In My Footsteps Podcast Mixtape #3: Product Fails of the 1960s - 1990s(12-24-2025)

 

Order a copy of my debut film, Cape Cod Cthulhu!

Merry Christmas Eve to all who are celebrating! This week, there is something special left under your tree. It is a gift you don't have to wait until Christmas Day to open. A brand new mixtape!

Mixtape #3 delivers all of the product failures of the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s in one convenient podcast episode. These are the things you wouldn't want to get from Santa.

This look back at product fails runs the gamut. From Betamax to the Amphicar, from New Coke to Crystal Pepsi, there are loads of big name fails and just as many that will have you running to Google to search for.

Whatever decade you grew up in the fails were there and have all been collected in this new Mixtape episode. So sit back, relax, and hope that you can find the receipt if you get any of these products as a gift this holiday season.

Merry Christmas to all of my listeners!

You can support my work by becoming a member on Patreon. Or you can Buy Me A Coffee!

Helpful Links from this Episode

• Buy My New Book, In Their Footsteps!
• Searching For the Lady of the Dunes True Crime Book
• Hooked By Kiwi - Etsy.com
• DJ Williams Music
• KeeKee's Cape Cod Kitchen
• Christopher Setterlund.com
• Cape Cod Living - Zazzle Store
• Subscribe on YouTube!
• Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog
• CJSetterlundPhotos on Etsy

Listen to Episode 224 here

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #100: Back In Time, Fox Sounds, 90s Mindset, etc.

1. I got an important message on Facebook this week. I need to convert my security to two-factor authentication before a certain date. The date? December 31, 1969. So not only do I need to change my security settings on Facebook, but I also need to find Doc Brown and the DeLorean and go back over 50 years to do it. It doesn’t give me a lot of confidence in security settings when they can’t even get the year right. If I have no other choice, I’ll wait until they at least get the date right before I go switching up my security settings.


2. Stand By Me and The Princess Bride were two of the most important films of my childhood in the 1980s. Rob Reiner was one of the most important directors of the last 40 years. Far beyond his work as Mike ‘Meathead’ Stivic on All In the Family, he created some of the most beloved films of my life. Death comes for all of us. It is undefeated. But for someone so beloved in Hollywood to be murdered in his own home in his late 70s, it’s beyond awful. I’m sure more details will be coming out in the weeks to come, but it appears as though it was his own son who did it. Sad, so damn sad. RIP Rob Reiner.


3. I signed up again for Netflix this week. It was mostly due to my FOMO over the final season of Stranger Things. I signed up for the lowest tier, with ads, for $7.99. I was anticipating being overloaded with ads. Thus far I have watched four episodes of Stranger Things Season 4, because I have to catch up, and I have yet to see one single ad. I even had to go check and make sure I didn’t accidentally sign up at a higher tier. You know what that means, right? At some point in the near future, the luck will even out, and I’ll be watching a show that is 75% ads. I have jinxed myself, but it’ll be worth it for Stranger Things, Cobra Kai, and Black Mirror.


4. I absolutely loved IT: Welcome To Derry. The show was loaded with easter eggs for lovers of the IT movies and also expanded the lore of those movies and the book. The plan is for 2 more seasons, each taking place in a different year as Pennywise continues his quest to destroy his enemies, present and future. If you enjoy horror, you’ll love this. It’s shot beautifully and should win an Emmy for cinematography, and other things. The acting is first-class. There are 8 total episodes, and each one feels like a movie in and of itself. I will not spoil anything for those who are watching or are going to watch. All I’ll say is that at the end, you’ll see how the prequel show lines up with the movies. Excellent.

5. In the continuing adventures of training my 12-year-old client comes this gem. We normally throw a 10# medicine ball back and forth for almost our entire 30-minute session. This week, his shoulder was tired, and his legs were tired from snow fun. I found a workaround by having him kick a kid’s rubber ball. His heart rate was still getting up there, and we made a game out of it. Luckily, without any weight to the ball, it could hit anything and not cause damage. Well, almost anything. During our session, the very first kick he did managed to be a line drive to my nuts. I had to not sell the impact, otherwise the whole session would have turned into him trying to nail me in the junk with the ball, or something more dangerous. In all, it was a fun time with 300 calories burned by me.


6. I have vivid dreams quite often. I will wake up multiple times per week, remembering whatever the dream was that I had. Most of the time, they are just random stuff, as most dreams tend to be. This week I had a dream like that, although it did feel like it had more meaning. I was at a school track with my friend Mike, of Monday Runday fame. For the first time ever, we were joined by our other friends Steve and Greg. What made this dream stand out was that our friend Pete showed up. Sadly, he passed away from cancer a little over 3 years ago. In the dream, he was drinking a specific type of water that, in the dream world, we recognized as being one taken off the market because it was proven to cause cancer. He had to have me and Greg scrub down the bleachers with soap and water so he could safely sit on them, as he had a compromised immune system in the dream. I don’t remember much of what we spoke about; it was brief, but I remember the water and us all bringing up how it had been pulled for causing cancer. I wish there were some special message Pete had for me to relay to the others. Maybe there was, but I forgot it. I think the fact that he was there, and I had never dreamed of all of those other friends before, makes this a special dream. Thanks for visiting, Pete.


7. As a big fan of the Back to the Future movies, I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of time travel. I can’t build a time machine. I don’t know how to make a flux capacitor. However, little did I know that I didn’t need to build a time machine. I have access to one in the basement in the form of the dryer. I was drying my laundry this week and waiting for the last 3 minutes to tick off on the timer. All of a sudden, boom! It’s back up to 19 minutes! I went 16 minutes into the past just like that. Nothing important happened, like me knowing the Powerball numbers or being able to save someone from an accident. Nope. In fact, it was just the fact that my clothes apparently weren’t dry in the time the dryer said they would be. So, in conclusion, the dryer isn’t a time machine, but it is a liar.


8. A strange occurrence happened one afternoon this week. We had a day of pretty steady rain, but as the sunset drew close, I noticed that there were some breaks in the clouds. I figured it was a perfect excuse to get outside since it was in the 50s in mid-December. I drove to a nearby beach and snapped a few cool photos before heading back to my car to post them on social media. While I was sitting in my car, I heard a strange sound. I thought it was either a kid screaming or an odd dog barking. I looked in my mirrors and saw a fox standing in the parking lot, maybe 20 feet behind my car. I stepped out and began shooting a video. It trotted away, but not before making that same odd barking sound on video. I went back to sitting in my car, but heard the barks a few more times and saw the fox walking through the parking lot toward the beach. Being foolish, I got out and started trying to find it to get more photos or videos. Now I had watched the fox running, and it didn’t look injured, so I felt like I wouldn’t get attacked. It was also dusk, so it was hard to see where it could have been hiding. Eventually, after walking across the entire beach, I heard it barking again. It was sitting up on a hill next to a fence, barking. I didn’t dare get too close, so I didn’t end up getting any more video. A person walking to the beach also heard the fox and thought it might have been calling its mate. I wasn’t going to keep chasing after it, especially since it disappeared under the fence. I did get the video, though.



9. I have been writing for decades. I first wanted to become a writer when I was in 2nd grade. I’ve done poetry, song lyrics, short stories, novels, blogs, and various other types of books. Despite having some experience in writing, I am surprised at how much of a learning curve there is for me when it comes to script writing. As some of you know, I am working on a script for a feature-length film that will be happening in the summer of 2026. It’s based on an old short story of mine, The Cabin, which I wrote in 2009. First off, I have to revise the actual book since my writing has improved in the last 15 years. Then I have to adapt that into a script. Why is it a learning curve? I guess it’s having to include a lot more ancillary details like where the scene is, some of how the camera should shoot, descriptions of actions, and the like. Think of it as having to describe everything that’s happening in as much detail as possible. Luckily, I have some time to get the first draft of the script done. After that, the director of the film, who has loads of experience, can help guide me to the finish line.


10. It was three long weeks that I wasn’t able to go for any outdoor walks. The weather was the main culprit. The only thing better than the 45-degree and sunny day was digging deep into my past with 90s Pop Radio on Pandora. Oh, but not just '90s Pop, but the ‘Discovery’ setting, deep cuts, man. After about 3 miles of my 5.5-mile walk, I was full-on back in the 90s, and it was bliss. I want to find a way to make 2026 more like the 1990s because the 2020s have been the worst decade of my life. Not sure what I can do to make that happen. Music, yes, a lot of the same friends, yes. Unfortunately, I am on the downside to 50, no matter how much I listen to Nirvana and wear flannel, that won't change. Maybe it’s a mindset. In the 90s, my whole life was an open road, and seemingly anything was possible. Now in the 2020s, it’s like I’m on a pothole-filled dirt road running through a wide-open desert with no side streets and no scenic overlooks. Maybe that’s the goal for 2026, to bring back the wonder I had for life in the 1990s. I’ll get to work on that.

This is how the 2020s have felt in my life.

In My Footsteps Podcast Episode 224: Video Game Crash of 1983, Forgotten 1970s Game Shows, Weird Old Holiday Recipes(12-17-2025)

 

Order a copy of my debut film, Cape Cod Cthulhu!

An event that nearly ended the video game industry. Game shows that were lost to history. Some recipes that would ruin any holiday get-together.

Episode 224 of the podcast pairs great with hot cocoa, a crackling fire, and a brightly lit tree.

We look back at an event that nearly changed the course of entertainment. Video games were all the rage in the early 1980s, but the positive turned into a negative. An oversaturated market among other issues led to the Video Game Crash of 1983. Get all of the story in a deep dive into this monumental event.

The 1970s had some hugely popular game shows like the Match Game, Family Feud, Let's Make A Deal, and more. These will not be a part of this segment. We are going to look at some forgotten 1970s game shows. Expensive concepts, convoluted ideas, and extravagant sets make up many of these games that came and went in a flash.

There's a new Top 5 that is sure to ruin any holiday feast. We look at some weird old holiday recipes. These 1960s and 1970s classics make strange use of hot dogs, tuna salad, brussels sprouts. Keep the trash close and the bathroom closer with these. 

There is a brand-new 'This Week In History' and 'Time Capsule', looking back at the life and legacy of Kentucky Fried Chicken founder Colonel Sanders.

You can support my work by becoming a member on Patreon. Or you can Buy Me A Coffee!

Helpful Links from this Episode

• Buy My New Book, In Their Footsteps!
• Searching For the Lady of the Dunes True Crime Book
• Hooked By Kiwi - Etsy.com
• DJ Williams Music
• KeeKee's Cape Cod Kitchen
• Christopher Setterlund.com
• Cape Cod Living - Zazzle Store
• Subscribe on YouTube!
• Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog
• CJSetterlundPhotos on Etsy
• Cape Cod Cthulhu: Exclusive Interview

Listen to Episode 223 here

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #99: Speed Changes, Bad Parents, Cheap Store, etc.

1. Maybe this only happens to me, but I feel like I am driving slower on a road if there is a car in front of me. What I mean is that if I am going 40 and there’s a car in front of me, I feel as though I am actually going slower. If I am going 40 with an open road ahead of me, it feels faster. Am I the only one who gets that feeling? Maybe with an open road, I know I could go faster if I wanted to? There has to be some reason for it. Just like how if you drive the same route repeatedly, you can basically black out and still get to where you’re going. It’s like muscle memory.


2. In 2025, when I played Spotify, I typically stuck to one of two playlists. I played my Chill Mix, which consists of a lot of downtempo music, at home. At work, I played a Best of the 1980s playlist since much of my clientele is 50+. It should have come as no surprise to me that when I got my Best of 2025 playlist made by Spotify that it was basically both of those playlists crammed into one. I scrolled through it once and decided that since I heard those songs so much as it is why would I bother playing it? I guess I should try to play more of a variety of music in 2026 just so my best of playlist will be exciting next year.


3. There are tons and tons of great parents out there...and then there are these next people. So I was at the supermarket when I spotted a boy who must have been 4 carrying some food item that he kept dropping, intentional or not, on the floor. The parents kept telling him to stop, but didn’t take the thing he was dropping away. Cut to 5 minutes later, and they come rolling in after me at the little self-checkout section. The mother and daughter, who was probably 10, started checking out and immediately getting mad at the self-checkout register. Behind me, the boy is still dropping that item he had, which I saw was a bag of chips. Then he stepped on it until it popped. Again, the parents tell him to stop but don’t take it away. Oh wait but the best is yet to come. I check out and am leaving. It’s probably 40 feet from the self-checkout to the automatic front doors. Who do I see standing there, not letting the doors close? The 4-year-old boy. No parents around. They had no clue where he was. And it was nearly 8pm. Lucky for them there were no kidnappers around. I can’t be too shocked, though, since the parents looked like if you added them together they’d have the same IQ as a piece of chewed bubblegum.


4. An interesting phenomenon occurs around this time each year. Once the weather starts to get consistently cold, I remember that there is a small hole in the ceiling right above my desk at work. It happened this week. I was sitting doing paperwork and noticed that I had an urge to put my coat on. Out in our lobby, it is consistently 70 degrees, but in our therapy room, where my desk is the temperature slowly drops as you walk across the room. That’s because the warm air is being destroyed by a funnel of ice-cold air above my desk. It comes from the warehouse. In the past, I have taken to shoving a shirt up in the hole, but the air still makes it through. I feel like I’m going to end up with a storm forming in front of my desk where the cold air and warm air meet. I can add it to the list of things we need to have the new owners of the building fix. Sealing the wall in the gym that abuts the warehouse so our heat doesn’t fly right out. Fixing our mini split so we can have quiet heat in the gym, not a 1960s-looking jet engine heater. Putting some adequate lighting in the shady back parking lot. Getting some lines painted in the customer front parking lot. Paving and putting lines in the employee's back parking lot. Any one of those would be great.


5. It’s an interesting window into my life as a child when I look at a piece of pottery I made in school when I was probably in 5th grade. My mom has kept it and now has it as a part of a really cool display with photos and candles, and such. I believe that I have a great imagination and a pretty good creative gene. I mean I do create books, podcasts, YouTube videos, this blog, etc. That being said, pottery was not going to be my chosen path. I made a sort of goblet, and besides the fact that I was 10 or 11, I believe that it shows a bit of possible ADHD. A bunch of different colors, lines, and holes, it’s so busy that it has to be ADHD at least a little. You be the judge.

6. In one of the most shocking stories in sports this year, the Indianapolis Colts have signed 44-year-old quarterback Philip Rivers to play on their team this year. 44 isn’t old in real life, but in sports it is. It’s doubly old when you have been retired for 5 years and are a legit grandfather. It’s kind of a no-win situation for the NFL. Either Rivers plays and does well, and it makes the current players in the league look bad. Or he comes back, and plays badly or worse, gets hurt, and it gets people asking why the NFL allowed it to happen. It’ll definitely be an interesting weekend of football. I must say, though, that the images floating around the internet of the Philip Rivers render for Madden ‘26 are pretty funny if they’re legit. He looks like some dude cosplaying as a football player. Here’s the image if you want a laugh.

7. My friend Mike and I spend our Monday afternoons in the warmer months doing Monday Runday at a local track. We have a running (no pun intended) joke about a store located across the street in a little strip plaza. It is called the ‘cheap store.’ Mike made it up, and I always figure it’s because it’s a low-end convenience store. I also believe it gets this name because of the stream of weirdos that frequent it. I stopped in to grab a few giant 5-Hour Energy drinks. They are the only place I know locally that has them. I was in there a total of 3 minutes, and in that time, I saw 5 people who could have been posts in the blog on their own. If I had to whittle it down to one, I’d go with the guy in the fur coat wearing shorts (on a 35-degree day) with sandals and socks. He was very interested in all of the specific nips that were behind the register. I got out of there as fast as I could to avoid any unseen shankings from the cheap store crew.

Greetings from the 'cheap store.'

8. The irony of old people going on social media to complain about younger people using social media isn’t lost on me. I see more people in general doing it, and I have to laugh. It’s like if you want to prove a point about social media, how about deleting your accounts and living your life? Or better yet, get a pencil and paper and write a letter to the opinion column of your local newspaper, like you would have done in the 1980s? It’s the need to feel important. I put this thought into practice this week. I realized that I got 5-10x more engagement on my photos on Threads rather than on Instagram with half of the followers. I had crafted a story post on IG announcing that I was going to be posting photos mainly on Threads from now on. Then I realized nobody would care about my announcement. So you know what I did? I just stopped sharing photos on IG without having to make a big production out of it.


9. This week, we finally got the classic unpredictable weather New England is known for. We were expected to get some sort of snow, but it kept going back and forth as far as how much. In the days leading up to the storm, it went from an inch to as much as 6 inches. Having lived in New England basically my entire life, I was hedging my bets about as far as how much snow we’d get. Instead of bringing the snow brush inside and lifting my windshield wipers up the night before, I left everything as it was. Naturally, we ended up on the heavier end of the snow totals. It was a snow shoveling afternoon but some good calorie burn according to my Fitbit. It could be a sign of a snowy winter, or, knowing New England, it’ll be 55 degrees on Christmas Day. We’ll see.


10. It’s amazing how time can go so slowly and quickly at the same time. 8 years ago this week, one of my oldest and very first friends of my life died suddenly. He had a wife and a young daughter and hadn’t even reached his 40th birthday. His name was Matt, and we shaped each other's formative years by being there for each other. We played, we rode bikes, we had adventures, we slept and ate at each other's houses, and we fought like brothers. Later in high school and into adulthood we lost touch; life just happens that way. In our late 30s, we reconnected in real life. We would seemingly always bump into each other at the grocery store. That became our adult hangout where we’d share stories of how life was going. One night in December 2017, I was beat up and tired from work. I just wanted to grab a few things in the store and go home. I spotted Matt, but he didn’t see me. I knew there would be another time to chat so I watched him push his cart around the corner at the end of an aisle and quickly got my shopping done. I can still see him rounding that corner forever in my mind. A few days later, I was getting a text from my sister Kate asking ‘what happened to Matt?’ It was a gut punch that in many ways I’ve never come back from. I had experienced death before but we knew it was coming. My Nana, my Aunt Christine, there was a long road to their final sunset. Not with Matt. I saw him one day and a few days later he was gone. Just remember that you don’t always have the time you think you do. Rest in peace, Matt. Until we meet again. For those interested, here is the podcast that I recorded in his memory.

In My Footsteps Podcast Episode 223: Toy Story Turns 30, The Worst Christmas Specials Ever, A Video Game That Sold 27 Copies?(12-10-2025)

 

Order a copy of my debut film, Cape Cod Cthulhu!

The 30th anniversary of a movie that changed the industry. Some of the worst Christmas specials ever made. A video game that might have only sold 27 copies?

Episode 223 is leaving the gift of GenX nostalgia under the tree.

It all begins with a look back at a movie that changed the industry. Toy Story could have been just another animated film, but instead it ushered in a whole new way of creating hit movies. 30 years ago it burst onto the scene and nothing was the same. We take a look back at what made this film so groundbreaking.

Some video games smash sales records. Then there is Uncle Henry's Playground. Is it true that this game only sold 27 copies in the U.S.? It's hard to say for sure but the fact is this game has become a punchline and a curiosity in the nearly 30 years since it was released to crickets.

Like lumps of coal in a stocking, this week's Top 5 is filled with things you wouldn't want to see. We will look at some of the worst Christmas specials ever produced. Poor stories, poor animation, and nonsensical descriptions are all represented on this list.

There is a brand new This Week In History and Time Capsule, looking back at the tragic death of music legend John Lennon.

You can support my work by becoming a member on Patreon. Or you can Buy Me A Coffee!

Helpful Links from this Episode

• Buy My New Book, In Their Footsteps!
• Searching For the Lady of the Dunes True Crime Book
• Hooked By Kiwi - Etsy.com
• DJ Williams Music
• KeeKee's Cape Cod Kitchen
• Christopher Setterlund.com
• Cape Cod Living - Zazzle Store
• Subscribe on YouTube!
• Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog
• CJSetterlundPhotos on Etsy
• Cape Cod Cthulhu: Exclusive Interview

Listen to Episode 222 here