In My Footsteps: A Gen-X Nostalgia Podcast

Episode 186: What Is A B-Movie?, A Wild Nantucket Photo Trip, Quintessential 1980s Songs, Chuck Norris(3-12-2025)

• Christopher Setterlund • Season 1 • Episode 186

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Spring is on the way, but the nostalgia is already in full bloom! Episode 186 takes you on a wild ride—from a windswept island to the world of low-budget cinema and the unforgettable sound of the ‘80s.

📸 A Winter Adventure in Nantucket – The newest Dedication to the Craft photography segment takes me back to a gray and moody day on Nantucket in 2014. Remote landscapes, unexpected wildlife encounters, sandy drives, and a tragic beer spill—it’s all here, along with some photography tips!

🎬 What Exactly Is a B-Movie? – Cheesy? Campy? Low-budget? Sometimes brilliant? We break down the wild and weird world of B-Movies—what they are, why they exist, and why some have become cult classics. This is just the beginning of our deep dive into the world of B-Movies!

🎶 Top 5 Songs & Videos That Scream 1980s – Some songs could only exist in the ‘80s. We’re counting down the tracks and music videos that define the decade—big hair, neon lights, and all. Did your favorite make the cut?

🕰️ This Week in History & Time Capsule – A tribute to the birth of an action movie legend: Chuck Norris.

Hit play and let’s rewind time! 🚀

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Speaker 00:

Hello, world, and welcome to the In My Footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund, coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and this is episode 186. It's going to be a fun show this week filled with twists and turns and loads of nostalgia. We're going to kick it off with the latest dedication to the craft photography segment. Looking back at a photo trip to Nantucket in 2014. We're going to go way, way back in the day and give kind of an overview of what a B-movie is. There'll be a brand new top five that are the top five quintessential 1980s songs and videos. These songs could not have been made in any other decade. And there'll be a brand new This Week in History and Time capsule centered around the birth of the legend himself, Chuck Norris. All of that is coming up right now on episode 186 The In My Footsteps Podcast We could talk about how much fun I had this past week celebrating my little niece Sylvie's sixth birthday, including her dressing me up in pink like an 80s jazzercise star. But enough about me. How are all of you? Thank you all so much for tuning into this show. The 186th episode of this podcast, man. Sometimes I get lost in the shuffle of research, record, edit, and market the podcast that I have to step back and see the forest for the trees and how many episodes of this podcast I've done. Think about how many... thousands of podcasts there are and how many thousands more where there's people that do two or three episodes and don't get the downloads they want or they lose time or they lose interest and these podcasts just fade away and here I am super stubborn but I also enjoy what I do and if I can provide you with an escape from today's world for just an hour a week then it's kind of my obligation And if you enjoy my work, you could become like these fine people, my Patreon subscribers, Laurie, Mary Lou, Ashley, Kevin, Leo, Marguerite, Neglectoid, Crystal, Matt. Thank you all so much. Those of you out there that want to join, $5 a month gets you access to bonus podcast episodes, early access to YouTube videos. Now access to the remastered Without a Map live streams that I did a few years ago for the podcast. And a growing free tier so you can go and check that stuff out. You know, try before you buy. But of course you can always just listen to this show and share it. That is free and that does a whole lot. Telling others to tune in. Where else can you get such stories as my filming of one of my scenes for the upcoming... Indie horror film that Frank Durant is producing. He's not directing. As I've said before, I play myself, the podcaster. And it includes me being murdered. And I filmed my death scene, although it's off screen. And this horror film, it's supposed to be a little bit campy. So it's not super dark. I mean, it's horror, but probably more in the line of the B movies we're going to talk about later in the show. So I'll just say I made my death a little bit over the top, but you're going to have to see it and watch the film when it comes out in the summer. I will say it is fun but nerve-wracking doing actual acting with a script that you didn't write. Because I wasn't an actor, so I don't know if I'm good. So getting positive feedback from the director... That's definitely helpful. Frank said if I was terrible, the director would have told me so. So that's good to know. He said my scenes so far have been great. So that's very helpful. As we go, there'll be more info about this film and my acting and kind of behind the scenes. And coming up later this month, I'll be going up to Provincetown, finishing the hike out to Race Point Lighthouse that Frank and I were supposed to do in October. So there'll be a new interview up on my YouTube channel, and there will be a lot of content surrounding the film and the people that are a part of it. That's coming up in the next few months. So there'll be plenty of that for those of you that are interested in my acting journey. But we go from a metaphorical journey to an actual journey with photos. So let's start off the podcast with a new edition of Dedication to the Craft, my photography segment. And we'll go back to 2014 and we'll go to the beautiful island of Nantucket right now. Oh, so here we go. Dedication to the craft. I believe this is the sixth segment that I've done. For those that might be new here, the idea of dedication to the craft, it's something that me and my buddy Steve came up with. The gist of it is it's putting yourself in danger or out of your comfort zone, I guess, to get the photo you're looking to get. For us, a lot of the time it comes down to going out in perhaps cold weather, windy weather, driving to places people wouldn't normally go, hiking out in the woods to find things. And as I share these adventures on the podcast, I do try to drop a little bit of knowledge, what I have as far as photography goes. I'm not a professional photographer. My buddy Steve is more of that. He actually worked in newspapers and such for photography. Me, I joke that I'm a hack, but I do have a photography book that you can buy. I have a photography shop now on Etsy that I reopened that you heard me talk about a few weeks back. So I do know what I'm doing. I kind of sell myself short as a joke, but I do. I wouldn't do these segments if I didn't think that I could offer something to you out there besides laughs at the stories themselves. And speaking of laughs, so we are going back to November of 2014 and a trip from Cape Cod over to the island of Nantucket located 30 miles off the Cape Cod coast. I was going to Nantucket to get photos for a book I was writing, a travel guide. It was my third book that was released in 2017. I was so lucky to have a connection at the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism, my old friend Bill D'Souza Mock. Such a good man, a good friend, someone that just wanted to help me, a young author, succeed. So he kind of hooked me up with tickets on the Steamship Authority ferry, allowing me to bring my buddy Steve to bring his Jeep with him. I kid you not, those of you that know me, that know my history with writing, and I've got nine books and all that, the only book that I've written that I could say Bill didn't have any influence on was the very first Cape Cod Travel Guide. And that's only because I didn't know him yet. Every other book I've written, either he has helped with things like I'm talking about getting over to Nantucket or connecting me with other publishers. And then these books that I've written have opened the eyes of other publishers. So it's a whole lot. I just want to give him his props, give him his flowers. The main point of this Dedication to the Crafts segment is not just the trip to Nantucket, but where Steve and I were going. He and I are huge Lighthouse fans. On the island of Nantucket, there are a few lighthouses. Brant Point, everyone sees that when you come into Nantucket on the ferry. It's one of the most well-known lighthouses in the country. There is Sankity Head Lighthouse, which is white and red striped, right on the golf course, right on the east coast of Nantucket. But the main selling point, really the reason that I was able to get Steve to bring his Jeep over... was the fact that we would be allowed to drive out to Great Point Lighthouse. Great Point Lighthouse is at the tip of Nantucket, and for those of you that aren't familiar with it, it is in a very remote location. Sure, you could try to walk out to it and literally take all day, or you could take an off-road vehicle, a jeep, something like that. In order to do that, you typically have to have some kind of an off-road pass. This is where Bill came in and hooked us up. We arrived at Nantucket Harbor and immediately took Steve's Jeep and started heading east. In the off-season and outside of downtown Nantucket, it can be very desolate. There's not lots of people. So keep that in mind. So the last bit of civilization, I guess, is a bed and breakfast called the Wawanette. Once you get past that, then what you've got to do is, if you're going off-roading, you've got to deflate your tires some so that you can drive over the soft sand. So we did that, but here's where the dedication to the craft comes in. Steve and I start heading north towards Great Point Lighthouse. To get there, it's more than five miles on the soft sand with nobody. There is nobody around. I chatted with my buddy Steve about this trip and I said, what do you remember about that time we went out to Great Point? And he said it was basically a series of small heart attacks as he worried about his tires either blowing or getting stuck and knowing that we were in the middle of nowhere. For me, I got to be the passenger. So we're driving, we're going slow. It must have been less than a mile north that we were driving when we noticed something white and fluffy in the dunes. It turned out to be a snowy owl. The best part was me being the passenger. I was able to hop right out of the Jeep, grab my camera, and start snapping photos of this snowy owl sitting in the dunes just looking at us. And by the time Steve would get his camera and get out of the Jeep, the owl had realized what we were doing and it would take off and fly away. But it would fly ahead of us. So it would land again. And this process repeated itself a couple times. That's kind of the issue with any sort of nature photography. Typically, you get one shot at it, whether it's birds or something, squirrels, rabbits, whatever type of animal is in the area where you are. I'm pretty sure I got several good photos of the owl. I don't know if Steve got any because he would have to stop the Jeep, put it in park, grab his camera, get out. Me, I was diving out of the Jeep while it was still going. When you're way out towards Great Point Lighthouse on Nantucket, you really get to see the scope of what nature can do. The erosion that has just decimated that area. The Coscata Cochu Wildlife Preserve, Longtime listeners will remember way back in episode 21, I did a segment about the grounding of the ship Eldia at Nauset Beach in 1984. I mentioned also in that same storm that Great Point Lighthouse on Nantucket, the original, was knocked down and destroyed. The lighthouse that's out there now was built in 1986. The area surrounding Great Point Lighthouse was actually turned into an island for a little while because of that storm. So when you're driving out there and you're close to the lighthouse, there's not a lot of land on either side of you. At one point, the thickness of the beach is only about 200 feet. I remember this day that we went out there. It was chilly. It was cloudy. It was not perfect for photos of a beautiful lighthouse of the Nantucket landscape. But we were getting a favor done for us by Bill. So it wasn't like I could say, hey, could you pay for us to have a bed and breakfast? And then we'll go shoot the lighthouse tomorrow. Sometimes when it comes to photography, photo trips, like I said, you get one chance and you've got to kind of make the best of it. You can do little bits of post-editing, make it brighter, make it a little more colorful, but you've also got to watch out that you don't turn it into some kind of clown show photo. I enjoy Lightroom. I enjoy the Snapseed app, but if I'm looking to sell a photo of mine, sell a print of mine, the photos are basically raw. They might be straightened so they're not shifted to one side so it at least looks normal, or maybe cropped a little, but I keep any edits to a minimum. It's just an integrity thing. There were a few hiccups as we were driving out to Great Point Light. We never got stuck, but we would slow down. And Steve, he did mention a couple times, you know, if we get stuck, where do we go? No cell phone reception. It's the off-season, so you'd have to, I don't know, walk till you got cell phone reception, and then what? Call AAA to drive five miles out in the sand to get you? We'd have had a better chance of lassoing a bunch of SEALs and having them just swim the Jeep back to Cape Cod. Yes, speaking of SEALs. So eventually we get out to Great Point Light. We are... running around, taking as many photos as possible, because we figured this may be the only chance we get to get out there. And looking back 11 years later, it has been. That's the thing. If you think you're in an area that you may never get back to for photography, you take as many photos as possible, as many angles, doubles of the same spot, just in case. It's better to have 50 photos of the same thing than to have one and it doesn't come out well and you're like, oh man. Great Point Lighthouse is 70 feet tall and it's the only place on Nantucket that's visible from Martha's Vineyard. Granted, it looks like a little tiny white matchstick, but still, that's impressive. The area around Great Point is also an area, and I mentioned it a minute ago, where seals like to congregate. Because it's the middle of nowhere. They are not bothered by humans. Steve and I are out there taking photos and we go around one side of the lighthouse and we look down on the beach and there's probably three dozen seals. Naturally, I took a bunch of photos from a distance. But when I go back and look at them, you can see some of the seals staring over at us, kind of daring us to go over and say hi a little closer. I have dedication to the craft, but I'm not stupid enough to get really close to dozens of seals. I don't think I could fight them all off. And I'm pretty sure Steve wouldn't have rescued me. He'd have remembered me getting all the photos of the snowy owl and he would have left me there to be destroyed. I make jokes about the dedication to the craft and doing things and going places that put myself in danger. But the reality is it's a lot of calculated risk. There have only been a handful of times in my life as a photographer where I've come out of a situation saying, boy, I shouldn't have done that. So just remember that. Don't be reckless, careful, cautious risk-taking. I hope as I'm going here, I'm trying to give little tips as far as photography goes as I'm telling this story. So I hope some of this stuff actually is useful to you besides laughing. The majority of our trip to Nantucket that day was Great Point Lighthouse. We made it out successfully. We made it back successfully. The rest of that gray day was mainly me going around the downtown area, getting photos of historic homes and historic places that would be in my travel guide. I told Steve that was part of it. That was the catch for him getting to go over there is that he had to basically be my taxi. When we got done, And before we went back to downtown, I thought this was going to be my last trip to Nantucket and the book would be done. There ended up being another trip, which what a shame I had to go back to Nantucket. I said, oh, we can celebrate the finishing of the book. So we went to Cisco Brewers. They're at 5 Bartlett Farm Road, just in case if you're over there, if you want to go. Local beer brewery. So I had this vision in my head. Steve and I would saddle up to the bar. We'd each get a beer, kind of cheers, and yay, celebrate a great trip. So that's what I had in my mind. Cisco Brewery is amazing. We went in there. They had plastic cups, which was smart. Save the earth. So we each ordered, I think it was an IPA, nice light-colored beer. Steve got his. I got mine and immediately spilled it on the bar. My dreams of this great moment went up in flames. Although I did manage to get a picture of my beer with the menu in the back with what they had on tap. So I have this photo that looks like it's the perfect moment. But in reality, as soon as I picked the beer up, it was spilled on the bar. Yeah, that was good. When it comes to any sort of road trip, photography trip, the ones I've talked about and many countless others... The getting there and getting the photos is easy. It's the, when you're done with the trip and you've got to drive home, that's the hard part. I've had many trips where I've been out there taking photos and suddenly I'm tired and hungry and I'm like, I don't want to go to these last 10 spots, so I'm just going home. Luckily on Nantucket, it was a lot of, you know, you sit on the ferry as you go back. Steve had to drive, so I had to be chauffeured home. In the end, this trip was all about how far away from civilization we went to get the photos we were looking for. Run-ins with nature that you can't predict. And a lot of getting lucky with who you know. But that is the story of the trip out to Great Point Lighthouse. Dedication to the craft. I hope this story time was interesting and I hope there were a few tidbits that will help you with photography.

Unknown:

Music

Speaker 00:

This week in history, we are going back 85 years to March 10th, 1940 and the birth of the legend himself, Chuck Norris. You've probably all heard the jokes. When Chuck Norris jumps in the water, he doesn't get wet. The water gets Chuck Norris. When Chuck Norris stares in the mirror, the mirror shatters because even glass isn't stupid enough to get between Chuck Norris and Chuck Norris. But did you know Chuck Norris is an accomplished actor, martial arts star? That's why I wanted to get the chance to share a few of those jokes, but also tell you about him. He was born Carlos Ray Norris, March 10th, 1940, in Ryan, Oklahoma. He had a challenging and tumultuous childhood. He was a shy and unremarkable student, which definitely couldn't have predicted his rise to fame. Norris enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1958, serving as an air policeman in South Korea, and it was during this time that he discovered martial arts. He trained in Tang Soo Doo and quickly became so proficient and earned black belts in multiple disciplines. In the 60s, Chuck Norris was a dominant force in the world of competitive karate. winning numerous championships, establishing a chain of schools, and counting celebrities like Steve McQueen among his students. That's how he transitioned into Hollywood. His acting debut was in the 1969 film The Green Berets in a minor role. His true coming out party in Hollywood, the one that a lot of you probably would think of when you first think of how did you first see Chuck Norris, It's the 1972 film Way of the Dragon with Bruce Lee, where they had the fight in the Roman Coliseum. This was before Chuck Norris had his trademark beard. It's easily one of the most iconic martial arts fights in history. After that film, he became a staple of the action genre, with films like Good Guys Wear Black in 1978, Lone Wolf McQuaid in 1983. Missing in Action in 1984, and The Delta Force in 1986. He was typically portrayed as a rugged, patriotic hero taking on impossible odds. In the 90s, Norris introduced himself to television with Walker, Texas Ranger, where he was Cordell Walker. This show started in 1993. That was what probably cemented him as an American icon. And then in the early 2000s, Chuck Norris became introduced to a new generation with the Chuck Norris Facts in the earlier days of the internet. They're an ongoing joke series exaggerating his strength and toughness. I gave you a couple of them, but there's other ones like Chuck Norris doesn't do push-ups, he pushes the earth down. That's if you're looking for a laugh, you should just go check that out on Google. There's hundreds of them. I tried to think of ones I could make up for putting him in this podcast, but they were all so bad. I can't share these. You think my attempted dad jokes are bad. My Chuck Norris facts jokes would lose me all my fans. Even though he's retired now, Chuck Norris remains a revered figure, known not only for his on-screen heroics, but for his contributions to martial arts, philanthropy. His name is synonymous with strength, resilience, and unwavering patriotism. And this week in history, we wish Chuck Norris a happy 85th birthday. Now I'm not introducing a new time capsule. Chuck Norris is allowing me to introduce a new time capsule. So we're going to go back 41 years ago this week to March 9th, 1984. What was going on in the world of pop culture back then? Well, let's find out. The number one song was Jump by Van Halen. This is off of their album 1984, the last full album with original singer David Lee Roth. Back in episode 14 of the podcast, I told the story about my foray into being a metalhead when I was about 7, 8 years old. And I said one of the first albums I had was Van Halen's 1984. With the little baby that's the cherub and he's got a pack of cigarettes. This album had other hit songs like Panama. I'll Wait, and Hot for Teacher, which had a great video that was on MTV that would confuse eight-year-old me. The number one movie was Splash, and you could get into the theater with a ticket costing $3.36. This is the romantic comedy about a mermaid in New York, Daryl Hannah as Madison the mermaid, Tom Hanks as her love interest. It also stars Eugene Levy, John Candy. The movie made about $70 million on a budget of about $11 million. It's 91% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and was definitely one of the first movies I watched as a kid that I really remembered a lot of the lines from. The number one TV show was Dallas. The nighttime soap opera about the Ewing family, the oil dynasty. It was originally on for 14 seasons and 357 episodes. It's also well known for the famous Who Shot JR episode in 1980, which is the second highest rated primetime telecast ever behind only the final episode of MASH. And if you were around back then, March 9th, 1984... Perhaps that's the day you were born and you were a newborn baby. Maybe your parents are looking for something to give you as a gift coming into the world. Well, I got something for you. You can check out the Sears catalog or the Kenner Toys catalog and get yourself a 36-inch plush Care Bear, which I didn't know existed until a few days ago. Cheer Bear, Bedtime Bear, Friend Bear, Grumpy Bear, all those bears. You can get one of those for $99.99 or $305 when adjusted for inflation to 2025. Maybe that's why I hadn't heard of these Care Bears before, because they were so damn expensive. But you can go look on eBay. I found some. They're not too bad. $150 to $200 for a 40-year-old stuffed toy. I'm sure it smells great. But that was what was happening 41 years ago, March 9th, 1984. The birthdate of my friend and Patreon subscriber, Crystal. I hope that painted a good picture of what was going on in the world the day you came into it. But now we go from... Fun memories of the time capsule to songs that could only have been made in the 1980s. These are the quintessential 80s songs and videos. There are some things that just scream whatever time period they came out. I've done segments on fads of different decades. I've done segments on symbols of different decades, and I'll be doing more of each. It popped in my head a couple of weeks ago when I think I was watching some random video on YouTube, some 80s video. So I haven't heard that song in a while. Let me play it. And I thought to myself, There's no way you could make this song at any other time than the 1980s. So I figured, why not turn it into a top five segment? Quintessential 1980s songs and videos. I have a good feeling that at least with some of these, when I say what they are, you're going to nod your head and say, yup, it screams 80s. And if it doesn't scream 80s, I'm going to explain why it should. But enough of me kind of setting up the premise of this segment. Let's get into it. So with most of these top five segments, there are some honorable mentions and they're in no particular order. And unfortunately, because I don't want to get copyright strikes or get yelled at, there won't be clips of these songs. So you're going to have to go and imagine them. Or better yet, what I'll do is I'll create a playlist on Spotify. I haven't done one of those in a while. So it'll be the quintessential 80s songs. I'll kind of gloss through the honorable mentions, maybe give you a little bit of why they're on this list. Anyway, honorable mentions for quintessential 80s songs and videos include Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley, the music, the video, the fact that it became Rickrolling in the 2010s. Another honorable mention is 99 Luftballons by Nina G. In English, in German, a very happy, upbeat song about war and death. Another honorable mention is Rocket by Herbie Hancock. An iconic keyboard melody and a very weird video. Another honorable mention is Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles. Yes, it was 1979, but it was the first video ever on MTV, so it kind of counts. And the final honorable mention is Rock Me Amadeus by Falco. A kind of new wave song about a classical music artist with a singer named Falco. That's very 80s. So those are the honorable mentions. Could you hear them in your head? One thing that proves that these songs are quintessential 80s is the fact that I don't think any of these have been... Covered, or at least not by anyone who was anything in the music industry. There is no cover version of Never Gonna Give You Up and such. Oh, but on to the top five. Are you ready for quintessential 80s? I know I am. So let's get into it right now with number one. I Ran by Flock of Seagulls. This song is off of their album A Flock of Seagulls from 1982. The thing that I always remember, this was the first song I thought of for this list, is their hairdo. Like, I don't know if the pointy hair coming down is supposed to be like a beak, but could you imagine anyone with that kind of hairstyle now? I mean, I guess they might be kind of post-punk, but Iran is not a punk song. This video was all over MTV when it came out. It broke into the top 10 in the U.S., That's the other big thing about this quintessential 80s songs list. All these songs were hits. I did not scour the internet to find the worst songs ever, most obscure songs. Although I'm sure a lot of you are hearing this list and saying, God, all these songs suck. Number two is Take On Me by A-Ha. It's like a graphic novel comic book come to life. This is another song that anyone that grew up in the 80s knows it. And you know the video and you can see it. But it's like the comic book character and he's getting like beat up in a hallway. Like he's just getting thrown into the walls. And the girl is all scared for him. And then he finally falls out into her reality. It's like what a weird video. This was off of their 1985 album Hunting High and Low. It's another one that if you just heard the song, you've got a picture in your head. If you see the video, it doesn't match up. The song went to number one, mainly based on how much rotation the video got on MTV. Again, it comes back to the style of the video. I guess it was cutting edge at the time, but it is so dated by today's standards. The video took 16 weeks to make due to all of the animations. And as of the recording of this podcast, the video has 2.1 billion views on YouTube. Quintessential 80s does not mean it wasn't a huge success. Number three is Safety Dance by Men Without Hats. This just has music that would only be 1980s, a video that's only 80s with the singer just walking through some random rural village. This was off of the 1982 album Rhythm of Youth that Men Without Hats released. I had to look it up, but I guess the meaning of Safety Dance, if you cared, was a protest song against bouncers in certain clubs who restricted dancing. So that's the meaning of the song, but the video is this random dude walking through some rural village. Like, it doesn't match up, and it makes it even more quintessentially 80s. It's like so many of these, the videos or the song lyrics or the meanings, they don't match up. It just reminds me of an interview I remember with Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins. This was probably in the mid-90s. And they were asking him about how he titled his songs. And he said there was a song off of the album Siamese Dream in 1993. And it was about a young person trying to find themselves and fit in and know who they were. Very deep stuff, right? And he named the song Mayonnaise. I was like, okay, that's the way you want it. Anyway, moving on. Number four is Axl F by Harold Faltermeyer. It's the instrumental. It's from Beverly Hills Cop. You can see Eddie Murphy walking around the dark warehouse with that synth keyboard playing. This was off the 1984 Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack. And this song went to number three on the charts. This is where I say quintessential 80s. That a keyboard synth instrumental from a movie got that high on the Billboard charts. It just goes to show you how big a star Eddie Murphy was at the time and how big a movie Beverly Hills Cop was. Because just imagine you watching any movie that's out now or within the last 10 years, and there's some instrumental music that's under the scene to set it up. Could you imagine that music getting in the top five charts? It just doesn't make sense. But a lot of the 80s didn't make sense. I mean, we had that show Small Wonder about the guy that made a robot daughter. Do you remember Vicky? I'll probably do a segment about that at some point. But let's move on. Finally, number five on the top five quintessential 1980s songs and videos is Walk Like an Egyptian by The Bangles. Sure, there's been lots of stupid dance crazes throughout the decades, but one that mimicked Egyptian hieroglyphs and how people were drawn on the walls of the pyramids thousands of years ago, that's what you're going to make into a song and a dance craze? Although a few years later, they did go even further back and make a song, Walk the Dinosaur, so I don't know. I still love the 80s. Don't judge too much. This was off of the Bangles' 1986 album, Different Light, and it was their first number one song. Yes, it went to number one The video of people everywhere doing that stupid thing with their arms. It was just a different time. And all these songs and videos were quintessentially 80s. But that wraps up the top five. How many of these songs definitely make you think of the 80s? And how many are you going to go watch the videos of after to get some great nostalgia? We'll do other quintessential songs of decades coming up. But for me, there was no better place to start than the 80s. This segment basically starts off with a question. What is a B-movie? I want to do segments on the podcast dealing with B-movies' best, worst, weirdest... But I was kind of like, there may be some people that don't know what I'm talking about when I mention B-movies, so I figured why not do a segment just about what they are. So we're going to go way back in the day and do a bit of an overview of what B-movies are, a few examples and characteristics of them. B-movies have long held a special place in the world of cinema. They started as the lower half of double feature bills. So that's where the B movie, there's an A movie and a B movie. The B one was the second one, probably figuring people came to see the headliner and they might walk out during the second. But now so many B movies have cult status in modern pop culture. A lot of these films, and they're still made to this day, they captivate audiences with low budgets. outrageous plots, and endearing charm. Going back to the beginning, the term B-movie originated in the golden age of Hollywood, which is roughly the 1930s through the 50s. It was during this period that studios produced double features. There would be a high budget A-movie as the main attraction, a lower budget B-movie as the secondary offering. I just had to stop and think. I can't think of the last time I went to the movies in the theaters. It was before COVID. That's just a random side note there. Sometimes with these podcasts, I'm like a dog that sees a squirrel. I'll be recording it, and I'll think of something that pops in my head, and I'm like, oh, I got to talk about it. Other times, I will make sure I stay on point. That's why I have notes. Circling back, though, these B movies, they were produced quickly and cheaply, and they often used leftover sets, lesser-known actors. formulaic storytelling. And it all sounds like bad things, but it's not. Despite their financial limitations, the B movies were an essential part of the film industry. I mean, you've got to have movies that provide affordable entertainment for audiences and give a proving ground for up-and-coming talent. Look at me. I've got a small part in an indie horror film. I can't go to the directors and say I want to be in the next Marvel movie, push Robert Downey Jr. out of the way. I'm not saying I'm going to be an actor like that. I'm just saying it's one of those that so many up-and-coming talents, they got to have somewhere to start. B-movies in general, they're characterized by several key elements. First and foremost is a low budget. So many of these movies are typically made with a fraction of the budget of mainstream film. This makes it where the directors, the rest of the crew, they've got to rely on creative problem solving to stretch every dollar. Low budget, in quotes, is kind of subjective. I had to pause and go and look and see what is considered a low budget film today. I'm seeing anything from $400,000 to some people saying low budget films are considered films with a budget of $15 million or under. Can you imagine that? Some people think that $15 million is a low budget film. I think I could turn every single one of my short stories and every skit I ever did with my camcorder into films for probably like $10,000. Well, don't hold me to that, but maybe. Another big trait of B-movies are the campy or outlandish stories. You know, whether it's a giant radioactive monster attacking Tokyo, group of rebellious bikers on the run. B-movies often feature wild, over-the-top narratives. When I first got the idea to do segments on B-movies, the first thing I thought of was 1950s and 60s monster movies. Not all B-movies have giant monsters in them, but so many are. If you go back to the 1950s, you can find dozens of movies that are giant lizards, giant spiders, giant ants. It's like giant anything, and you fight it. For all of its success, the original Godzilla film in 1954 had a budget of $175,000 US dollars. Which even when adjusted for inflation to 2025, it's still about $900,000. So that is very low budget. That's where the copycats came in. You see the success with Godzilla and suddenly there's tons of giant lizards and giant everything. Another quality of these B-movies is the unpolished acting. That's due to the budget constraints that many of these B-movies cast the lesser-known, inexperienced actors, which led to performances that ranged from surprisingly great to hilariously bad. I mean, you get some very well-acted B-movies like The Rocky Horror Picture Show or Foxy Brown, both from the 70s. Then you get the hilariously bad The Room from 2003 with Tommy Wiseau. That's almost cliche to put that in there. And they had a budget of $6 million, so I don't know what his excuse was. In these B-movies, you also get special effects or lack thereof of special effects. The one that always makes me laugh is 1955's Tarantula, which is about a giant spider. But they were out in the desert and there'd be scenes of this giant spider coming towards them on the horizon. And it looked basically like a picture of a desert with a giant spider in its shadow there. That's because the special effects in B-movies can be wildly inconsistent. Sometimes you get people like Ishiro Honda who did the original Godzilla where the special effects you can't believe they did it for such a little budget. then you get junk like Tarantula, which is 93% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. So I guess they don't judge it just on the special effects. A lot of these B-movies, they've got a lot of the miniatures or stop motion or superimposing normal animals over smaller scenes or pictures. But that's not, I'm not saying it's bad. It actually adds to the charm of some of the movies. Another quality of B-movies, it's the genre appeal. Because you've noticed as I've been naming off examples, the vast majority of the B-movies I talk about, they're horror, they're sci-fi, but they're also weird ones, crime and exploitation, capitalizing on the sensationalism and shock value to draw in audiences. You can't count on great acting and great effects. You've got to have something to get people talking. So not to spoil all the future segments about B-movies, but I wanted to give you a few examples of iconic B-movies throughout the decades. First and foremost is Plan 9 from Outer Space. That's in 1959, and it's often cited as the worst movie ever made. Although The Room with Tommy Wiseau may, say, hold my beer, but it's an Ed Wood movie. It's kind of a prime example of so bad it's good. The budget for this movie was $60,000. And for the quote-unquote worst movie ever made, it's 66% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. George Romero's classic Night of the Living Dead from 1968, that's a low-budget B-movie that introduced zombies to the mainstream. Everything, if you enjoy the zombie genre, it all goes back to the OG. And I think I told you that it is public domain, so you could record it and put it up on YouTube and get people to watch it. There's the Toxic Avenger from 1984. It's the quintessential trauma entertainment movie. Trauma is an independent film company founded by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz in 1974. I do remember Toxic Avenger when I was in elementary school, middle school. The movie blends absurd humor and over-the-top gore and the anti-hero protagonist Toxie. He's not exactly cute. You can't put him on a poster. Well, you can. The Evil Dead franchise, especially the first two. Sam Raimi's horror-comedy hybrid filled with so much blood and gore. The first one is an all-time great. Evil Dead 2 kind of changed everything. This movie launched Bruce Campbell into superstardom. A more recent one is 2013's Sharknado. This is the original on the SyFy channel. Literally a tornado of sharks. Now SyFy does these ones because that became really popular and an internet sensation. So it's like they just keep coming up with more and more obscure combinations. I think it was last year I had an idea for a movie called Shark Yodi, and it was a great white that was going around, but his best friend was a coyote that rode on his back, and he just tag-teamed killed everyone. See? Give me ten grand, I'll make Shark Yodi. Despite their flaws, or maybe because of them, B-movies have garnered a devoted fanbase. I love those 50s films, the giant monster ones. I've mentioned them and I make fun a little, but I watch them. I think part of it is because even when the execution is questionable, you can see the passion behind them. Many B-movies are unintentionally hilarious, offering unfiltered creativity that mainstream films often avoid. And like I said earlier, they provide an avenue for independent filmmakers, up-and-coming actors... And no matter what you think, people continue to embrace the wild, weird, and wonderful world of B-movies. So go on, give a chance to one of those low-budget films, especially the 50s ones. And as we go on in the podcast, I'll be doing segments on best and worst and weirdest B-movies. But this was the intro to get your mind going. And until next time, that is going to wrap up episode 186 of the In My Footsteps podcast. Thank you for making it to the end. Thank you for making my show, my low-budget B-movie podcast, into something that you tune into weekly. I appreciate all of you that make this a part of your week, that share it. Obviously, I must enjoy doing these. I'm 186 episodes in. There is still so much more I have to share. I said when I began the podcast in the fall of 2020, I probably had enough content for four years worth of podcasts. We are well past that because I keep doing research and finding new things that I think would be fun to talk about. Pop culture, history, nostalgia, all that. It's going to continue next week with episode 187. I could barely contain my excitement because next week is going to celebrate the 20th anniversary of The Office. It's one of my favorite shows ever. And the fact that it's 20 years old, I mean, it makes me feel old. But it officially, for me, puts it into the nostalgia category. Yes, I feel that two decades is long enough ago that you can long for those days. I don't long for the days of 2018. Although I was in much better shape as a runner back then, so maybe I do. If you enjoy my content, you want to support me, my podcast, my YouTube channel, my blogs, any of my nine books, you can become a subscriber on Patreon for $5 a month. You can buy me a coffee. Be on the lookout for the In My Footsteps podcast website. It's pretty much ready to go. Like the house is built, but I have to continue painting the rooms, if that makes sense. For example, I'm trying to get every link that I've shared ever on all these podcasts into one page, which takes forever. I'm also listing every episode I've done, all the notes, including the podcast cover art. So these things take a while. Hopefully within the next month, it'll be up and you can tell me what you think. Visit my homepage, ChristopherSatterlund.com. Like I said, links to all nine of my books. I'm hopeful maybe sometime later this year I'll have an announcement about book 10. There are some rumblings, little ripples. So we'll see if later in the summer something comes from it. Check out my Etsy shop with my photography. I'm putting up new photo prints every weekend, one or two, to kind of keep people coming back. I'm also going to start doing photo books. My Cape Cod Sunsets book. I think by the time you hear this podcast, it should be up there. I want to make that something perfect for people's coffee tables. Whether you live on Cape Cod, used to live on Cape Cod, or wish you did and want to see what it's like. You can find me all over social media. My Facebook fan page. Instagram. Threads. TikTok, occasionally I do videos. They're not dance ones. It's relevant content. I'm on Blue Sky. I'm not on X anymore, which actually has hurt my marketing of the podcast some, but that site sucks, so I'm not going back there. But you can find me all these other places. Quick birthday shout out on the day this podcast goes live to Chris, not just my buddy Steve's brother, a good man in his own right. We'll see you next time. So get out there. The weather is getting warmer. It's in the upper 40s, maybe touching 50, which, man, this winter has sucked. So I'm so glad that the weather is turning. As I'm recording this, it's sunny and 40, but it's so windy. I feel like a tree is going to come through the window. Before you know it, though, spring will be here. Then summer will be here. And then it's all downhill. No. Enjoy every moment, every day. Because nothing's guaranteed. And if you need this podcast as an escape to help you go out and walk in the sun, definitely take it with you. I'll keep pumping out the content. 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, but you already knew me. And I'll talk to you all again soon.

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Christopher Setterlund

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