segments from 2024. And it'll entice people to go and check out my archives. So yes, there will be a new show next week under your tree when you wake up on Christmas morning. I have a present for my Patreon subscribers that's going to drop on Christmas, but I figured I couldn't let the holidays pass without sharing another present for you all out there. I hope wherever you are, you're having the best end to the holiday season possible, whatever you celebrate. I hope your shopping is done. If you like snow, I hope you've got some snow. If you don't like snow, hopefully you live in the South where it's still a bit warmer. And in this time of year, as the holiday season starts to wrap up, I hope that you've gotten to spend as much time as possible with those that mean the most to you, family, friends, and hopefully you get to lean into the things that make you happy, whether that's certain foods, certain places, certain podcasts. I mean, if you're listening to this, hopefully I am one of your favorites. I know based on my Spotify wrapped for creators, my overall listenership went up. I think it was 34% 2024 over 2023. That growth is what's going to keep me going. That growth is what's inspiring me to do an episode next week. So thank you all again. Thank you for making me do more work because I feel that I want to share it with you. 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 for tuning into my show. This has been the In My Footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Sederlin. You already knew that. And I'll talk to you all again soon.

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Christopher Setterlund

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