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Topic: Kids Super 8mm toy projection things ...

Osi Osgood
Film God

Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005

posted May 04, 2008 08:00 PM

Talking about those old Ken films reminded me that when I was a kid, there were quite a few of those little things that looked like a camera, but you would put a cartridge in the slot and watch an approximately 30 second excerpt of your cartoon of choice through a small lense, as if you were working with a movie camera.

Disney was first on the market, if I remember, having a large range of titles. The interesting thing with the Disney ones, was that Disney, agead of time, made titles that would take out every other frame of the cartoon, thereby taking an approximately 2 minute segment from a classic cartoon, and making it a hand cranked fun! They also released a special one which had an excerpt from "The Black Hole".

There were also ones marketed that fit the Disney viewer that were from Sesame street.

The next one on the market that had a big impact, was the Kenner toy company STAR WARS hand cranked super 8 "camera". These excerpts were not "edited" (in that frames were taken out to quicken the pace or fit more on it.) They were constructed much in the same way as the Disney ones.

There were five seperate cartridges, including one whole cartridge of the last battle! That was before I even knew there were the Ken Films 200ft releases. Note: these, as all these toys, were silent. The neat thing about those Star Wars ones, is that you could take them all out of the cartridges, and put them on one 50ft reel, ( it filled it to the brim ) and watched it at 18 frames per second and have a ball!!

It should be noted that these had thier own run of editing, and I'd love to hear how they selected what they would put on there.
They were all action, of course.

By the way, those cartridges were harder than hell to open, I know.

The next step up was a different kind of projector toy, in that these were battery operated, and also, these were not cut down in frames, so they ran at the proper speed of 24 framed per second. (I wish I remember the names of these last two toys!)
This one would have a perfectly round clear see thru cassette, that would snap right into place. These also ran longer but twice as much as the earlier Star Wars and Kenner Star Wars toys.

They also had an incredible variety of titles, including scenes from the 1976 King Kong, (His death scene!), The Bad News Bears in Breaking training, and a nifty one of Star Trek taken from the episode where some of the crew get made into little "cones", it also has the neat scene that was lifted from"Where no man has gone before" when they go through the void! COOL!

The last one on the market was also battery operated, but it had a double feature to it; you'd watch one, and switch it around and watch the other featured cartoon!! These were much smaller loops, AND were, like the Disney's were, edited for frames to give you a slightly longer cartoon, they had (one of which I remember) the "Inspector" cartoon and the Pink Panther cartoon when the Pink Panther tries to ride a most obnoxious horse!

These little neat machines all but disappeared after the early 80's except in bargain bins.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who has fond memories of these.

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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "