In My Footsteps: A Gen-X Nostalgia Podcast

Episode 176: Pop Culture Anniversaries in 2025, the Long-Lasting Appeal of Raffi, 1960s Product Fails, 1st NYE Ball Drop(1-1-2025)

• Christopher Setterlund • Season 1 • Episode 176

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Some pop culture anniversaries in 2025 to make you feel old. How Raffi has remained relevant for nearly 50 years. A few of the biggest product fails of the 1960s.
Happy New Year! Welcome to 2025!
Episode 176 starts the year off with a large serving of nostalgia. We look at the new year as a whole by going over some pop culture events with milestone anniversaries this year. Did you know Back to the Future is turning 40?
Remaining relevant and popular in any form of media is a difficult task. Some burn out quickly while others never even get their 15 minutes of fame. Then there's Raffi. The beloved troubadour of children's music has remained influential for nearly half a century. How did he do it?
Product failures are always a good source of laughter and confusion. This week's Top 5 is going to look at some of the biggest product failures of the 1960s. A car that is also a boat?!
There is also a brand new This Week In History and Time Capsule centered around the very first New Year's Eve ball drop in New York City.
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Speaker 03:

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 176. Yes. Happy New Year. Happy 2025. Today, when the podcast goes live, it's New Year's Day. I'm going to start your year off right, hopefully. We're going to kick it off with making you feel old with some events with anniversaries this year. You will feel yourself aging as I list these. We're going to go way, way back in the day and look at the beloved children's singer, Raffi, whose career has gone on for decades. Many, many decades since before I was born. There'll be a brand new top five. These are the top five 1960s product fails. And there'll be a brand new This Week in History and Time capsule centered around the very first ball drop on New Year's Eve in Times Square. All of that is coming up right now on episode 176 of the In My Footsteps podcast. Happy New Year, everybody. For those of you that might be hungover, you may want to turn this down a little. I said I would try to speak quieter, but it just doesn't work for podcasting. Wherever you are, I hope that your New Year has started off right. I mean, hangover won't start it off right, but if you had a good time, it kind of makes it all worth it. I had many years of New Year's Day hangovers based around the fun I had on New Year's Eve. I thought about doing the top five this week about top five New Year's Eve memories for me. And then I thought, God, there's a lot of things in there that I don't want shared. I share a lot, but I don't want to have too many things out there that could be held against me later. I can't start off 2025 without thanking my Patreon subscribers. Laurie, Mary Lou, Ashley, Kevin, Leo, Marguerite, Neglectoid, Crystal. Thank you all for being my backers, helping support my content creation. Patreon subscriptions, it's $5 a month. It gets you access to bonus podcasts, including one that drops today, New Year's Day, for Patreon subscribers. They go up the first of the month. I have a growing free tier, including something that came out of nowhere when I was recording the January bonus Patreon podcast. I decode some old blogs of mine, initial impressions, the originals from 2010 to 2012. One of these blogs was so random and so funny that I even said during the podcast, I think I could put this into ChatGPT and make like a TV show out of it. And that's what I did. And the results was a show called Chris Unfiltered. It's on the free tier. I created a cover art for it. It's... But what I'm doing is I'm going to start putting those up on Patreon on the free tier. I'm going to find the most random blogs that I've written, you know, 15-ish years ago and turn them into new episodes of Chris Unfiltered. That was like something that just fell into my lap. Anyway, we can get more into the housekeeping parts of the podcast at the end. Let's dive into the actual show, kick off the new year right now. This segment that's coming up, I had a hard time trying to describe what it is. Once I started going through it, you'll know exactly what I mean, but you need to have kind of a short, catchy title for it. You'll see it's anniversaries of events and it's going to make you feel old because it made me feel old. And if I have to feel old, so do all of you. Sorry. So let's all feel old together to kick off 2025 right now. So what I do for the podcast, especially at the beginning of a new year, is I look back for events that have anniversaries. I mean, every event has an anniversary each year, but I mean ones that are round numbers, 5, 10, 15, etc. This is partially how I mine the regions of nostalgia for content. So what we're going to do is I'm going to go through some of these that I found that really made me feel old. It's like I could hear my joints starting to creak even more as I read them. And I will say that a lot of these I will be going in depth in as the year goes on. This is going to be kind of a speed run. Think of me as Sonic the Hedgehog and all the events or the rings that I collect. What I'm going to do is I'm going to start with the most recent and I'm going to work my way backwards. So if you're hungover, maybe you want to start drinking again to soothe your soul. And if you're not drinking, get a box of Kleenex to weep as where the years have gone. 15 years ago. So 15 years, 2010. That is when the Walking Dead TV show premiered. This is the legendary zombie post-apocalypse TV show. It ended its run in 2022. In total, there are seven different TV shows in the Walking Dead universe, including the original. Also 15 years old is the iPad, which first was released in 2010. This is one that actually does seem, I figured they had been around that long. It's like the iPod, which for those of you who were wondering, the first generation iPod was released 24 years ago in 2001. But wait, let's go back. 20 years, 2005, the catastrophic Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, 20 years ago. If I had gone a different way in my Choose Your Own Adventure book that is my life, I would have been in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit. But we'll get deeper into that come the summer. Also 20 years ago, the Chicago White Sox won the World Series, which was their first in 88 years. Google Maps made its first debut. YouTube made its first debut. You had TV shows like The Office premiering. Lost first debuted. In the movie theaters, Star Wars Episode III that ended the prequel trilogy. 2005 is 20 years ago now. Yeah, this stuff from 2005, that's the stuff that my oldest nieces, my Gen Z nieces, that's what makes them feel old. stuff from 2005. And I'm like, wait till you get deeper into my life. Speaking of, so 25 years ago, the year 2000, in theaters, you had the movie Gladiator, the movie Castaway. Those are 25 years old now, a quarter century. You can say it like that. The boy band NSYNC released their huge hit album, No Strings Attached. You had one of the OG reality TV show Survivor beginning in 2000. You also had the debut of the PS2, PlayStation 2, which I remember I was living in Las Vegas when it debuted, when it was released, and I was working in a Target. And the story was one morning I was going into work, I got off the bus and I'm walking towards the Target and there's four or five police cruisers out front. And all I'm thinking is, oh my God, someone in there killed someone else. So I'm thinking of coworkers that might have that quick switch to murder somebody else. It wasn't that. It was people on the night crew. When they got the delivery of PS2s, they stole them. I don't know what ended up happening to those people that actually stole them, though. I don't think I cared enough. I was like, as long as no one got killed, I guess it's fine. But let's go back deeper here. 30 years ago is 1995. Let that sink in a little bit. eBay debuted in 1995. We had the OJ Simpson verdict. That's 30 years ago. The release, the wide release of DVDs. In 1995, you also had the release of Alanis Morissette's gigantic album, Jagged Little Pill. You had the movie Toy Story. The movie Seven. These are 30 years old now. And just for reference, I was a junior in high school 30 years ago. Oh, man. Every year I get closer and closer to the meme of Al Bundy sitting on his couch on Married with Children and just going, oh, God, and just putting his head in his hands. It's coming. 35 years ago is 1990. That's right. The 90s began 35 years ago. Kids today are going to look at the 90s the way that when I was a kid I looked at the 50s, which just is mind-boggling. In 1990, Mike Tyson's aura of invincibility ended when Buster Douglas knocked him out. You had the disgrace of Milli Vanilli lip-syncing their songs and having to return their Grammys. We'll dive deeper into that later in the year. You had the release of Slap Bracelets, which ended up being banned. I know they were banned in my middle school. You had the debut of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. You had the debut of Beverly Hills 90210. Mariah Carey released her first album. MC Hammer had his huge hit You Can't Touch This 35 years ago. But wait, it gets worse. This was what initially gave me the idea for this segment. We go back 40 years to 1985. And this is where we find out that Back to the Future is now 40 years old. Other movies that are turning 40 include The Breakfast Club, The Goonies. The movie The Goonies was what inspired me to become a writer in the first place. I've mentioned it on the podcast before. So that means my genesis of starting to become a writer was 40 years ago. The TV show The Golden Girls debuted 40 years ago. The song We Are the World was 40 years ago. One that shocked me is that Microsoft Windows 1.0 was released 40 years ago. I would love to see what that looked like on people's personal computers back then. Also, one of the biggest product busts in the history of the world happened 40 years ago with the release of New Coke. It was the product equivalent of just taking a 50-pound dumbbell and slamming it on your foot. Oh, but we're still going, though. Now we're going to go back 45 years. 1980 is 45 years ago. So I'll reiterate, the 80s began 45 years ago. I can hear some tears and I can hear some bottles of wine opening as I mention that fact. I am sorry. Hey, I was alive then. I was three years old, so I'm with you. 45 years ago was the miracle on ice, the United States hockey team defeating the Soviets. It was also the release of the original Friday the 13th. It was the release of Caddyshack, The Shining, The Empire Strikes Back. That's a murderer's row of movies that I really enjoy. You also had the debut of Pac-Man in video arcades. There was the famous Who Shot J.R. episode of Dallas 45 years ago. ACDC released their first album with new singer Brian Johnson after the death of their original singer Bon Scott, Back in Black, one of the best albums ever released. You also had John Lennon's murder 45 years ago in 1980. We'll go back a little more. We'll go back 50, 50 years to 1975. You had the release of Steven Spielberg's massive blockbuster Jaws. You had the release of Queen's seminal song Bohemian Rhapsody, the debut of the game show Wheel of Fortune, and you also had the premiere of Saturday Night Live 50 years ago. I have a few more honorable mentions as we go even deeper back in history, just in case there's any of you that feel that you've been unscathed by my list of anniversaries. The Beatles broke up 55 years ago in 1970. World War II ended 80 years ago in 1945. The very first credit card ever was released in 1950, 75 years ago. And to really hammer it home, the very first television transmitter was created 100 years ago in 1925. As I said, as the year goes on, I'll be diving deeper into a lot of those. It's not just, here's a list, I hope you can research them yourselves. Which one of those anniversaries surprised you the most? Like I said, I realized that Back to the Future was 40 years old, and that really made me feel old, so I kind of started building from there. There you have it, though. Anniversaries of events, big events... Music, TV, movies, big pop culture events, and other things to just make you feel old. This week in history, we are going back 118 years to December 31st, 1907, and the very first New Year's Eve ball drop in New York City. I guess this would count as two different This Week in Histories as it goes from New Year's Eve to New Year's Day, but we'll move on. The original idea for the ball drop in Times Square came from Adolph Oaks, who was the owner of the New York Times newspaper at the time. He wanted to celebrate the newspaper's relocation to its new headquarters in what was then known as Longacre Square, which is now Times Square. What's interesting is that Adolph Oaks, originally this New Year's Eve celebration, which started in 1904, featured fireworks. There was a city ordinance banning fireworks in 1907, which necessitated Oaks finding another centerpiece for this New Year's Eve celebration. Oaks and the event organizers said, were inspired by something called time balls, which is a maritime tradition where large balls were dropped at a specific time to signal ships in the harbor. So we fast forward to December 31st, New Year's Eve, 1907. The original ball was constructed of iron and wood and weighed 700 pounds. This ball was also lit by 100 incandescent light bulbs. This 700-pound ball of iron and wood was lowered manually from the flagpole atop one Times Square. I'm sure if you had enough people doing it, it wouldn't be bad. But think about that. Even if you had seven people lowering it, that's 100 pounds each they've got to be responsible for. This initial ball drop was a huge success, drawing a large crowd and immediately capturing the public's imagination. In 1920, the original 700-pound ball was replaced by a lighter 400-pound version made of wrought iron. Through the years, even through challenging times like the Great Depression and World War II, the ball drop continued, except for 1942 and 43, when it was suspended due to wartime blackout restrictions. In those years, the crowds gathered for a moment of silence, followed by the ringing of chimes. In 1955, the ball was made of aluminum, which was now only 150 pounds. There were advances in lighting technology, which allowed for a more vibrant and visually appealing display in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. It's amazing, in the 50s they had a 150-pound ball, and the new version that was introduced in 2008, which is 12 feet in diameter, weighs nearly 12,000 pounds. This one, though, it is permanently a top one Times Square, and it's used annually. Since its debut in 1907, the Times Square ball drop on New Year's Eve, it's grown into a massive televised and in-person event. typically drawing somewhere around a million spectators in Times Square and billions of viewers worldwide. There's music, there's celebrity appearances, and it culminates in the iconic countdown clock as the ball descends 70 feet in the final 60 seconds of the year. And that first ball drop occurred 118 years ago this week in history. Oh yes, the first time capsule of the new year. I had to update the math on the age of these time capsules. So we're going to go back 80 years to December 31st, 1945. I chose that because it is the date of the first ever televised ball drop in Times Square. This was on local New York NBC station WNBT-1. In case you were wondering, wait, how was this on TV in 1945? The number one song was Chickory Chick by Sammy K and his orchestra. This is kind of a nonsense song with the lyrics being written by a woman named Sylvia D. Sammy K was one of the biggest names of the big band swing era of music and eventually getting his own primetime TV show in the early 1950s. The number one movie was Spellbound, and you could get into the theater with a ticket costing 35 cents. This is a psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck. The film made over $6 million at the box office and was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Even though this was the time of the first televised ball drop on New Year's Eve, there was no television ratings. I couldn't find any. So we have to go to the number one radio show, which was the Pepsodent show, starring Bob Hope. Legendary actor, comedian Bob Hope, less legendary toothpaste Pepsodent, comes together to form this radio program. It was a variety show. It was what you would expect of Bob Hope. Comedy skits, musical acts. The Pepsodent show is fascinating. It began on the radio in 1938. The show's original vocalist was 16-year-old Judy Garland. You had people like Doris Day and Desi Arnaz being a part of the show. And one of the original writers for the Pepsodent show was Sherwood Schwartz, who went on to write the Brady Bunch TV show. And if you were around back then, New Year's Eve 1945, maybe you've got to run to the store and return something you bought with the receipt to get something better for your kid. Maybe you're mad at them for making you go and return it. Well, you're in luck. I got something that'll help you out. It's a jousting set from Sears. It's kind of what you would expect for 1945. So there's a round wooden disc and it's got crisscrossing half round pieces. So you have to balance on it. It comes with two of these. You also get a pair of the sticks that are padded on the end. They look like big Q-tips. And you joust. You battle each other to see who can knock the other off of the balance disc. It really looks like American Gladiators in the 1940s. I have no idea how many kids were hurt by their parents playing this with them, just getting smacked in the head and knocked off of this balance disc. Anyway, you can get your Sears jousting set for $4.88. That would be $85.53 when adjusted for inflation to 2025. So even then, it's a good deal. That'll wrap up another This Week in History, another time capsule. I don't know how well that jousting set sold from Sears, but I'm going to tell you that what's coming up in the top five is I don't think any of these sold well. As we look at the top five product fails of the 1960s, starting now. Ah yes, product failures. There's no time restraints on these epic fails. Doing a segment about 1960s product fails, that comes from my statistics for the end of the year from my podcast from 2024. And seeing that the highest demographic of people that listen is not my age group, but it's slightly older, 55 plus. Knowing that made me decide to add a little bit more in the way of 1960s content to the podcast for 2025. Because I know that there'll be some of you out there listening that grew up in the 60s, which is great for me because it opens up a whole other decade that I can mine for content. So thank you for listening. I've done a few other decades as far as product fails go, so you can check the archives for those. I came into this decade, this top five, without much in the way of knowledge of what products failed in the 60s because it's before my time. Other decades that I've done, I have familiarity with. I was still able to find a good top five and some honorable mentions. So I'll give you the honorable mentions here and a little bit about the product. Honorable mentions include the Bell Rocket Belt, which was a low-power rocket propulsion device you wore kind of like a backpack with a belt. Another honorable mention was Celery Flavored Jell-O. This goes back to the weird old Thanksgiving recipes that I've spoken about the last two years on the podcast. Where it seems like all of these weird recipes are savory foods with gelatin. So I guess Jell-O thought, why not make a celery flavored one? Well, that failed. The third honorable mention is Patio Diet Cola. This was released by Pepsi as a response to Diet Right Cola. It became famous again when it was featured on season three of the show Mad Men. But in reality, it was a fail. So those are the honorable mentions for 1960s product fails. With most of these, the top five is in no particular order. So let's jump right into this list with number one, Ready Bacon. Bacon.

Speaker 01:

Bacon. Bacon in the toaster. It's something new, this Ready Bacon. Bacon you don't have to cook. They cook it for you. Very nice. If you want bacon.

Speaker 03:

Ready bacon was made by the Ready Whip Company. So whip topping, cool whip, that same idea. This was first released in 1964 as instant bacon, which took 90 seconds. And the joke was that instant was actually 90 seconds back then. These would come in packets of foil. They were almost like Pop-Tarts, like that shape foil thing. Each of these, there'd be two in a package. It would have four strips of finished off bacon that you would throw in the toaster. The bacon was in the foil in between some absorbent paper. So it's like paper towels inside the packet. It all sounds well and good, but the problem came with the integrity of the foil packaging. If there was any kind of hole puncture in the foil packaging... you were at a risk for any residual fat that was congealed in the bottom there of heating back up, leaking out from the hole, and then setting your toaster on fire. The advertising would say it saves you from soiling your pans with bacon, but is it a fair trade-off if instead of getting your pans dirty, you burn your house down because the bacon grease leaked into your toaster? It was discontinued after a very short time, but it did set the precedent for microwavable bacon in the future. Number two is the Amphicar.

Speaker 00:

But where are we getting with this fish-out-of-watery theme of ours? This looks a perfectly normal motorcar, but what's its name? The Amphicar. Oh, yes, I begin to see. Just for a start, you make the doors watertight.

Speaker 03:

amphibious car, car that goes in the water as well. That's what this was. This vehicle was made in West Germany and it was launched in 1961. It was meant to be the best of both worlds, a boat and a car. The front looked a little more like a boat with headlights. The rear had the fins that looked kind of like the cars of the late 50s. The problem was that it wasn't good at either. It was less powerful than a boat, less powerful than a typical car. When the Amphicar was first for sale between 1961 and 66, it sold for just around $3,000. So you're looking at about $30,000 today. But knowing that it wasn't good as a car or a boat, I don't know if it would be worth it if it was out today to get one for $30,000. It did not sell, although perhaps its most famous owner was then-President Lyndon B. Johnson. And there's a funny story about him having guests at his ranch and driving them around in the Amphicar and going down the hill towards the lake and screaming that his brakes didn't work. So that's pretty good. Number three is DuPont CorFam Shoes.

Speaker 02:

Choose in Corfam. It's so easy. It's so easy. It's so easy. Patent finish never cracks. Choose in Corfam. So easy to look at. Corfam.

Speaker 03:

Corfam was DuPont's invention. It was a synthetic material that looked like leather. It was kind of a mixture between plastic and fiber. The big problem with these was that they cost a lot to make. They were first released in 1964, and more than 7 million pairs of these Corfam shoes were sold between 1964 and 69. Besides them being expensive, these Corfam shoes didn't breathe like regular leather, and if you didn't get a perfect fit, they also, the material, didn't expand like regular leather. Vinyl shoes came around and got really popular into the 70s, and basically killed Korfam shoes. Number four is Astro Color.

Speaker 01:

Astro Color. American Airlines' new color movie system uses 14 separate screens throughout the plane, so you are never more than five rows from the picture. Every Astro Color screen has its own built-in projector, and the picture itself is so bright we even leave the cabin lights on.

Speaker 03:

In doing my research, I saw there is a band named Astro Color. This is not them. In the early 1960s, American Airlines hired Bell & Howell, a film equipment manufacturing company, to design an in-flight entertainment system. And the result was Astro Color. It would show movies, but this was long before the days of VHS DVDs. So airlines needed the 16 millimeter celluloid film reels to show the movies on their flights. What's crazy is they had the whole film laid out. And because there were TV screens on the plane, the film would go through each TV before getting to the end and starting to wind up. That sometimes there was 300 feet worth of film just laid out on the plane. Well, not on the floor, up above the luggage racks. Using the 16mm film meant that the people in the front of the plane, what they saw on their screen, the people in the back of the plane with the last TV, wouldn't see for five minutes. So nobody was watching the movie at the same point at the same time. Trouble with the projector itself could delay flights. And the failure rate on the film, the celluloid film during flights, was 20%. So it was a novel idea. But the fact that this could actually cause your plane to be delayed, that's partially why they stopped making it. And finally, number five on the list of top five 1960s product fails is Smell-O-Vision. This was first tinkered with in the late 1950s when the craze of 3D had started to die down. This was supposed to help enhance the movies you were seeing, just like 3D was supposed to enhance it visually. Having smells pumped into the movie theater while you're watching a film was supposed to make it more inclusive, I guess. Smell-O-Rama was a great idea, but it was such a big fail, it was only used once for one movie. This was Michael Todd Jr.' 's Scent of a Mystery. There were 30 different scents that would be sprayed on the audience through the theater's air conditioning vents. The scents would be mostly food-related, flour-related, but the reviews were not good. One reporter said that they preferred being outside smelling the pollution in New York City rather than being in the theater. It must be good when you come up with something you think is going to change the movie industry and it's just bombs like that. But there you have it. The top five 1960s product fails. How many of those had you heard of? As I started doing my research, the Amphicar was the one that I had heard of. All the others, nope. And that's the beginning of my dipping into the 1960s for a little more pop culture. I mean, it makes sense when I say Gen X nostalgia. The first year of Gen X is considered to be mid-60s, so I can't disappoint you as well. But we go from 1960s product fails to one of the most beloved children's singers of the last half century as we look back at the story of Raffi coming up right now. I suppose it depends on when you were born, as far as who you listened to, children's music artists that you listened to. You had Sharon, Lois, and Bram. You could have Alvin and the Chipmunks. There was the Muppets, various singers on Sesame Street, the Wiggles, even up to the Kidz Bop albums. These artists that I've named, they span the last 40-ish years, but there's one name that predates and is still popular in rotation for preschool-aged kids to this day, and that's Raffi. Raffi Kavoukian, who is known just as Raffi, he's more than a children's musician. He's a cultural phenomenon whose songs became anthems of childhoods. These songs blend feelings of joy with learning, environmental awareness... Rafi was born in 1948 in Egypt to Armenian parents. When he was 10 years old, the family emigrated to Canada and they settled in Toronto. His love for music was apparent. As a young adult, Rafi dabbled in performing folk music in coffee houses and studying the craft of songwriting. It was only when Raffi was exposed to the works of other children's musicians, coupled with the influence of his wife at the time, Debbie Pike, who worked with children, that Raffi considered channeling his talents into music for young audiences. What's unbelievable to me was I didn't grow up on Raffi's music. I grew up on Muppets, Sesame Street. Scamper Scamper Little Mouse by Hap Palmer from his Witch's Brew album, my kindergarten year, 1983. But what I was amazed at was that Raffi has been doing this, children's music, since before I was born. Inspired by the simplicity and honesty of children's perspectives, Raffi released his debut album, Singable Songs for the Very Young, in 1976, 49 years ago. This album was a groundbreaking success. It featured playful, catchy, educational tunes that resonated with kids and parents. A big thing about Raffi's music, his secret was not really a secret. It was respecting his audience. Unlike other children's performers who often talk down to kids, Raffi approached them as equals, crafting songs that were engaging without being patronizing. This was the beginning of what would lead Raffi to be the best-selling children's music artist of all time and one of its most celebrated. He has sold more than 15 million albums worldwide and his music has gotten more than 1 billion streams. And we're at this point now where if you were three years old, let's say in 1976, and your parents were playing you Raffi, you could be old enough now that you might have grandchildren. You'd be 52 years old. So it's like four generations of children that have listened to this music. For those of you that have never listened to any of Raffi's music, and unless you have kids, I don't know why you would, but a few of his biggest hit songs among children include Baby Beluga, which is from 1980. It's a Gentle Anthem About a Little White Whale, Teaching Children About Nature and Empathy. There's Down by the Bay. This was off of his 1976 debut album. A playful call-and-response tune that encourages creativity and silliness. There's Banana Phone from 1994, which is a humorous, upbeat song that became a viral hit decades after its release. There was Apples and Bananas from 1985. That was a song that cleverly uses vowel sounds to engage and entertain. He did songs about brushing your teeth, saying thank you. He even did a cover of the Beatles' Octopus's Garden. Even though Raffi is a figure of children's music, his influence extends way beyond that realm. His work has been referenced in movies, TV shows, internet memes, often as nostalgic callbacks for Gen Xers like us, millennials, maybe some of you a little younger, who grew up with his songs. I say it a lot, nostalgia is a powerful thing. I'm sure that some of you out there that enjoyed Raffi's music as a kid or have played it with your kids... that hearing some of those songs just get right in there and bring you back to being a child. Like I said, his song Bananaphone in 94 gained new life recently in the digital age, becoming a meme and a remix sensation. It just shows you the staying power when you create something that makes an impact like Rafi's music has for millions of people. He's now 76 years old, and he's still as relevant today as he was 40 years ago. Throughout his career, he's used his platform for activism, promoting causes like climate change awareness, children's rights, digital safety, and he has a child-honoring philosophy that emphasizes creating a more sustainable and compassionate world for future generations. He's received the Order of Canada Medal, which is the second highest honor you can receive in the country. He's received the Order of British Columbia, which is a civilian honor for merit in the province of British Columbia in Canada. For all of you Raffi fans out there, his most recent album, Penny Penguin, came out in April of last year, 2024. And that album is the 24th studio album by Raffi. He's got Christmas albums, live albums, greatest hits albums. He doesn't tour as much. He performs occasionally now in his mid-70s, but he engages with his fans a lot through social media. An interesting thing about Rafi is that even though he has sold over 15 million albums and influenced millions of kids around the world, he actually could be bigger and could have been bigger, but he's turned down a lot of opportunities to merchandise his music. Famously, the producer of Shrek came to him and wanted to make a Baby Beluga movie and Raffi said he wasn't interested. Raffi's legacy, it's more than his songs. It's the joy he brought to millions of families. He knew the perfect balance between being cute and syrupy with his music and too cute where it got cringey. His song, Baby Beluga, for millions of kids out there, it's not just a song. It's a cherished memory of a magical, simpler time. Even if you didn't listen to Raffi, you know the song Baby Beluga. But even if you didn't listen to him, you had a song like that when you were a kid that made you feel the world was special and magical again. So even if you didn't listen to Rafi, you can understand the impact he's made on people that did enjoy his music. Even though he turned down opportunities to really merchandise his music, there are still children's books he's done. There's a biography of him. He's got movies. I'll bet some of you right now are going to, when this podcast is over, go over to Spotify and stream some Rafi to bring back memories of your childhood. Raffi's work reminds us that music, when created with love, has the power to unite generations. I'd say anybody from the age of two all the way up to your mid-fifties has had the opportunity to listen to and enjoy Raffi's music. That's a large group of people that I'm sure are from all different parts of the world, all different backgrounds, but united by that music. And as long as there are kids in the world, Rafi songs will continue to echo in homes, classrooms, and hearts for years and decades and generations to come. And thank you to Nick, listener Nick, for recommending that topic. I hope that you enjoyed it, and thanks for listening. But until next time, that's going to wrap up episode 176, the very first episode of 2025. Dropping on New Year's Day. Thank you all so much for tuning in. Thank you for making 2024 my best year yet for the podcast. My best year ever for all my content. Videos on YouTube, go subscribe. The blog, including Initial Impressions 2.0, which also is made into a video podcast I call the Webcam Weekly Wrap-Up. My days and weeks are never slow. I have so much content. I'm always working on something. And if I'm not, I feel like I should be. I'll be back next week for episode 177. We're going to be looking at 1995, the year in music part one. So that'll be a lot more of making me feel old. As I've said, if you enjoy my content, $5 a month on Patreon gets you access to bonus podcast episodes. I do have a growing free tier, but for people that subscribe, they get the bulk of the extra content. It's like the difference between a free account on Peacock compared to what you get with a paid subscription to Peacock. All my videos on YouTube, all my blogs, they're all free. The best thing you can do for any content creator is sharing their work, getting the word out about their work. I'd love it to have 50,000 Patreon subscribers and not have to work a day job, but you go step by step, and that's by increasing your viewership, listenership, and that comes down to you who actually enjoy my work and share it with others. So I have to get to this at the end, but have any of you made New Year's resolutions? It might be kind of early for some of you, but is there anything you're looking to do or to improve about yourself, your situation, dreams, goals? Or maybe you hadn't thought about that and I'm putting the bug in your ear. One goal, one resolution is getting into the best shape I've been in since pre-COVID. COVID's fifth anniversary this year. That's not a good one, but... I have my first film role. It's a small role in Frank Durant's next horror film. So I want to get back into really good shape if I'm going to be on camera. And that's in March. I'm also starting to take classes through Skillshare about copywriting. I don't mean copywriting like trademarking legally my books or something like that. but more writing copy for products, for businesses. It seems like something that I might be good at. It seems like something that I've been doing for my own content for years. But I'm going to take these courses and see if it's a feasible thing to add onto my plate. I won't get too motivational, but I'll say if you don't have a New Year's resolution, Or if you break yours in the first week, it doesn't matter. You know, you can start on a new journey any day. I use New Year's sometimes as kind of a launching point for something new. But it's also if you're waiting for the perfect time to start something, you may be waiting forever. Maybe I'm throwing that out there as kind of a built-in excuse for myself so that if I fall off the wagon with my fitness, I can be like, well, you told everyone else you could just start over again the next day. We are, though, now in the post-holiday hangover period, the long, cold days of winter. So remember to get outside as much as you can and get that vitamin D that we're all going to be deficient in pretty soon. Go to the supermarket and get yourself some vitamin D supplements. Also, make time for things and people that make you happy. Lean into those things in these days where it's cold and the sunset is super early. I will do my best to keep pumping out as much content as I can all over the place. Audio, video, written word. So at least you got that to look forward to. But until then, 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 again for tuning in. 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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