Sunday, May 1, 2011

5-1-11 Fisher Price


The Chatter Phone has become well-known thanks to his inclusion in the latest Toy Story 3 film. I had one. Every baby had one.

I also had the Fisher Price Change-a-Tune Piano. You flipped the knob to change from The Muffin Man to Pop Goes the Weasel to This Old Man and banged away on the piano keys. Whatever you hit played the next note.


And now? They've reissued them exactly for people like me, who will jump up and down (ok, not really, I was just jumping inside) to see the stickers and hear the sounds that defined some of my earliest toys.

Alas, it's plastic. The original was wood and the music worked off of wound up springs, not batteries. So while it was a bit of a thrill, it was also a bit of a letdown. 


And there's the Record Player, which they didn't have at my store yesterday:




According to this ebay listing, the original musical movement was made in Switzerland. Betcha can't say the same for the reissue. Just listening to the video of that little tinkly sounds takes me back.

And finally, there was the Teaching Clock, which also was once made of wood and wound up on internal clockworks. I think I'm satisfied just having seen the illustrations on them again.


3 comments:

  1. Oh, I had forgotten all about that record player!!! I found a few of the classics at the local flea market, Tonka trucks I had played with as a child, the beagle on a leash that was basically wood with stickers. And I'll probably end up giving several to Little Danger.

    Thanks for following, by the way!

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  3. wow! i wandered onto your blog as i too was traveling down memory lane. i have always been in love with music and now i remember why. thanks for the memory. i had almost forgotten about the first record player. i later owned the FP real record player.

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