Frequency13

Frequency13

By JasonHistory
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Frequency13 episodes

  • EP 022 Microwave Popcorn, Orville Redenbacher, Star Trek TOS and much more!

    Microwave Popcorn owes it's success to both Percy Spencer who filed a patent in 1949, and to the folksy marketing genius of Orville Redenbacher

    You can still get a West Bend Stir Crazy on Amazon for $24.99, so even though when Debra Kumm from West Bend said ''Microwave popcorn is a fad" she was very wrong and underestimated the power of convenience.  However, it didn't put popcorn maker out of business there will always be holdouts to the old technology.

    Facebook Page fb.me/frequency13podcast

    Twitter @frequency13pod

    Blog - https://www.Frequency13.com

    42 min
  • EP 021 Atari Video Console System, Sacharin and TAB, IBM 1401 and Much More!

    This week is almost a continuation of last weeks Pac Man Episode, we dive deeper into the Atari Video Console System.

    TaB was Coca Cola's first diet soft drink and it was a hit, until the Feds shut down the use of Sacharin in soft drinks, that move tainted TaB, luckily Aspartame in the form of NutraSweet came on the scene and Diet Coke was born.

    Facebook Page fb.me/frequency13podcast

    Twitter @frequency13pod

    Blog - https://www.Frequency13.com

    28 min
  • EP 020 Pac Man, not Puck Man! Good Pocket Combs, Star Wars and tons more!

    This week we look back at the most influential video game of our generation Pac Man. The fever that swept our generation at least in the US, where the song of the same name rocked the Billboard charts. The original name for Pac Man and why it was changed.

    Atari's Pac Man, hit or a flop? You decide.

    Atari deserves its own show; in the meantime, we will discuss the Pac Man home version and expectations vs. reality.

    Star Wars, the original movie, how it changed our world when it comes to film. As any generation Xer which pivotal film was released in their lifetime and 8 out of 10 will tell you Star Wars, the other 2 will place it in their top 5.

    If you still carry your amazingly perfect designed Good Unbreakable Pocket comb, you are genuinely not in the current century! I carried mine, and looking at the comb today, I realize what a perfect design. I would rank it right up there with the iPhone in terms of brilliant designs.


    Goody Hair Comb

    33 min
  • EP 019 McDonalds Happy Meal Toys, Dee's Drive In, the venerable Rubik's Cube, and much more!

    A deep dive into the McDonald's happy meal and how truly Generation X that thing is.  Even though some of us may have just missed the cutoff to enjoy one without feeling uncool!

    We will cover the genesis of the Happy Meal, and a little hint it was to better allow parents to feed their children at the restaurant. Ironically San Francisco, in 2010, banned the happy meal for a very similar reason, except they felt it did not correctly feed children.

    Rubik's Cube from 3d design model to 200 million sold in less than 10 years!  Invented in Budapest, and a fascinating story, that has was impactful across the spectrum of people that frankly has not since been rivaled.  (To include the iPod, but to be honest, the iPod would be a close second).

    Facebook Page fb.me/frequency13podcast

    Twitter @frequency13pod

    Blog - https://www.Frequency13.com

    30 min
  • EP 018 Tootsie Pops, VHS and Betamax, Home Cinema, Blockbuster Video and more!

    Tootsie Pop, How many licks does it take to get to the center?  Purdue University  bothered to figure it out and the answer may surprise you.  Generation X and Video Rentals go hand in hand.  Home Cinema changed our world and brought Hollywood into our homes.   When did it start and how did it impact our generation, listen and find out.   Renting movies at Blockbuster and how they had the chance to buy Netflix but passed, that's gotta hurt!  

    This Week Simpson Trivia:

    Season15 Epsiode 18

    This episode called Catch Em If you can is very relatable to parents who need intimate time and find children destroy all measure of romance!

    This week's Simpsons Trivia Question:

    What was the name of the video rental store shown in Season 15 Episode 18???

    Brewsters Kaleidoscopes is our newest sponsor.

    Facebook Page fb.me/frequency13podcast

    Twitter @frequency13pod

    Blog - https://www.Frequency13.com

    38 min
  • EP 017 Spam, Hot Dogs, Mead Trapper Keeper, and much more

    The original Trapper Keeper was not a fluke, it was carefully considered and developed and it was a winner.  Iconic to this day.  I had the original with a snap which is rare.  The times table was worth the price of admission!

    Spam was a product that is not too popular in most of the US today, and is considered a "poverty" food, but it wasn't always that way and still isn't in a good part of the world.  In Hawaii they serve it at McDonalds, and Burger King!

    Get your grill fired up because after talking hot dogs you will be craving a truly American food, the Weiner may be German, but a German immigrant made it American in St. Louis in 1880!

    Facebook Page fb.me/frequency13podcast

    Twitter @frequency13pod

    Blog - https://www.Frequency13.com

    47 min
  • EP 016 Neowise 20, Land of the Lost the original great Sci-Fi version, Watermelon Seeds, and more!
    This week we discuss the new comet that is visible with the naked eye Neowise 20.  Land of the Lost was a wonderful bit of science fiction that is overlooked by many because it is a children's program, but the sci-fi was solid and well written.  Great memories for me of the Slee-Staks, horrible creatures that also lived in my basement!
    Where did the seeds of the Watermelon go?  Did you worry about growing a watermelon plant in your stomach if you ate one? I know the answer, yes you did! With the loss of the horrible seeds that were admittedly fun to spit at your mates, we gained an easy to eat fruit and more fruit and less rhine. Thank the farmers for little miracles!
    Lastly Solar Powered Calculators, these things were cool because the sun was making them work and at a time when batteries were disposable and expensive the value proposition was insurmountable!
    Facebook Page fb.me/frequency13podcast
    Twitter @frequency13pod
    Blog - https://www.Frequency13.com
    Links:
    NEOWISE https://www.accuweather.com/en/space-news/how-to-see-comet-neowise-in-the-sky/772795
    Simpsons Trivia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All%27s_Fair_in_Oven_War
    Watermelon Seed Demise https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/07/26/157427994/where-did-all-the-watermelon-seeds-go
    Land of the Lost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_of_the_Lost_(1974_TV_series)
    36 min
  • EP 015 Fireworks, Lagoon, and KFC, oh and Caps, yeah the red roll caps!

    Fireworks were not legal in the Salt Lake City Valley, at least not the fun aerial or firecracker bottle rocket kind.  If you were fortunate enough to get your hands on them you were in heaven!

    Going to Lagoon as a kid was the highlight of my summer, and rightly so.  Between the 1921 Wooden Coaster that felt like it was going to collapse at any second, to the bumper cars, and fun house a kid was in heaven.

    KFC, and Utah?  Whats the catch?  Well, spoiler the first KFC franchise was in Salt Lake City so it ties in to large Utah families and for me Lagoon.

    Thanks for listenting!

    36 min
  • EP 014 Tang, Orange Crush, Swatch Watch, Legos, not Blocko Land Bricks, and Gen-X by the numbers

    Orange is the color of our generation.  Orange is the color of my youth, I don't know why, but Orange just feels right, maybe is was the smog of the still leaded gasoline, or the unique weather inversions that lead to pollution hanging in the valley filtering the earth brilliant white light into a lovely burnt orange, no one really knows, but there were two very important drinks that we grew up on that were colored an lovely artifical orange, ya know cause oranges!

    Swatch Watch in the 80s saved the Swiss Watch industry during the Quartz wars.

    Land of the Lost isn't as good as I remembered it, and my basement is way better then the Slee-Stack den!  

    IF you are on Facebook look up the show and join and like the page Frequency 13, would love to interact with you there,  The blog www.frequency13.com has the expanded show notes of this and other episodes.  I'm on Twitter @frequency13pod, or email me at [email protected]

    43 min
  • EP 013 Little League, Coleman Steel Coolers, Family Vacation and More!

    This week we hear about Sasquatch clubbing me in the head during a recent backpacking trip.  When we look back the summer vacation several great memories appear.  The Coleman Steel Cooler is the penultimate symbol of the summer vacation for me.

    The summer vacation cooler wasn't complete without a sandwich wrapped in either wax paper, or a plastic sandwich bag.  Which did you have Wax or Plastic?

    Little League baseball is another summer must do for a young generation X child. I was not the best at bat kid, and I even had Johnny Bench's "Batter Up" batting trainer (Spoiler, the think sucked). The concession stand hasn't changed since we were kids, and nothing was better then a cold snow cone to ease the summer heat.

    Facebook Page fb.me/frequency13podcast

    Twitter @frequency13pod

    Blog - https://www.Frequency13.com

    34 min

About Frequency13

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Welcome to the wasteland we call pop culture the toys, games, music, movies, trivia, and more.