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

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Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on 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.

Posted by John Clancy (Member # 49) on May 05, 2008, 03:12 AM:

smallformat had a new projector in the last issue. Whilst this doesn't look like a toy it is apparently for educational use. A pretty simple hand cranked machine probably without a shutter but I for one would like one!

Posted by Jan Bister (Member # 332) on May 05, 2008, 04:35 PM:

I once had once of these [Smile]

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dux_Kino

Posted by Trevor Adams (Member # 42) on May 05, 2008, 06:25 PM:

There really are HEAPS of toy movie viewers and projectors-most use 8mm.They are fun gadgets.I've been accumulating them since about 1998(when I registered at eBay!)In the USA,Pocketflix and DoubleVue viewers were very popular and great snippets of film were available-including the one where the Star Trek crew turn into stones! [Wink]

Check out Claude Mettavant's site,"The Mettavant Project".It started as a modest info swap place but is now positively encyclopedic,A real credit to Claude.Trev

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on May 05, 2008, 07:28 PM:

I remember seeing a toy projector back in the 60's or 70's that actually used a special 10mm or 12mm film with an optical sound track. Anybody have any information on what it might have been?

Posted by John Hourigan (Member # 111) on May 05, 2008, 07:39 PM:

Paul, that was Kenner's "Real Sound Movie Projector." I'm pretty sure it used 11mm film. I wanted one for Christmas as a kid, but they discontinued it before Santa could bring me one!

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on May 05, 2008, 08:52 PM:

Could anyone post some pictures of the "Real Sound Movie Projector" ?

Posted by John Hourigan (Member # 111) on May 05, 2008, 08:55 PM:

Here's a link to a picture:

http://members.chello.nl/a.wichmann2/kennerrealsound.jpg

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on May 05, 2008, 09:20 PM:

Awesome picture. Interesting that it was a sound projector, yet hand cranked. How long were the films that it used?

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on May 05, 2008, 09:42 PM:

Thanks for the info John. 11mm film with an optical track - sounds like a great format to me! The picture quality might have been quite impressive on a 'proper' projector. Too bad it was not persued by Kodak, Fujii, or Pathe.

Trev, the 'Mettavant Project' web sight is truly awesome. What an array of toy projectors, and I bet you have most of them! [Smile]

Posted by John Hourigan (Member # 111) on May 05, 2008, 10:10 PM:

Osi, the films were on a continuous loop snap-in cassette. I believe the films were about the same in length as Kenner's other toy projectors, such as the Easy Show Projector and, my favorite, the Change-A-Channel TV set -- probably two minutes or so, tops.

Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on May 09, 2008, 11:11 AM:

I picked this up a couple of years ago:

"El proyector de cine sin fin" The endless film movie projector!

The Supercinexin Projector comes with a blinding 6V-0.5A bulb and a movie cartridge that has approx. 25-30 ft of scenes from Shrek 2. The cartridge also has 5 sound effects buttons to add to the home theater experience.
It's nice to see that these were still being made fairly recently.

Doug

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on May 09, 2008, 02:00 PM:

Amazing!

-looks like a hand-cranker too. Given the activity level of many modern day kids this may actually qualify it as exercise equipment!

Doug, where did you fid this? I think it would be cool for my Kindergartner to have a projector of his own...

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on May 09, 2008, 06:08 PM:

Me too, I'd love to find this projector!!

Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on May 09, 2008, 07:45 PM:

They show up on eBay every so often. This one in Belgium ended a few weeks ago.

Doug

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on May 09, 2008, 08:57 PM:

Doug ...

Did this have more than one cassette, (more extra cassettes you could buy), or just the one cassette with the machine and no others?

Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on May 09, 2008, 10:13 PM:

Osi,

The Supercinexin came with one cartridge. There was no order form to purchase additional cartridges. I have come across other cartridges for sale (all Disney) on various global auction sites. Projector/Cassette,
Cassette only

The company is (was?) in Valencia, Spain.

Doug

Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on May 09, 2008, 10:27 PM:

By the way, the cartridges are approximately 6" x 2", and they look like this:

Doug

Posted by John Hourigan (Member # 111) on May 09, 2008, 11:27 PM:

It does my 46-year-old heart good to see a toy projector still being produced!

Posted by John Clancy (Member # 49) on May 10, 2008, 05:34 AM:

Weren't Derann contracted to produce the films for these? I remember Derek saying that they had won the contract to supply the films for a toy projector manufacturer in Spain. I'd never seen any other information until now. Well done Doug!

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on May 10, 2008, 06:18 PM:

These cassettes are not that much different than the orginal cassettes used for the Disney toy Super 8 camera's that I started this topic on!

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on May 10, 2008, 07:18 PM:

Doug
What a neat idea I bet kids and adults have a lot of fun with it.

Graham. [Smile]

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