In My Footsteps: A Gen-X Nostalgia Podcast

Episode 182: The Greatness of Michael Jordan, An Annoying Blockbuster Video Mascot, Worst Love Songs Ever(2-12-2025)

• Christopher Setterlund • Season 1 • Episode 182

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I want to be like Mike. I don't want to be like Buster Sales. I also don't want to include any of these love songs on my playlists.

Episode 182 celebrates Valentine's Day in a roundabout way.

It begins with a birthday celebration of the greatest basketball player ever, and pop culture icon, Michael Jordan. A dominant champion who changed the game of basketball. A hugely influential athlete in terms of his endorsement prowess. MJ was one of the world's most well-known faces in the 1980s and 1990s. We'll do a deep dive into his impact.

We used to make it a Blockbuster night all throughout the 1990s. It was not due to this wacky employee training video. This week we go back in the day to look, laugh, and cringe, at a weird Blockbuster Video training tape from 1990. It is led by perhaps the most obnoxious character ever, Buster Sales.

The Top 5 will share some of the worst love songs ever. These are probably not the ones you want on your Spotify playlist if you want a romantic evening. Muskrats, Meatloaf, and Bubblegum galore.

There is also a brand new This Week In History and Time Capsule centered around the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

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Listen to Episode 181 here

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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 182. It's Valentine's week. We're going to share the love on this podcast, the love of nostalgia. It's going to kick off with a look at the basketball legend, the pop culture icon, the legend himself, Michael Jordan, whose birthday is this week. We're going to go way, way back in the day and look at a hilariously confusing blockbuster video employee training video. I guess there's no other word to say it. There'll be a brand of the In My Footsteps podcast. Ah yes, sharing the love. It seems like I'm being a little bit sarcastic. Not totally, but yeah, probably a little bit. Welcome into the show. Thank you so much for tuning in wherever you are from, whatever your opinion is of Valentine's Day. Thank you for tuning into this show. Valentine's Day is two days away from when the show goes live. Me, I'm not officially celebrating Valentine's Day. I am doing a little bit of trying to share the love, I guess. I hope wherever you are, though, that the weather is good. Winter has finally gotten its claws into us on Cape Cod. We've had several storms. They're not huge storms, but a few enough in a row where snow is now impacting daily life. I've said it before on this podcast that snow was more fun when I was young. Maybe I'd have to shovel the driveway, but I didn't have much else to worry about. Days off from school. Now it's like shovel the driveway and still go to work. Of course, I can't get this show started properly without sharing the love with my Patreon subscribers. Lori, Mary Lou, Ashley, Kevin, Leo, Marguerite, Neglectoid, Crystal. Thank you all for showing the love to me. You have something special for Valentine's Day coming in a couple of days. But don't feel left out if you are not a Patreon subscriber. If you go to the free tier, there is something for you as well on Valentine's Day. I'm trying to make the free tier something that's got more content to it so that it entices people to go and check out my page. As an update on my filming career, this week I did find my sponsor for my first scene where I'm playing myself, the podcast, or this guy you're listening to. But the first of my three scenes in the movie, I introduce a sponsor of the podcast. So I was looking for preferably a friend and a local friend with a business that I could promote in this movie. It isn't too late, though. Any of you out there listening that are Cape Codders with Cape Cod businesses, reach out to me, ChristopherSetterland at gmail.com. Because in my third scene, I don't promote a product as a sponsor, but I can have a product in the scene with me. So product placement. This is all for an indie horror film that my friend Frank Durant, the one who produced the Lady of the Dunes documentary, is filming next month in March. For those of you that are listening, like, what is he talking about movie? There'll be plenty of more news as things come up. Like, filming won't start for a while. So I'm just starting to get little bits of details. And I wanted to share the journey. Because maybe this is my only film role ever. Maybe not. So I want to kind of give it my full attention. But for right now, let's pop the top on episode 182. And start it off looking at the man, the myth, the legend himself, Michael Jordan. Sometimes I dream that he is me. You've got to see that's how I dream to be. I dream I move. I dream I groove like Mike. If I could be like Mike. You gotta be some kind of a special athlete for kids that grew up in the late 80s to remember the lyrics to your song in your commercial. This is Valentine's week, but it's also the week of the birthday of the greatest basketball player ever, one of the biggest pop culture icons of the late 20th century ever, Michael Jordan. I was so excited to get to talk about him because I was lucky enough to grow up with him in his prime, not looking back at highlights. Or even worse, younger people today that think that people like LeBron James are better than him, where it's like, no, it's very wrong. Those of you that didn't grow up then won't understand the impact that Michael Jordan had on the world. So what I'm going to do is kind of a deep dive into his life, but more looking at his impact on the world through sports and pop culture. Michael Jordan was born on February 17th, 1963. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, but was raised in Wilmington, North Carolina, which is why he ended up playing for the University of North Carolina in college. He was famously cut from his high school varsity basketball team as a sophomore, and that's what kind of fueled his relentless work ethic. It was before my time, but Michael Jordan first burst onto the scene in 1982 when as a freshman at the University of North Carolina. In the 1982 NCAA championship game against Georgetown, he made the game-winning shot, and it instantly put his name out there. Jordan played three seasons for the North Carolina Tar Heels before declaring for the NBA draft in 1984. Hindsight is always 20-20, but you look back at the 1984 NBA draft, and the Chicago Bulls picked Jordan third. That's right. Two other players were picked ahead of Michael Jordan. The number one pick was Hakeem Olajuwon, who's one of the greatest centers of all time, legend for the Houston Rockets, two-time NBA champion, Hall of Famer. Okay. Number two was Sam Bowie. And I don't blame you if a lot of you out there are like, who in the world is Sam Bowie? Exactly. He was picked by the Portland Trailblazers and led them to exactly zero NBA titles compared to Michael Jordan's six with the Chicago Bulls. Jordan won the Rookie of the Year award in 1985, becoming instantly must-see. Me, I come into the picture in 1986. That's when I first became a sports fan. I was eight years old, growing up on Cape Cod, so we were Boston Celtics fans. I'm sure I probably saw or heard of Michael Jordan before this game, but my real introduction to him was April 20th, 1986. Game two of the first round of the NBA playoffs, the Celtics and the Bulls. This is the famous double overtime game where Michael Jordan scored 63 points. He did things I didn't think were humanly possible, and it was only the tip of the iceberg as I watched his career from there. I think I like Jordan even more at the time because he did all these awesome video game like moves, but he still lost to the Celtics. I think that made it even better because it was like I loved Magic Johnson on the Lakers, but I couldn't cheer for him because the Lakers would be able to beat the Celtics. The Bulls never could beat that big three era Celtics team. And that was a big issue with Jordan at the beginning, especially his first four or five seasons. He was a guy that would get you 35, 40 points a night, every night, and do things that you didn't think were humanly possible. The dunks he would do, the making the shots, twisting around people, hanging in the air. But at the end of the night, the Bulls would end up being a team that just wasn't good enough to do anything but make the playoffs and lose. Ages ago, in episode 29 of the podcast, I did a whole segment about when I had a basketball hoop in front of my house growing up. So you can go there and get more in-depth about what it was like playing basketball in a slightly rural Cape Cod neighborhood in the late 80s, early 90s. But the gist of it was, I would mimic things I saw on TV. I more or less modeled my shooting after Larry Bird. But I had way more fun lowering the basketball hoop down to like seven feet high and then trying to imitate the dunks that I saw Michael Jordan do. Those of you that are my age, around my age, you have probably memories of the famous slam dunk contest where Jordan took off from the free throw line and slam dunked it. Me and my friends, we try to take off from the middle of the street line and jump. No, that didn't work out well. It didn't matter, though. It was so much fun to think you were like Mike. That's when those Gatorade commercials started coming out. He started getting all of those endorsements when he was a highlight reel, a scoring machine. But in terms of championships, he had nothing. That all changed in the early 1990s under head coach Phil Jackson. Jordan and the Chicago Bulls implemented the triangle offense. And they got to the 91 NBA Finals against the LA Lakers, and they won. They dominated. There's the famous shot of Michael Jordan going towards the hoop with his right hand, pulling it down, putting it in his left, and laying it up. Just incredible. And this was a dynasty. The Chicago Bulls were the team of the 90s in American pro sports. They won six NBA titles in the 90s, and they only didn't win more because Michael Jordan retired after his three-peat. In October 1993, after the murder of his father, Jordan lost the passion for basketball, and he retired. This was that famous or infamous time that he went and joined the Chicago White Sox minor league team, the Birmingham Barons. And he wasn't a great baseball player. I think he batted somewhere around 230. But I've heard people say that if he had stuck with it, he probably would have gotten better because he played baseball in high school too. But basketball came calling again in March 1995. He released a statement that just said, I'm back. And he then led the Bulls to another three-peat. Three more titles from 1996 to 1998. So you can't say anything for sure, but you'd have to think that if he didn't retire, that the Chicago Bulls could have easily won eight championships in a row because he missed a full season and then most of a second season. After the second three-peat in 1998, Jordan retired again, but then he came back in 2001 and played for the Washington Wizards. That was kind of a fail, a sad last chapter, but he still had some great games, including scoring 51 points in a game against the Charlotte Hornets. So that's Michael Jordan, the player. But there's so much more. Michael Jordan, the cultural phenomenon. You can't talk about Michael Jordan without Air Jordan shoes, his Nike endorsements. I remember always wanting Nike Air Jordans. For me, when I played basketball, I mean, I played for town teams, YIBL, Yarmouth Instructional Basketball League. I played on middle school teams. I played more intramural in high school. So my skills did not match the shoes, but I still wanted those shoes. And those of you that grew up that are around my age, you can name off all the other endorsements or most of them that Jordan had. Nike, Gatorade, McDonald's. Jordan also starred in the 1996 film Space Jam, which was a way to blend basketball and Hollywood in a way no athlete had done before. Sure, legendary football player Jim Brown became an actor in the 70s and 80s, but Michael Jordan... in the 1990s was a bigger deal than Jim Brown was at his peak. And that's not to speak ill of Jim Brown's skills. He was probably the greatest football player ever. But Michael Jordan became as well known for stuff he did outside of the actual basketball court as he did on it. Those that are growing up now, people that are younger, below 30, there are giant stars in professional sports. LeBron James is still a big deal, but Steph Curry, Patrick Mahomes, Shohei Ohtani. It was just different in the late 1980s, early 90s, watching Michael Jordan live. You knew if you watched him play, you were going to see at least one thing that you could not believe actually happened. Even before they were champions, the Chicago Bulls were always on primetime broadcasts of basketball. When you get into sports debates, there's always a lot of different opinions. I'm sure there are some of you listening right now, hearing me talk so glowingly about Michael Jordan and saying, yeah, well, Wilt Chamberlain was better, or yeah, well, Kobe Bryant was better than him. And it is a lot of subjective. I can say, oh yeah, well, look at his stats, look at his championships, and look at his overall cultural impact. But I'm not going to yell at you if you think Wilt Chamberlain, Kobe Bryant, Magic, Bird, LeBron, if your opinion is they're better, then so be it. I just spent 10 minutes stating my case for why Michael Jordan was the greatest basketball player ever and maybe the greatest crossover athlete ever. Still to this day, Michael Jordan causes a scene when he comes into a room. Everyone knows who he is, even if you didn't grow up watching him. And this week coming up, he turns 62 years old. So happy birthday to, in my opinion, the greatest basketball player ever, bar none, his airness, MJ, Michael Jordan. This week in history, we're really sharing the love. We're going back 96 years ago to Valentine's Day, February 14th, 1929, and the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Nothing says love like a brutal, bloody mob hit. On the morning of Valentine's Day, 1929, the streets of Chicago's North Side witnessed one of the most notorious and brutal crimes in American history. It was later dubbed the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. So we gotta go back a few years. The early 20th century saw a rapid rise in organized crime. And this was fueled by the enactment of Prohibition in 1920, which was a ban on alcohol. The idea of banning alcohol was supposed to curb crime and moral decay. Instead, it created a booming black market for illicit liquor, controlled by ruthless mob bosses. So in Chicago... There were two main factions, Southside Italian mob led by Al Capone and the Northside Irish gang, once headed by Dean O'Banion and later by George Bugs Moran. In the late 1920s, tensions between the Capone gang and the Moran gang escalated dramatically. There were frequent clashes over territory, bootlegging routes, and control of speakeasies. Capone, who was operating primarily from Florida at the time, sought to eliminate Moran and gain complete control over Chicago's underworld. Reports suggest that Al Capone's men, led by his trusted enforcer Jack Machine Gun McGurn, orchestrated the plot to lure Moran's men into a trap. A lucrative shipment of whiskey was allegedly used as bait, with instructions given for a meeting at a garage located at 2122 North Clark Street, a known hangout of the Northside gang. At approximately 10.30am on February 14th, seven men affiliated with Moran's gang gathered inside the garage, unaware of what was about to happen. Witnesses later recounted seeing four men, two dressed in civilian clothing and two disguised as police officers, arriving at the scene. Assuming it was a routine police raid, the gangsters inside offered no resistance when ordered to line up against the wall. Without warning, the gunmen unleashed a hail of bullets from Thompson's submachine guns and shotguns, firing at point-blank range. The massacre was swift and brutal. Each victim was riddled with multiple gunshot wounds. Then the assassins staged an escape by having the fake officers march the two civilians out at gunpoint, creating the illusion of an official arrest. Ironically, Bugs Moran, who was the intended target of the massacre, was not among the dead. He had arrived late to the meeting and upon seeing the police officers instinctively turned away. And the twist of fate saved his life but shattered his criminal empire, leaving Capone with a nearly unchallenged grip over Chicago's bootlegging industry. Despite the sheer brutality of the massacre, no one was ever convicted for the crime. Suspicion immediately fell on Capone, but with an airtight alibi, the case remained unsolved. It did intensify public outcry on organized crime, with authorities ramping up their efforts to take down Capone's empire. And although he evaded direct punishment for the massacre, his reign came to an end in 1931 when he was convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to 11 years in prison. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre became a defining moment in the history of organized crime, marking a turning point in the government's efforts to dismantle the mob. It remains one of the most infamous crimes of the 20th century and has been immortalized in films, books, and documentaries. And that infamous St. Valentine's Day massacre in Chicago took place 96 years ago this week in history. Well, we'll try to bring the love here with a brand new time capsule. We're going back 45 years ago to Valentine's Day, 1980. You want to know what was going on in the world of pop culture back then? Well, let's find out. The number one song was Do That To Me One More Time by Captain and Tennille. This was off of their album Make Your Move and was their second number one song after Love Will Keep Us Together. This song was seen as a bit of a comeback for Captain and Tennille, who, after their kind of a down period for the last few years, didn't have their record contract renewed. We may be hearing a little more about Captain and Tennille in the top five segment, and it might help to explain why their record contract was not renewed. The number one movie was The Fog, and you could get into the theater with a ticket costing $2.69. This is a supernatural horror film, an indie film produced by John Carpenter of Halloween fame. It's about a deadly fog that infests this coastal town a hundred years after a ship sunk off the shore. It was a big hit, making more than $21 million on a budget of $1 million. And John Carpenter even brought back Jamie Lee Curtis from Halloween for this movie. It's 76% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and definitely is an excellent horror scary film if you haven't seen it before. The number one TV show was Three's Company. The classic comedy, John Ritter, Suzanne Somers, Joyce DeWitt, Don Knotts. The show was on for seven seasons from 1977 to 1984. And the hijinks involve John Ritter's character Jack Tripper pretending to be gay so that Mr. Roper at the beginning will allow him to live in the same apartment with the two women. There were even a couple of spinoffs from the show. The Ropers, when they moved out, that failed. Three's a Crowd, that lasted for one season in 1985. It also has a pretty good theme song you can probably hear in your head right now. And if you were around back then, Valentine's Day 1980, maybe you were looking for a cheap date for Valentine's Night, well, you're in luck. I got something for you. You can go to see the fog, and then you can go have dinner at Howard Johnson's. Oh, they got some specials for you. Chicken and biscuits in a fricassee sauce for $2.95. If you don't like chicken, you can get fried filet of flounder, also for $2.95. So there you go. Dinner and a movie. Now all you need is a time machine to go back to 1980. That wraps up another time capsule in This Week in History. Now we're going to continue sharing the love for Valentine's Week as we look back at, at least in my opinion, the top five worst love songs ever. So let's get into those. Oh yes, love songs and Valentine's Day, they go hand in hand. The past few weeks on social media, I've been sharing sunsets and love songs on Instagram, on my stories. Just combining what I think, well, they're my favorite love songs, and then just pictures of sunsets, a little bit of romance. I'm about to undo all of that goodwill with this top five. Your opinions will vary. This was a tough one to narrow down because when I say worst, it's a quicker way to say ones that are either cringy, cheesy, confusing, stupid, all those words. But again, it's all subjective because I guarantee some of you out there, I'm going to name off songs and you're going to be like, wait a minute, I love that song. Just like I'm sure some of my songs I've been sharing on my Instagram stories, my favorite love songs, some of you have probably heard and said, ah, really? You like that? All right, so with most of these top fives, they're in no particular order, and there's some honorable mentions. I'm going to try my best to blast through the honorable mentions without getting too much into them. So for Valentine's Day... Turn down the lights, light some candles, and don't play any of these songs. All right, here we go. So honorable mentions for worst love songs ever, in my opinion, there is Picture by Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow. This is from his 2001 album, Cocky. Another honorable mention is Lady in Red by Krista Berg. and cheesy and on his 1986 album Into the Light. Another honorable mention is Hero by Enrique Iglesias. This is off of his 2001 album Escape. Another honorable mention is I Would Do Anything for Love by Meatloaf. This is off of his 1993 album Bat Out of Hell 2. And is mainly on here because what the hell is I won't do that? What won't you do? Anyway. And the final honorable mention is How Can We Be Lovers If We Can't Be Friends by Michael Bolton. This is off of his 1989 album Soul Provider. And I'll be honest, it was the one I chose out of several of his songs that I thought could have been on this list. Sorry, I'm not a Michael Bolton fan. But hey, he has sold more than 75 million albums with a voice that sounds like someone strangling a rubber chicken, so I can't hate on that. Ah, yeah, so there's the honorable mentions. How many of those songs are in your rotation for Valentine's Day? I apologize for ruining your playlist. So let me ruin it even more by getting into the actual top five, starting with number one. You Are So Beautiful by Joe Cocker. Ironically, this is another song that Michael Bolton actually did. So much of this, it's cringy, but a lot of it comes down to Joe Cocker's voice, much like Michael Bolton's voice. His raspy, screeching voice does not lend itself to a touching love song. This is off of his 1974 album, I Can Stand a Little Rain. Joe Cocker had some other big hits. The song Feelin' Alright, that fits more with his vocal style. And for kids like me that grew up in the 1980s, his cover of The Beatles with A Little Help From My Friends being the theme song for The Wonder Years instantly gave him a soft spot in my heart. But this song just doesn't work. Now I will say a lot of these are my opinion, but I did research. There are so many... Other people out there with their picks for worst love songs ever. Some that are just random bloggers or random podcasters like me. But there are others like big time music magazines like Rolling Stone or news outlets like ABC, NBC. And some of these songs are on their list. So it's not just me. I'm really trying to sell this. Like, please don't be mad. Let's get more mad with number two. Your Body is a Wonderland by John Mayer. This is off of his 2001 debut album, Room for Squares. It's a song that hasn't aged well. It's so cringy. It's got some weird lyrics. Like, what the hell is bubblegum tongue? Like, when you kiss your girl, you're going to chew on her tongue? Like, is that what you're doing? I think part of it is also that As we got to know John Mayer more through his fame, he became less of a reputable character. I mean, it's hard to see him as a nice guy when he's dated so many different people like Jennifer Aniston, Jessica Simpson, Taylor Swift, and they don't really have a lot of nice things to say about him. I'm not saying you have to be a choir boy, church-going boy to sing love songs, but just don't be a douchebag and then try to pass yourself off as someone who's sweet. Let's continue with some cringe, though, with number three, Having My Baby by Paul Anka. This is off of his 1974 album Anka, and the lyrics are literally, you're having my baby, what a lovely way of saying how much you love me. It's just creepy, cringy, weird, I guess would be the best ways to describe the lyrics to this song. This song has been voted worst love song or one of the worst on several different polls, including CNN. He got the Keeper in Her Place Award from the National Organization for Women for the sexist overtones of this song. It is said due to the backlash that when he performed the song live, he would change the lyrics to You're Having Our Baby because that makes it so much better. Number four is Muskrat Love by Captain and Tennille. I teased it a few minutes ago in the time capsule that we might hear from Captain and Tennille again. This is off of their 1976 album Song of Joy. This song is about a romantic encounter between a pair of anthropomorphic muskrats named Susie and Sam. All you need to know about this song is go Google muskrat love and type in worst and you will get lists of this song being on worst song ever lists. A lot of people say it's just stupid and nonsensical. But there are others, and maybe some of you listening, that find it charming, a slice of nostalgia, and I know better than anyone how important nostalgia is. The song did chart on the Billboard Hot 100, but it was followed up by two albums that basically ended their recording contract. That's why I had mentioned in the time capsule that Do That To Me One More Time was seen as a bit of a comeback song. And it's sort of like the downfall began with Muskrat Love. And finally, number five on, in my opinion, the worst love songs ever is Get Her Back by Robin Thicke. I could almost copy and paste what I said about John Mayer as far as his public persona compared to what he writes in his songs. This is off of his 2014 album Paula. The entire album served as a tribute to Robin Thicke's then ex-wife, Paula Patton. The couple divorced after citing irreconcilable differences. The video for this song is just Robin Thicke basically bare-chested from the mid-chest up, but he's got like bruising and blood on his face. I'm sure there are some that will see dedicating his entire album to his estranged wife as sweet. But way more people see it as creepy, desperate, humiliating, and ultimately what killed his career. Even more so than being sued for copyright infringement for his Blurred Lines song. Sure, love and heartbreak and breakups will make you do and say a lot of weird things you might regret. I may not have the ability to make a whole album dedicated to an ex-girlfriend, but it would be like me getting her name tattooed on my wrist or something. Now after the fact. But there you go. My opinion, the worst love songs ever. How many of these are on your list? How many of these do you love and you're now mad at me and you want to stop the podcast? Don't worry, I've got something super fun coming up right now. We're going to look at one of the weirdest employee training videos that I've done thus far. So let's go back to Blockbuster Video. Let's finish off this podcast by making it a Blockbuster night. I love doing these employee training video reviews. So, how I got to this one is a few weeks ago I was going through some stuff in my closet, trying to get rid of some old things that I don't need. It was then that I found my old Blockbuster Video membership card. I'm literally holding it in my hands. That's me pulling the plastic of it. The address on the back is 1070 Main Street, Route 210. I don't know if that means Route 28. I'm assuming this was the one that was in Yarmouth, Massachusetts. So in the middle of Cape Cod. It got me thinking I should look to see if there are any training videos for people working at Blockbuster. And oh boy, was there ever. This video is from 1990. It's about 17 minutes long. And it's for something called Blockbuster University. The funniest thing about it, it's a very weird training video. And in full transparency, I'll tell you, I watched this last week to kind of, you know, scout it out. And to make it more fun, a real blockbuster night, I popped an edible and I watched this video. And part of me thought maybe the edible had taken hold early because it was so weird. So then when I watched it again to now share it with you, I realized, no, it's just the weirdest training video. I mean, it is quintessential 90s. It starts off with this cheesy fake bass music as they pan around a blockbuster video, which those of you that are my age, you remember what it looks like, the video store in general. So it definitely brings back a lot of nostalgia. We end up focusing on the lead in this video. She's not dressed in any blockbuster uniform, no blue button-down shirt. And the girl bumps into a regular customer, knocks her videos out of her hands, and she's so sorry. Then she wonders where she's been, and the woman says that her VCR had been in the shop, so that's why she hadn't been in. So far, normal. But then it gets weird. This girl is putting videos back on the shelf and a TV behind her turns on and this really weird looking guy pops up on it. I will say I'm being nice in saying this guy was incredibly annoying. Like I'm sure the actor was told to play the character this way, but he's instantly the most unlikable guy. Just smug and condescending to this girl. We find out the girl working there is named Marie, but this smug guy in his super cheesy, like, nightclub guy shirt is named Buster Sales. And he starts explaining who he is. Yo,

Speaker 01:

Marie. Hey, let's wake up. Who are you? The name's Buster. Buster Sales.

Speaker 02:

Um, our trailer tape must have jammed.

Speaker 01:

He

Speaker 03:

tells her that he's a professional opportunist. And he says he's there because he sees that she needs help doing her job, as in making more sales of videotape rentals. And it gets really weird really fast where the girl Marie says, oh, she knows all about finding opportunities. And this buster's sales starts giving her crap about some customer's son that asked her out and she said no. Like he's already dug into her personal life like this.

Speaker 02:

I know an opportunity when I see it.

Speaker 01:

Sure. Like the time Mrs. Harris' son Brian asked you out. And you turned him down and got a Jane Alworth stupid slumber party.

Speaker 02:

After

Speaker 03:

that, creepiness is out of the way. Buster Sales tells her to go over to this customer again that she bumped into earlier and tell her about how you can rent a VCR if yours is in the shop. Which I guess makes sense. I remember you used to be able to rent video game consoles at the rental store, so it would make sense they'd have VCRs. Although in this, they don't call them VCRs. They call them VCPs, video cassette players. So I don't know the difference. I guess you couldn't use it to record things. So the mother is looking at different videos to rent for her son's party, and she's asking Marie for help. And then after she's done, that stupid Buster Sales comes back on, and he's kind of half-heartedly congratulating her for helping this woman out. But she mentioned she liked Sean Connery, and so he's mad that she didn't push this woman to get other Sean Connery movie videos. This was when Hunt for Red October was out, so that'll kind of date when this is from. This is where it makes it seem like working at Blockbuster is way more involved than it is. Buster Sales tells her to memorize a book of the 50 best movies and to learn all the movies that different actors have been in. Like, think about how many people that worked at Blockbuster Video at the time really took it seriously as a career. And this mascot in the TV is telling them to do all this homework so that people will rent an extra video. Like they're going to make commissions on it. Later on, Marie is checking out a girl at the register who's got like seven videos and she notices that the girl has rented the same movie like five times. So buster sales as annoying as ever pops up on a monitor and he's just clearing his throat in just an annoying way. But he's convincing her to try to get this girl to just buy the video instead of continuing to rent it. So there's an upsell for that. Of course, Buster Sales is not happy with how Marie has done. Because she didn't get this girl that's renting all the videos to get a gift certificate for her brother who loves Star Trek. The guy Buster Sales, he looks like he should be a game show host around that time. Like you'd see him on a Nickelodeon game show. Then we turn the creep factor up even more, but it's not from Buster Sales. There's this weird music and Marie is putting videos on the shelf and there's this guy in like a sweater vest and bow tie and glasses that is picking up every tape she puts down and looking at it and just following her. Yeah.

Speaker 02:

Excuse me, is there something I can help you find? Oh,

Speaker 00:

I doubt it. I'm a 60s movie buff, and I've been to eight video stores in the last three days looking for the last movie. I don't know the name.

Speaker 03:

If you ever saw a guy like that in a video store, the girl would probably turn around and slap him because he's just so creepy and weird. He ends up being a 1960s movie buff looking for the last film that had Peter Sellers and Woody Allen in it. Like, he's giving her trivia. He says he's been to eight video stores looking for it, but he doesn't know the name of it. Just remember, this was a different time in 1990 where you spent all kinds of time driving to video stores. It wasn't streaming. It wasn't seen as a waste of time back then. And Marie is getting ready to help this weirdo look for this movie. And that Buster Sales just blows a whistle. And then she turns around like she's happy to see him. Like, I don't know how she wouldn't want to, in reality, like, whip a soda bottle at this guy. Buster tells her to use the video log. It's like a huge, it's like three times the size of a phone book filled with movies. Like I said, it was a different time. So they're looking through this video log. Do any of you out there that used to go to Blockbuster, do you ever remember the video log? I might vaguely. I don't think I ever used it. I think I went in and knew what I wanted and got it. I never had to go and look through this 3,000 page book of every movie that's on video. Marie does a good job. She convinces this guy to not only order the movie, which is Casino Royale, So he orders it and it's going to be in at the end of the week. He has to buy it. Then she convinces him to rent other Peter Sellers movies like the Pink Panther movies. So Marie goes to get this guy a copy of the Pink Panther. And then, God, this buster sales. It's like he becomes instantly triple hated because he pops up on the TV and he's banging cymbals to get her attention.

Speaker 01:

Just trying to get your attention.

Speaker 02:

Well, if you don't mind, I'd rather you stick with the whistle. What is it this time? I found the man his movie.

Speaker 01:

Yes, and you're still batting 500. How

Speaker 02:

so?

Speaker 01:

You remember? Listen, think, act?

Speaker 02:

Right. Peter Sellers' comedy movies for rent.

Speaker 01:

Good. Now think again.

Speaker 03:

Like, this is the reason why when I was watching this after my edible, I thought that it was something maybe was wrong with me. But then watching it back, just seeing how incredibly annoying and obnoxious this character was. I mean, I guess he's trying to be cool, like the cool jerk. So that when you've got 16, 17-year-old boys likely working at Blockbuster in 1990, they'd watch this and be like, oh, I want to be cool like Buster Sales. He's mad that she didn't show this guy that likes Peter Sellers where he could buy previously used tapes. It basically seems like Marie can't do anything right for buster sales. So we go back to the front and she's checking out the woman from the beginning whose son asked her out and she said no. Now she's saying, tell him I said hi. Oh, but it's not over yet. Stupid Buster Sayles pops up on a screen behind her after the mother leaves, and he's just throwing popcorn at her, and he's eating it with this stupid smug face. Like, can you tell that I hate this character? He's like the worst of all these employee training videos I've seen yet. Then we get a fun little maybe coincidence where dumbass Buster Sayles says, here comes Marge Simpson. So basically this customer, her name is Marge Simpson, that wants to introduce Marie to her son. At this point in time, the Simpsons were actually on TV, so I don't know if it's coincidence or if they picked the name out because of that. So Marge Simpson comes up to the front desk with her son, and he's just like the biggest nerd ever. And while she's standing there, God, that Buster Sayles is like fake crying in the background and like making pig noises. It's like, God, who wrote this?

Speaker 02:

Hello, Mrs. Simpson. Hi, Marie. Marie, have you ever met my son, Douglas? Hi, Doug.

Speaker 00:

Hello, Marie. So, looks

Speaker 02:

like you have everything you wanted?

Speaker 03:

Yes. We get into Marge Simpson being upset. Her husband is not named Homer, it's Richard. But she says he gets mad if she spends more than $10 on movies at the video store and she's complaining about him and his fishing lures. Like, would you really talk like this to a random associate at a blockbuster video? All your personal stories? I don't know. Marie uses like a Jedi mind trick on her, saying, oh, you can... stay below your $10 limit each time at the video store if you just come into the store more. So she gets her to come in more times a week. So she's actually spending way more money, but it's never more than $10 at a time. What did videos cost to rent back then at Blockbuster 1990? 99 cents? $1.99? I don't know. I wasn't the one paying for them at the time. But if it's $1.99 and she's spending more than $10, I mean, five movies each time, I don't know, that seems kind of excessive. Marie then upsells Marge Simpson on VCR head cleaners, saying that you should clean your heads of your VCR every 20 hours that you watch tapes. So there's another question for you out there. How many of you with VCRs clean the heads of them every 20 hours or every 100 or 200 hours? I probably could count on one hand with fingers left the amount of times that I used a VCR head cleaner. After Marge Simpson pays for her videos in the VCR head cleaner with exact change out of her change purse, her idiot son says parting is such sweet sorrow, like he's quoting Romeo and Juliet to her. But finally, as we're near the end, Buster Sales says that she did terrific upselling Marge Simpson. Now he's like super sweet after being the most annoying character I've seen in these videos ever.

Speaker 02:

So, how was I?

Speaker 01:

You were terrific. Now, you ready to go out on your own?

Speaker 02:

Honestly, I'm not sure. I mean, I almost missed out on that opportunity with Mrs. Simpson.

Speaker 01:

But you didn't. So tell me, what have you learned?

Speaker 02:

Well, to listen to the customers very carefully and to think because anything they do or say may be signs of their needs.

Speaker 03:

So finally, Marie is done with that idiot Buster Sales, and it shows her talking to that son that she wanted to date from the beginning. His name is Brian. So it's like Blockbuster University. It's kind of like 90210. It's like, yeah, we're renting you videos, but it's also all this teenage drama going on. And we get to this point where there's a new associate at Blockbuster who is talking to the video screens and Marie figures it's Buster Sayles talking to her. So Marie helps her out with Buster's big points. Listen, think, and act. And also upsell everyone that comes in. And it ends with the same cheeseball music and Buster Sayles making this stupid face. Like just to remind you how punchable his face was through this whole thing. It's then that we get to the end and it says it's produced in association with Jack Morton Productions in Atlanta, Georgia. And that this whole video was filmed at store number 13011 in Roswell, Georgia. And they tell you that Ryan Locken is the manager. No word on who played Buster Sales. I guess they didn't want people to go after him and harass him. And that ends Blockbuster University from 1990. I had a lot of fun watching this. It was different each time because, like I said, at first I thought there was something wrong with me. But it turns out, no, it was just Buster Sales was written to be the most annoying person possible. Nothing ruins your mellow of an edible than some guy in cheeseball 90s clothes banging cymbals real loud. I'll put a link to the video in the description of the podcast if you want to watch buster sales for yourself. And stay tuned. Sometime in the not-too-distant future, I'll do another employee training video because I love finding these and then sharing them with you. They're a load of laughs. But until next time, that's going to wrap up episode 182 of the podcast, Valentine's Week episode, sharing the love with a lot of hatred sprinkled in there, worst love songs, St. Valentine's Day massacre and buster sales. Thank you all for tuning in to the wackiness that is my weekly podcast. If you enjoy the show, $5 a month on Patreon. You can become a supporter, a subscriber. You can always check out the Patreon page without being a supporter. There's a lot on the free tier that I keep adding. Subscribe to my YouTube channel. I've got hundreds and hundreds of videos up there. All the podcasts go up in audio form, so there's no video with it. That's just linked to when the podcast goes live. Read the Initial Impressions 2.0 blog that details my wackiness of my weekly life. Like I said, I've kind of paused the Webcam Weekly Wrap-Up podcast. It's just time-consuming. It happens every now and then. I keep adding things to my plate just repeatedly until finally it's like a mountain of food that falls on the floor. I'm sure at some point I will bring it back, but I've got, with the movie role, I have a whole bunch of other ideas that I want to try for content and just in general. I'm experimenting with my new phone, the video format on it. My hope is that sometime in the spring when it gets warm on Cape Cod, eventually, is to do some kind of short film with several friends. I have an idea. So I know if you're listening, Greg, I haven't forgot what we talked about on Christmas Eve. I'm going to try to storyboard an idea so we can do something fun like that. You can follow me all over social media. I've got a Facebook fan page. I am on Instagram. There's a page for the podcast there. I'm on threads, blue sky. I am constantly sharing and marketing my content because if I don't, who else will? The hits will just keep on coming. Next week is episode 183, the post-Valentine's hangover. Hopefully, some of you that are listening now that are in relationships will still be in them after Valentine's Day. If not, you can come drown your sorrows with me or celebrate. I don't know. I don't want to judge what your relationship is like. So whether you're digging out from loads of snow like up here in the Northeast or you're sunning yourself on a warm tropical beach to escape from all of this, I hope that whatever you're doing, it's the best it can possibly be. Enjoy those you're with. Enjoy where you're at the best you can. If things aren't the way you want, hopefully this podcast gives you a little bit of an escape about an hour each week. If you're just tuning in, you can binge all the other episodes. You can go back and listen to the first couple dozen episodes where I definitely am more buttoned down like I tried to make it serious rather than letting my insanity just shine through. Lean into the things that make you happy. It's like the late great singer Jim Morrison said, no one here gets out alive. So spend more time enjoying people, places, foods, podcasters, crazy ones like me. And I'll do my part by continuing to pump out the content in audio, video, written form. 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. 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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