In My Footsteps: A Gen-X Nostalgia Podcast

Episode 101: A Disney World/Cape Cod Connection?; An Ounce of Prevention 80s PSA; Weirdest Music Videos; Remembering My Uncle Eric(1-12-2023)

• Christopher Setterlund • Season 1 • Episode 101

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Episode 101 fully kicks off the new year. We'll look at some intentions for 2023 and perhaps a little preview of coming attractions.
It begins with a look at The Dome Restaurant formerly of Woods Hole. Located inside an authentic geodesic dome this restaurant provides a direct link between Cape Cod and Walt Disney World thanks to the dome's creator R. Buckminster Fuller.
We go way Back In the Day to look at the Ounce of Prevention PSA short film. 80s kids will likely remember the shorter PSAs from this film that featured several beloved Looney Tunes characters warning about the dangers of getting burned inside the home.
There will be a brand new Top 5 as we gather up some of the weirdest music videos of all time. They are not necessarily all nightmare fuel(a few are), but they are no doubt different than the typical music videos. Watch them after at your own peril.
There will be a new This Week In History and Time Capsule as well.
The episode will be special and somber as well as I take a few moments to remember my Uncle Eric who passed away last week. He was an important person and leaves a large hole in the family. This episode was changed on the fly to make sure that there was a chance to reflect on his life.

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Intro
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 one zero one. We're really officially diving into 2023 into the new year with this week's episode. We're gonna start off with a look at a connection between Walt Disney World and Cape Cod, that being the Dome restaurant in Woods Hole. We're gonna take a road trip to the northernmost town in New England, that being the small town of Madawaska, Maine.
 
We're gonna go way, way back in the day and look at the old Ounce of Prevention video featuring a lot of Looney Tunes characters from the early 1980s. It's gonna be a brand new top five. These are the top five weirdest music videos that I can remember. And, of course, there'll be a brand new This Week in History and time capsule, all coming up right now on episode 101 of the In My Footsteps podcast. Okay.
 
So now it's Happy New Year. Last week's special supersized episode 100 of the podcast was so full that I decided to wait until this week's episode to really talk about the new year. Hopefully, it has started well for all of you as we're, you know, about two weeks in. I hate to ask it but how many of you have broken your resolutions already? If you have, don't worry.
 
I know that it's symbolic to set a resolution on New Year's Day but any day can be a day to set some kind of goal for yourself. So don't worry if you've broken it. My resolution or my goal is pretty wide open, but yet specific and I'll explain. I have a lot of stuff coming up in the first six months of this year including three books, one of those is gonna be self published. So I need to be focused on all these things that are coming up and that's part of my goal.
 
But I'm also going to not be so hyper focused on what's to come that I miss other things that might come up that I didn't even know or expect. So I don't know where that stands in my history of New Year's resolutions. It's more of like an intention. Setting the tone for the year, a new frame of mind, I guess. Last year, I was doing five things I hope to achieve each month.
 
I made it into July, and then I ended up falling off. I have high hopes for this year more so than just the career stuff that's coming up. I've been saying for the last several episodes of the podcast, I feel the momentum building. Just in general, it's a feeling. So my plan is to be the best version of myself I can be in 2023 and make this the best year it can be.
 
I just have no idea what that means, how that manifests, what it looks like come 12/31/2023. Of course, if you all stay tuned to the podcast, I'm sure you'll get updates from me ad nauseam as we go through the year. I wanted to take a moment just to thank everybody who has been tuning into the podcast. I hope you enjoyed last week's supersized episode that was all about the Lady of the Dunes. I hope it quenched your thirst for the true crime because there was a lot in that episode.
 
It was nearly two hours, and I packed as much information as possible into it. So this week's episode actually feels like a little bit of a relief because it's just a normal episode that'll likely clock in around fifty minutes. And speaking of that, let's dive right into the episode now. 


Remembering My Uncle Eric

So I'm changing things up a bit on this week's podcast. In the interest of transparency, I was having trouble finishing this week's episode, and I couldn't figure out why.
 
 And then I got some sad news, so I'm scrapping this week's road trip segment. I promise that next week, it will feature a trip to Madawaska, Maine in episode one zero two. But instead of talking about Madawaska, Maine, I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about my uncle Eric who passed away from pancreatic cancer at the age of 70 on January 5. At the time of recording this segment currently now, I've only heard about this news a few hours ago, so it's really fresh. And that's why I think it would be good to speak about him and his life and his impact on my life while it's fresh because that's where the truest emotions come out.
 
 When I was a kid, my uncle Eric was almost a mythical figure. He lived with my aunt Emma in the far off land of Hawaii. And the family would go visit him, but naturally, I was a kid, so I didn't go. Tickets weren't cheap. I mean, I can't even remember the first time that I met my Uncle Eric.
 
 It might have been when my cousin Patrick was born, and I think they all came to visit. So this would have been 1989, so I was 11 going on 12. Before then, he was a face in a photograph with some stories to go with it. A few years later, in my teenage years, my uncle Eric, aunt Emma, and my cousin Patrick, they all moved from Hawaii to Cape Cod. Some of you are probably saying, God, what a step down.
 
 But that's where all his family was. And they honestly, they only lasted a few years here. I think cold winters after having all those years in Hawaii, it was just too much to handle. But I was lucky. I have Christmas 1994 with my famous camcorder.
 
 My cousin Patrick, probably five years old, asking if I brought my Sega Genesis over to play to my nana's house. But even in those few years where they were here, and I was probably 15, 16, it was nice to actually get to know my uncle Eric as more than a face in a series of photographs of a place that I'll likely never see. But like I said, the Cape Cod winters, they weren't feeling that, and the West Coast called again. Eventually, they moved out to Las Vegas. In a time of instability in my own formative years, My uncle Eric, aunt Emma, and cousin Patrick were the lasting image of stability.
 
 They were the sort of tight family unit that I rarely felt. I felt it maybe in fleeting moments growing up, and maybe it's because my cousin Patrick was just the only child and there were five in my family, but they always seemed like a more stable family unit. And thus, it was only fitting that when I felt a need for change that I would seek to emulate that family unit. And I was in no position in my early 20's to become a husband or a father, but I could grab a small piece of that stability by moving to Las Vegas, a land of lots of opportunity. I moved out to Las Vegas in February for a change, but I also went out there because there was family.
 
 And because I knew that if I needed some kind of guidance or advice as an immature 22 year old, my uncle Eric would be able to give it to me. He had everything together. He had the success. He had the family unit. So I'd have been stupid not to pick his brain when I got the chance.
 
 But it comes back to that stability and the unity that he had with my aunt Emma and Patrick. It gave me a sense of calm that very few I knew in life could give me. And that doesn't mean at the time there was nobody that I felt that kind of connection to. My mother, my sisters, my grandparents, and a handful of close friends, they all it's the same. But for me in Las Vegas at that time, in a huge city overloaded with lights and noise and all the stimulation and all the vices, I was lucky to have that bit of family normalcy.
 
 Obviously, you that have listened to this podcast a lot, you know that I did not end up succeeding in Vegas. I came back to Cape Cod because I had a gambling issue, but that's neither here nor there. Nearly a decade after I had come back to Cape Cod from Vegas, during another time when, once again, the instability in my own life got overwhelming, It was my uncle Eric and aunt Emma that came to my rescue. They had moved back to Cape Cod again, and I won't get into the reasons why, but they gave me a stable roof over my head in a time when I felt upside down and just drowning in problems. And they didn't have to do that, but I think they could sense that I was kind of lost and going down.
 
 And so they threw me a life raft. And that's when I really got to know my uncle Eric and my aunt Emma being under the same roof as them during just day to day. They opened their home to me. Now granted, yeah, we're family. We're blood, but I'm not their child.
 
 But they treated me like that. And just in a time when there was so much shit, they became this beacon of hope just by helping me steady my shit. I was staying under their roof when my nana died, and we were all able to grieve for her together. And in the time not too long after, my aunt Emma's mother, Neta, she became my surrogate nana. And, god, she helped me so much to navigate the uncharted waters of losing someone so important to me, and that doesn't happen.
 
 If Eric and Emma don't show me the real love that I so desperately needed then. After only a few months, I left their home, and then, eventually, the West Coast and retirement called for them. My cousin Patrick was actually the first one to go back to Vegas, and I was shocked at the time, but Cape Cod was not his home. He grew up in Vegas, so Vegas was his home. He went home.
 
 My uncle Eric and aunt Emma, they did an awesome road trip that I was jealous of, but they ended up back in Vegas too, one of the suburbs. And then we weren't in touch as much as we were. And we weren't in touch as much as we should have been, as much as I should have been. And here's where it gets really real. Because in running away from the terrible excuse for a father that I've had, I ended up running away from those that always had my back.
 
 There were plenty of times that I wished that Uncle Eric had been my father. Hell, there were plenty of times that I wished my uncle Bob, my uncle Steve, Serpa, Maui, my grandpa had all been my father, but that's beside the point. I was able to thank my uncle Eric at the time for having my back when I felt adrift in a sea of madness. I just wish I could have said it again now. I was able to celebrate holidays, birthdays.
 
 He came to book events of mine, but I also got to enjoy the mundane moments of everyday life thanks to being under the same roof as him for several months. Now here I am speaking of my uncle Eric in the past tense, like others before him. And you don't get used to it. You don't get used to trying to remember when the last time was that you saw someone or spoke to someone after they're gone. But now, every time I hear some good classic Hawaiian music, I'll think of my Uncle Eric.
 
 I did anyway, but I will more so now because he brought that sound to my attention when I lived in Las Vegas. He brought me to this awesome Hawaiian festival I have all these photos of. It's still a huge memory from my life. You haven't lived until you hear this Hawaiian band cover Santana song Smooth with the island sound. It was awesome.
 
 But anytime I hear artists like Mauna Lua, the Ka'au Crater Boys, Country Comfort, Alea, and others that 99.99% of you will have never heard of, it will always bring back special memories to me now as they'll be what reminds me of him. And now as I speak about this with it being so raw still, I get so sad wishing that I could have been there more in the last few years knowing that he was traveling down that last road and now knowing that my uncle Eric's son has set never to rise again. But I'm also so lucky that I have a lot more great memories of him than I ever thought I would have when I was a kid, and he was a mythical figure living in the far off land of Hawaii. And so to you, uncle Eric, I say I love you, thank you, and rest in peace. Aloha.
 

The Dome Restaurant of Falmouth
Buildings come in all shapes and sizes. There are countless uniquely designed structures all over Cape Cod. Simply taking a drive down Route 6 A can open up a world of wonder and amazement at some of the newer and historic homes that don't fit the normal mold. The same can be said for restaurants. Not all are built the same.
 
In fact, some of you might remember the old Hunan Gourmet III Chinese restaurant in Orleans. That was actually built into the side of a hill, which was pretty unique. However, that former restaurant and any other uniquely designed restaurant on Cape Cod, current or past, must take a back seat to the Dome restaurant, which resided in the small scientific community of Woods Hole. This one of a kind establishment actually existed inside a geodesic dome. Now what is that?
 
Well, a geodesic dome is sphere-like in shape and consists of a thin skin with a network of triangles as a frame evenly distributing stress on the dome. And this is where the tease of Disney World and Cape Cod having a connection comes into play because Spaceship Earth at the Epcot Center at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida is one of the most famous geodesic domes on Earth. The idea of the geodesic dome was the brainchild of architect r Buckminster Fuller. He was born in Milton, Massachusetts in 1895, and Fuller developed the geodesic dome while in the Navy during World War two. He saw it as a potential solution to a world housing shortage and received a patent for his geodesic dome in 1954.
 
Fuller put his money where his mouth was by having a geodesic dome home built for himself and his wife Anne in 1960 in Carbondale, Illinois. If you go to fullerdomehome.com, you can learn all about that home, learn all about our Buckminster Fuller. The home still stands. It's on the registry of historic places, and there's an organization currently working on restoring it so that it can be visited inside by anyone that wants to check it out. So back to Cape Cod.
 
How did a geodesic dome come to be a popular and perhaps the most intriguing restaurant ever built on Cape Cod? Well, it was actually part of a larger project known as the Nautilus Motor Inn. The Dome, which was called Club Dome back then, was simply part of the package. The 54 room Nautilus Motor Inn was designed by Falmouth resident and MIT educated architect E Gunnar Peterson in 1954. R Buckminster Fuller, he oversaw the construction of the geodesic dome, which ended up being 54 feet in diameter and 27 feet tall.
 
The first free-standing dome of its kind would also prove to become another first. It would be naturally the first geodesic dome restaurant. Elegant decor was combined with the spectacular views of nearby Little Harbor to make the dome a unique place to dine. Many special occasions were held in this setting, including weddings, and it only made the moments more magical. The upscale 170 seat restaurant was more than just a novelty.
 
It was a hit throughout the 1950s and 1960s. The views of the ocean and Woods Hole were matched by specialty sandwiches on the dome's menu, like the Nobska turkey special, which was with bacon, Swiss cheese, and Russian dressing on a bulky roll, and the nautilus roast beef, which was with sliced onions and Russian dressing on a bulky roll. The dome also served breakfast and specialized in locally caught seafood. Unfortunately, over time, that which made the dome unique, the geodesic dome itself, actually proved to be the restaurant's downfall. The dome itself made of glass allowed for these spectacular views, but it also caused the restaurant to heat up.
 
It was like a greenhouse. So you can imagine in Cape Cod summers trying to eat inside there and having the blazing sun just heating the restaurant up despite, I'm sure, air conditioning in there as well. To remedy this, fiberglass was laid over much of the dome. And then to add another layer of insulation, there was a tarp that would be put over the dome as well. If you go to the Falmouth Historical Society to their website, there are postcards of the dome and you can see this tarp like structure hanging over the dome.
 
So basically, they ended up obscuring those beautiful harbor views that all of the customers loved. For decades, the dome was a must see attraction almost on par with the nearby Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. A combination of a geodesic dome with the views of the harbor and great food, it seemed too good to be true. And even though it lasted for nearly fifty years, it ended up being too good to be true. The Dome restaurant closed in 02/2002, and in the time since, it has fallen into severe disrepair.
 
The plans to restore the Dome and make it a historical attraction for visitors, those have been in the works from as far back as 2008. In July 2021, it was announced that there were plans to renovate the Nautilus Motor Inn and the geodesic dome itself. A group called Woods Hole Partners, they are the ones that are undertaking this, but said that the groundbreaking was due to start in September 2021. I don't know where that stands now. But apparently, the delay of all these years would due to a neighbor whose property abutted the motor in and dome, but Barnstable Superior Court ruled in favor of the developers.
 
So the project can go forward. I don't know where it's at. I will have to check into it for you. But for those of you that have never heard of the Dome restaurant, but you're familiar with Cape Cod, Falmouth, Woods Hole, if you're heading down Woods Hole Road towards the Steamship Authority ferry, essentially, as soon as you can see the water, you are passing the dome on the right. It's still there up on a hill, likely covered mostly with a blue tarp.
 
Hopefully, the restoration goes off and generations can go and check it out. It really does look like a slice of Walt Disney World, like Epcot Center right there in Woods Hole. 


This Week In History

This week in history, we are going back 54 years ago this week to 01/12/1969, and one of the greatest upsets in the history of American sports. It was Super Bowl III between the New York Jets of the American Football League and the Baltimore Colts of the National Football League. Baltimore came into the game with a record of 13-1 during the regular season, and they were 19 1/2 point favorites over the 11-3 New York Jets.
 
 These first few Super Bowls were when the AFL was pretty new. They had been established in 1960, while the NFL was the senior circuit much like the National League in baseball. And the first two Super Bowls had seen the Green Bay Packers roll over the Kansas City Chiefs and Oakland Raiders. So this was to be seen as no different. The Colts were gonna crush the Jets, and that was it.
 
 The NFL was just superior. But then a strange thing happened. Three days before the Super Bowl at the Miami touchdown club, jets quarterback Joe Namath famously guaranteed victory for his team. And this was back when athletes didn't guarantee victory, like every athlete pretty much guarantees a victory in just meaningless games in all sports now. Back then, it was shocking that he would actually make that proclamation.
 
 Namath helped his team dominate the game. They rushed out to a 16 nothing lead, thanks to a touchdown run by Matt Snell and three field goals by Jim Turner. Joe Namath would end up being the MVP of the Super Bowl as the Jets went on to win 16 to seven. It was their first and to this point only Super Bowl win and only Super Bowl appearance. Interestingly, Joe Namath became the first offensive player in the history of the Super Bowl up to now to win the MVP without personally scoring or throwing for a touchdown.
 
 He finished the game 17 of 28 in passes for 206 yards. It was a shocking loss for the Baltimore Colts whose quarterback Earl Morrill threw three interceptions and was replaced by legendary Johnny Unitas who didn't fare that much better, and future all time legend NFL coach Don Shula just didn't seem to have an answer for those jets. The Colts would get back to the Super Bowl two years later winning Super Bowl five, though Don Shula had moved on to coach the Miami Dolphins by then. And one last fun fact, this is the only Super Bowl matchup, the Jets and the Colts, that can never happen again, and that is because both teams now play in the same conference. And the guaranteed victory, one of the biggest upsets in the history of American professional sports, happened 54 years ago this week in history.
 
 And now it's time for a brand new time capsule. We're gonna stick to the same day, the day of Super Bowl III, January 12, 1969. Let's see what was going on in the world of pop culture back then. The number one song was I Heard It Through the Grapevine by Marvin Gaye. The song was written by Norman Whitfeld and Barrett Strong for Motown Records in 1966 and was first recorded by Gladys Knight and the Pips in 1967.
 
 It actually went on to become Motown's biggest hit ever at the time. Interestingly, Marvin Gaye recorded his version of I Heard It Through the Grapevine before Gladys Knight and the Pips, but it actually was released after. The song was number one for seven weeks and replaced the Gladys Knight and the Pips version of the song as the best selling Motown song ever, and that only lasted twenty months until the Jackson Five's I'll Be There replaced Marvin Gaye song as the best selling Motown song ever. The number one movie was Candy. This movie stars Marlon Brando, Walter Matthau, John Houston, and Ewa Ollen as the title candy character, who's a naive high schooler that meets a lot of colorful characters and has sexual escapades as she looks for the meaning of life.
 
 It's basically a humorous satirization of adult films and the foolish situations that always seem to lead to sex. It made just over $16,000,000 on a budget of just under 3,000,000 and has a 40% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. So it's one of those you hear Marlon Brando's in it that it might be worth checking out, but I'll leave that up to you guys. The number one TV show was not Super Bowl three. It was Rowan and Martin's Laugh In.
 
 As back then, the Super Bowl was seen as possibly a passing fad, so it was not as in demand on TV. Rowan and Martin's Laugh In', Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, it's one of the most famous comedy sketch shows ever. It's been mentioned before on these time capsules. It ran for six seasons and a 40 episodes and featured such big names as Goldie Hawn, Ruth Buzzy, Lily Tomlin, Gary Owens, the announcer, Henry Gibson. This is another one of those shows that I became acquainted with thanks to Nick at Nite in the mid to late 1980s.
 
 And if you were around back then, 01/12/1969, and you were looking to go to this relatively new thing called the Super Bowl, lucky for you, you could get a ticket to the Super Bowl for as low as $6 or about $48.72 when adjusted for inflation. And if you were wondering, tickets to go to this year's Super Bowl next month in February range anywhere from $3,900 to as high as $23,000 or about 80 times higher than inflation should dictate. So I'd say it's better to just sit at home and watch it on TV like the hundreds of millions of others. And that's gonna wrap up another This Week in History, another time capsule. Now we're gonna dive into a weird top five as I give you some of the weirdest, strangest music videos that I can remember.
 

Top 5 Weird Music Videos
So apologies in advance for any nightmares I may give you. So this week's top five, I apologize in advance to all of you that go and check out these weird music videos that I'm about to share with you. I had a hard enough time myself watching them. Now when I say weirdest music videos, they're not necessarily nightmare fuel or creepy. Some of them are mind numbingly stupid.
 
Others leave you scratching your head, wondering what you just watched. Some are like a fever dream. And all of these I'm about to share with you, you can find on YouTube. So watch them at your own peril. As with all of these top five lists, they're in no particular order.
 
And of course, I always have some honorable mentions to kinda get yourself ready for what's coming in the actual top five. So here we go. Honorable mentions for the weirdest music videos I've ever seen include Wazupwitu, which is by Eddie Murphy with Michael Jackson. Hooked on a Feeling, which is the David Hasselhoff video. Sledgehammer, which is by Peter Gabriel.
 
And finally, a little bit of a cheat, and that is most Primus videos. Just look up Primus in any song, and you'll likely wonder what the hell you're watching. So those are the honorable mentions. Let's jump right into the top five so you can wonder what in the world I am sharing with you. Number one is Land of Confusion by Genesis.
 
The song came out in 1986, and it was on the band's Invisible Touch album. I vividly remember this as a kid because it was all puppets, and most of them were part of the DC Follies comedy show, which was basically all politicians from the mid-1980s as puppets. That show will likely get its own back in the day segment at some point because there's so much to dive into. My vivid memory is of the Ronald Reagan puppet waking up in a cold sweat in his bed, but it was like an ocean of sweat. Just so weird, but it's a great song.
 
The video is really good, but the nine-year-old me didn't know what to make of it. Number two is three little pigs by green jelly. This song was off of the band's serial killer album in 1992, cereal like breakfast cereal. And the band was originally called Green Jell-O, but naturally a lawsuit from the Jell-O company forced them to change their names. The video plays on the three little pigs nursery rhyme with the pigs and the big bad wolf and it's stop motion claymation.
 
It's part comedy, part rock opera, part heavy metal, and it got a lot of rotation on MTV in 92/93. I guess rock opera metal songs based around nursery rhymes are just weird in general. So I think it's not that the video is overly weird nightmare fuel. It just was so different than anything else that was around back then. But you be the judge if you've never seen it.
 
Go and check it out, and then let me know if you think it's as weird like it deserves to be on this list. Number three is Sober by TOOL. The song came out in 1993. It was off of their album Undertow. TOOL is an acquired taste.
 
I think most people either love them or hate them. They're dark metal. I think they're great, but I could see where a lot of people might not enjoy them. This video would not help make fans of people on the fence. It's a claymation video of this little human but his head is basically a brain and he just gets kinda tortured through the whole thing.
 
It is definitely a weird fever-dream-type video. I can remember when it first came out not being sure exactly what I was watching. The years have been kinder to tool for me, but I could definitely see where people a little younger than me stumbling upon that video in 1993 would have nightmares from it. Number four is Beautiful People by Marilyn Manson. The song came out in 1996 and is off of the band's Antichrist Superstar album.
 
Pretty much anything with Marilyn Manson is just weird anyway. It's another one where you type in any Marilyn Manson song, you're likely gonna watch the video and say, what in the world is this? There are a lot of weird things that Marilyn Manson does. The dental device that exposes his teeth, bizarre costumes. It's hard to describe.
 
I can just tell you that with this video, you may feel like you need a shower after watching it. And finally, number five on my top five list of weirdest music videos is one I had totally forgotten about until putting together this list, and that is the song Fish Heads by Barnes and Barnes. This is more of a comedy novelty song. If you haven't heard of it, go watch the video. It'll be stuck in your head forever.
 
The song came out in 1978. The video was made in 1980 and was in heavy rotation during the early days of MTV. It's a song the guy sings about things he does with his fish heads, things that they can't do. In the video, he's got a fish head. He's gone to the movies with it.
 
He's got it dressed up as stuff. It is so weird, and then the chorus of the song is sung with high pitched voices like Alvin and the Chipmunks. This is like an acid trip, and you'll either laugh or you'll shake your head and wonder why you just wasted four minutes with it. But I remember it as a kid, and I laughed when I watched it to remember it for this segment. And that wraps up this week's top five.
 
Do you remember any of these videos? Did you watch them? I bet you like some of the songs though. That's why I wanted to stress that it's the weird music videos, not the songs. And let me know if I missed any because I can always come back and do a second top five, but I'll be back next time with a brand new top five.
 
Hopefully that I won't have to apologize in advance for for having you go watch weird music videos. I apologize again. 


An Ounce of Prevention PSA Video

Way back in episode 35, I did a back in the day segment about old school PSAs, public service announcements, that I remembered as a kid, specifically in the mid to late nineteen eighties that used to be featured in and around the kids shows that I watched typically in the morning before school on Boston TV stations WLVI fifty six and WSBK TV thirty eight. This week's Back in the Day segment is going to be kind of an offshoot of that same segment, as we're gonna take a deep dive into one particular collection of PSAs that I'm sure kids of the eighties will be familiar with. And those are the Ounce of Prevention videos featuring several beloved Looney Tunes characters.
 
 Now for those of you that saw these on channel 56, TV 38, or anywhere in the country, they weren't just exclusive to Boston, New England. This would have been the mid to late eighties, maybe into the early nineties. I don't know. But there would have been probably four separate PSAs featuring the Looney Tunes characters. And it was all about the dangers of fire and burning, specifically dealing with kids in their own home.
 
 For those of you totally unfamiliar with these, this will be all new to you. But to those of you that remember the actual PSAs, did you know that those PSAs are a part of a bigger video? The Ounce of Prevention video is actually closer to 15 minutes long. This video was made for the Shriners Burn Institute of Cincinnati, Ohio. They're the ones that funded it, and it came out in 1982.
 
 Legendary voice actor Mel Blanc, who did so many of the Looney Tunes characters. He was a long time member of the Shriners organization, and he would often help out with charities and going to the hospitals, visiting kids, doing his impressions for them. So it just made sense in order to spread the word about fire safety and avoiding burns and such in the home that having Mel Blanc voice his legendary characters might help get the message to kids better than their parents, which I mean, come on, face it. Would you rather hear your mom and dad say to avoid fires or Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck? An interesting part of this segment for the podcast is I wanted to mention that many years ago, I reached out to the Shriners Burn Institute about the ounce of prevention video.
 
 Because as a kid, I didn't know that it was, one long video. I thought it was just chopped-up PSAs that I saw. So I was curious about the full-length video, and the Shriners Institute sent me a copy, a DVD for free. So I don't know if they still do that, but it's always worth checking out if you're into eighties nostalgia. As I said, this PSA DVD video came out in 1982, and Mel Blanc starts off by talking about the dangers in your own home.
 
 He's got Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck and Tweety and Sylvester by his side. And, obviously, those of you that have listened to this podcast know that I'm huge into nostalgia, specifically eighties nostalgia. And this video has it in spades. Everything from the way the kids are dressed to their hairstyles to the kitchen, the tiles on the floor. It begins with little clips of some of Mel Blanc's voices, the cartoons that he did for Looney Tunes, just to refresh the memories of kids that might not know who he is, but they know all of his voices.
 
 Like, I'm sure a lot of you that are my age, you know all the Looney Tunes cartoons, but you might not be able to pick Mel Blanc out of a lineup. The video starts off with a young boy and girl waking up at 7AM, and it's their parents anniversary, so they wanna do something nice for them. I would say the boy and girl are eight or nine years old. It's weird that they share the same bedroom, but I guess if there's only so much room in a house and maybe it was different forty years ago, they go downstairs to fix their parents breakfast in a very 80s kitchen with these brown and cream linoleum tiles. They're so 80s.
 
 If you see them, you'll know exactly what I mean. Bugs Bunny is there waiting for them to warn them about putting a pot on the stove in the hot water. This is the first PSA where the pot comes to life as it boils and says it just waits for a child to grab his handle. And then the coffee pot's cord is hanging off of the counter and it turns into a snake. And Bugs Bunny explains what the kids can do to avoid any accidents in the kitchen.
 
 It's so beautifully eighties that I love it. Then Bugs tells them to go out to the garage. There's another friend to see them. And this is Sylvester showing them the dangers of the garage. I don't remember Sylvester's PSA.
 
 I don't remember seeing it, but maybe you guys do. This is where both kids are dressed in their 80s best clothes. The girl's got overalls on over her clothes. The boy's got a long sleeve flannel shirt and jeans looking very much like what I would have worn. Here, they talk about the dangers of gas fumes next to the hot water heater, And both of the kids get these special glasses so they can see the animated fumes as they blow up the water heater, but they're actually safe.
 
 Next is Tweety Bird in the bathroom. And this one I remember on TV about hot water and cold water in the tub. Warning about kids being scalded by hot water in the bath, and the idea of using cold water first and then hot water to warm it up. And again, I just keep coming back to how 80s everything looks. Those of you that are my age, around my age, you'll know what I mean if you see these PSAs.
 
 It gives you all the warm and fuzzy memories of being a kid, except for maybe the hairdos. The boys got that Dutch boy bowl cut hairdo that I had when I was really little. And the last PSA is Daffy Duck in their bedroom. And I always laugh because the kids are shocked to see him when he's the fourth of the Looney Tunes. Like, they should know that they're in every room in their house.
 
 But Daffy explains about what to do in a fire, stop, drop, and roll, having a escape plan where everyone meets outside. He does his true or false quiz, which if you've seen the PSAs, you know what I'm talking about. And during all of these PSA bits from this video, you've got the animation where the smoke detector comes to life or with Tweety, the bathtub comes to life. So it's just cute enough that kids will enjoy it, but it delivers a good message about not wanting to get burned or blown up in the garage or not to hide under your bed during a fire. Common sense stuff that's not common sense when you're a child.
 
 And the video ends with Mel Blanc kind of wrapping everything up, but the two kids, I don't think they ever do anything for their parents anniversary. Not that that would have been relevant to the video to see them making them breakfast, but these are the plot holes of these PSAs. Did the kids ever make their parents anniversary breakfast? We'll never know. The ounce of prevention video is this great trip down memory lane going back now forty years, over forty years to 1982.
 
 The clips of the PSAs, they're easily available on YouTube. So for those of you that have no idea what I'm talking about, you can go and check them out. I'd love to know if any of you reach out to the Shriners Institute if they'll send you a DVD copy of this. Interestingly, I guess there's an extended cut of this Ounce of Prevention that actually splices in real burn victims and treatments at the Shriners, but I think that would be a little too real for kids especially. It's one thing to have Looney Tunes explaining what could happen in a fire, but then to see real burn victims might be a little scarring for kids.
 
 But did you ever watch the ounce of prevention PSAs in the 1980s? Do you remember them? I guarantee you if you're my age, if you look them up, you'll remember them. It'll be like a flashback pop in your head. And if you reach out to Shriners and they send you a DVD copy of it, let me know.
 
 Because I always thought that was cool that they just sent it to me for free. It just showed up in the mail one day. It makes me wonder if I should reach out to these other companies that did the PSAs in the eighties and see if they have DVD copies of the stuff they did, like the Better Business Bureau with the Abominable Snowman. Well, there you go. That might be a project for me for this weekend to try to find those.
 

Closing
And that's gonna wrap up episode 101 of the in my footsteps podcast. Thank you so much to everybody who's been tuning in, sharing the episodes, leaving reviews, donating through buymeacoffee.com. If you wanna do that, there's the link in the description of the podcast. Those things mean so much as I continue with this passion project. The people who listen and share and, you know, donate if you can.
 
That's what keeps me going when sometimes it's hard to find the time to get the podcast done. So thank you again. And you can find me all over social media, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube. There's links to all that in the podcast description just to make it easy on you. I think I mentioned it before, but you can go to YouTube, and I have full length podcast episode audio up on the YouTube channel.
 
It's just another way to share the podcast, kinda repurposing content because it takes a lot of effort to get these shows out, so why not milk as much from it as I can? Don't forget to go check out Kiwis Kustoms at Etsy.com, both spelled with k, homemade, handcrafted, cape cod, jewelry, accessories, clothing. The link is in the description of the podcast. Just go. It costs nothing to look.
 
And Kaleigh Marks takes requests. She's always adding new stuff, honing her craft. So go check out Kiwi's Kustoms, both spelled with k, at etsy.com. And hopefully, sometime soon, maybe late winter, early spring, there may be some new news about where your wish it's been a little dormant. It's been a long road, but I think we're starting to come out of it.
 
Katie Marks might have some news for us. So hopefully, if I hear anything, I will let you know here on the podcast. Episode 102 is next in line for the podcast. I'm gonna tell the story going back now ten years to when I was co-host of a radio show on a college radio station on Cape Cod. I can't believe it's been ten years and this story you're gonna love, you're gonna laugh because I'm laughing thinking about what I'm gonna share.
 
It's another one of those my life is like an episode of Seinfeld type stories where the things that happened don't seem real, but they're all too real, and this old radio show is going to definitely feel like it needs that Seinfeld keyboard music soundtrack to it. We're also gonna go back 30 years, way back in the day to the debut of Beanie Babies, which are so valuable and such great collector's items today. Oh, wait. They're not. Oh, well.
 
We'll still tell the story of them anyway. And, of course, there'll be a new road trip, a new This Week in History, a new top five, all that coming up on episode 102 of the in my footsteps podcast. I hope your twenty twenty three is starting off great. Like I said at the top of the show, I hope that whatever your resolution, your goal, your intentions are for this year. Go easy on yourself with them.
 
If you slip and fall, just get back up and pick up from there, and do whatever you can just to make this year the best it can be for you and for those that you care about. And, of course, take care of your mental health. That's first and foremost. A great way to care for others that are important to you is by caring for yourself as well. And as always, in this life, don't walk in anyone else's footsteps.
 
Create your own path and enjoy every moment you can because you never know what tomorrow brings. Thank you all so much for tuning in to episode 101 of the In My Footsteps podcast. I have been Christopher Setterlund, and I will talk to you all again soon.

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Christopher Setterlund

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