Before the age of YouTube or even VHS, kids watched movies on this ingenious handheld device by Fisher-Price.
Children have always loved movies, and especially animation. Even as far back as the turn of the century before the age of cartoons, flipbooks with little animations were extremely popular.
But before the age of the Internet and YouTube, children had to either wait for a cartoon or animated movie to play on TV or for their parents to take them to the movies.
In the 1970s, Fisher-Price created the Movie Viewer. It was an innovative toy intended for young children to enjoy their favorite cartoons anytime, anywhere.
The toy was handheld and worked with a handle which the child turned to make the movie play. A fun aspect was that the movie would play at whatever speed the child chose to turn the handle. It could even play backward!
Another element that was quite innovative for its age was that the Movie Viewer could play several different movies- as many as twenty! All the child had to do was to change the cartridge with the movie and the fun would begin again.
It’s impossible to say how many children started loving not only movies but experimentation with them, thanks to this clever, simple, and yet ingenious, toy. What is certain is whoever was lucky to have it as a child in the 70s will definitely not have forgotten about it.
https://youtu.be/ptvlJmK_w9U
