Say-it, play-it (and fix it)

I know I'm very late to this party, but this provided the best laugh of the year I think. Thank you so much for your important work Mat.

I just knew as soon as you went into pontificating about life and "grandpa" that it was about to turn into something exactly the opposite. I started PRE-Laughing even before the "raspberry" farts started LOL.

Someone in the chat room has posted about an unusual audio spot announcement cassette deck. To be completely frank this is also a thinly-veiled *I hope all is well with you* comment. 😶

I laughed so hard at the ending, I may have accidentally made some of those noises myself. My God.

Very cool! I got a bit of a shock when you showed the instruction manual with Kenner's address on it - they were based in my hometown! I was hoping for something interesting when I looked up the address, but a quick Google search tells me that the building was flattened and turned into the new wing of the county courthouse quite a while back. (Before I was born, probably.) Still, it's a fun fact and an unexpected pleasure to find it out from a Techmoan video!

It *was* worth it, Mat :^)

Hey there I see you got a new amplifier, looks like a Technics model if I'm not mistaken, what do you think about it?

Loved the say it play it ! One slightly (perhaps) esoteric audio format is that found in the old Palitoy action man stuff esp the Talking Commando. I would love to see you fix up a broken one and demonstrate the various messages. It would shoot me right back to my childhood, dropping the paratrooper kitted figure out of the window, resulting in a very high velocity impact on my front path and more successfully, fixing him to a homemade death slide made from cotton reel and a sellotape “ring” Such joy!

Thank you! this is the one I was hoping to see one day, it was called "Magnéto-kid" in France and we had one at my grandma's house.

He who Say'd it, sprayed it.

Fascinating toy. I assume that any kid (including my former self) would have turned it into a fart box, and found that way more entertaining than any of the suggested uses. Congratulations on playing that out so effectively at the end of the video. Beautifully done and truly hilarious!

Thanks for this one! Back when I was collecting cool-looking vintage tape machines, this one was up there on my wish list. Cool to see it in operation!

Well, your next move is obvious: pack it all back up and put it on eBay. BUT FIRST, arrange for some friends to come visit with their 8-year-old child or grandchild. Have the kid record some sort of innocent babble while the adults in the background hold a barely-audible conversation about the bank heist, a suspected upcoming double-cross from someone in the gang, and where they hid the money (ideally a location where anybody who shows up with a shovel or a crowbar in 2026 would be exposed to a serious risk of arrest). If you don’t have friends with young kids, hire the George from a local Beatles tribute band to record a hitherto-unknown Beatles tune, preceding it with a Happy Birthday greeting to little Tralfaz or whoever. Bonus points if he also explains to unheard adults in the room that “this one was supposed to be the B-side to (unintelligible) but John threw a fit.” The coup to grace to the prank would be if you damaged one of the carts _just_ enough that it required a little fixing. But first, you recorded a message explaining the prank, ending with “I bet now you wish you’d played ALL of the tapes before doing anything rash…”

If I could give the end of this video two thumbs up I would. From the sound of it, the original recording artiste could do with at least two thumbs up as well.

Regarding the little circuit diagram, was it a legal requirement in some markets to provide one ? A 1960s version of "Right to Repair".

I was laughing a great deal at the ending, even though your build up to it led me to expect something stupid - it was still very silly. It's good you're still finding obscure tape formats and I enjoyed you fixing it up and making it work.

I spent some considerable time on British trains over the last year going back and forth to help my Dad with getting my Mum's affairs sorted. That "see it, say it, sorted!" jingle gets stuck in your head for a while.

Sure that long tape recording just summoned the Evil Dead

I was wondering why Mat was waxing poetic about time capsules and such, but that just made the payoff so much better. Literally LOL funny. 😆

The recordings on the those carts sound like something picked up off the floor of The Avalanches' studio.

best pay off ever 😀 And a really interesting video and product. I hope it does well!

A bit like discovering the rude graffiti in Pompeii, just because a message is from long ago, doesn't mean it's very profound. I loved this because if I had had one of these 'Say It, Play it' machines back in 1968, recording farty noises is exactly what I would have done! Thanks for a great an unusually entertaining video, Mat. Your build-up to the great reveal is priceless.

I'm sure that somewhere in a box under the house, there's an old reel-to-reel tape with my grandmother entering the room and interrupting my friend and me pretending we're Eccles and Bluebottle :)

You managed to find another format! 😃 And what do you expect from kids recording? "Lalalalalala" and "farting" 😅. Probably did that back in the 1980s myself as well, but on "ordinary" compact cassette 🤪.

Fascinating, Mat. This is the sort of thing I love to see you do. It's a shame there were no really interesting recordings to hear, but it's still a device from 60 years back that still looks as good today as it did back then. A good find.

Thanks, really made me laugh this bit "It’s been far too hot for the cat who keeps complaining to me about the conditions but also insists on wearing a thick fur coat all the time"

I was hoping for satanic messages hidden in the garbled recordings, but the flatulent fury nicely represented nether regions of another kind. That might be the strangest sentence I've typed in a Techmoan comment box.

farting: the great unifier

Can we get a remix of this fine past performance with the outro song? It’s gonna be a hot banger.

I knew that bit at the end was gonna pay off

I was wondering why you were bigging up the nostalgia at the end. Of course, for comedic effect. Nice. Maybe it's playing fast because when it was recorded the batteries were on their way out and the thing was recording slow?

😂 That ending made me laugh out loud. Totally and absolutely worth it. Too bad that unless the seller knows something, it must be impossible to figure out who is recorded on those and get it to their family. That would be an amazing story.

I've haven't seen or heard of this tape recorder, but I did get a regular dictation-type cassette recorder for Christmas back in that era, 69 or 70. I don't think I ever recorded anything of note with it, not even a series of farts!😄 Naturally with just about every toy or gadget I had as a kid, as soon as I'd tired of it, I had to take it apart to see what was inside and if I didn't destroy it in the process (which was most of the time) I would never attempt to put them back together. Altogether, this was interesting and the ending was just classic!

I've a reel-to-reel tape of my mother and her friend reading from book, probably mid-1960s. All of a sudden, my grandad's voice yells out "Doreen!" at her! She heard it for the first time in decades a while back, and got the shock of her life. Her name being called is the only audio record we have of him! He died in 1988 (I lost both grandads that year).

By the regional accent of the mother, I’m guessing they lived in the eastern region of the US/ New York/New England. I would have recorded the same “gems” at that age as the boy did!!!! What’s really interesting to me is that, any child of that time (as I was) that would have found recording such “gems” the height of comedy would not have taken such good care of the device. I was rough on these things. Great video Mat! Thank you.

The 1970s equivalent of being Rick-rolled. Love it 😁

You could certainly argue whether retrieving that audio was worth the effort, and wouldn't it have been lovely if there was some touching message on it? But, really, I'm glad that what was on it was what was on it - it's exactly correct it should be so, and I take a little comfort, really, that kids then aren't really any different from kids now.

What a brilliant video and little device. It's amazing how much and how little has changed. My 6 year old records exactly the same sort of stuff into our iPad. The only real difference is the quality and now you can watch the effects being made.

Thank you Mat, the last few minutes of that video was the funniest thing I've seen in years, your facial expressions were priceless.

• I have been wondering about this particular item for a while. I, for one, care about this sort of stuff so there should be a few more of us out there? I enjoyed it, anyway. • This is the ultimate in HiRes entertainment. 😄 • I think these recordings are quite charming, albeit purely juvenile. I expect to be hearing this sampled onto an indie album in the near future. • It wasn't 'record Dad's voice' - it was 'record Techmoan's voice.' That man has a clear resemblance! https://postimg.cc/K4KQqN2g • Your slumped & dejected demeanor upon playing the respooled tape amused me, I'm ashamed to say. It was what you expected to hear, after all. But it's as bad or worse than the aircraft tape that had the testing voice and little else. • I imagine the child's older sibling pulling the tape out of the cart just to spite the kid. • I'm struck by the thought that we're still able to put appropriate batteries into this thing and get it operational again. I can't say the same for modern products 50 years from now. 😛 • Camp out in the aircon during heat waves - stay cool 🧊 • Take care 🤍

I live in New Zealand and it’s currently a heady 11C, so I’m happy to sit inside and watch one (or all) of your videos.

Watching a bit now by the outdoor pool (cool), and the rest on the elliptical machine at the gym (AC) later. That's YouTuber lifestyle, that is 😁

I got Evil Dead vibes when you started getting audio from the tapes 🤣

All that build-up, just to be punk’d by some kid in the 60s 😂 love when a gag transcends time Great video, wonder if this was my dad’s toy

Interesting device. I was given a Panasonic mono cassette recorder as a child and still have the recorder and the cassette of my family speaking into it.

Great video, love it when you visit retro products. Could the lighter/thinner belt be making it go fast, I'm not technical. Was wondering if it still recorded but running fast would be pointless

Loved the build up in the end. Made me smile! :)

Brilliant ending! Farts into the future! Very climactic! :D

It's funny how tape for kids kept going, I had a Talkboy in the 90s and I think I made similar recordings with it... Also are those new speakers I see?

I knew that would be on the tape at the end :) Brilliant!

Thanks ! That cheered me up on a hot and miserable (as far as I'm Concerned) day.

Hope you ok in the heat mat with your health condtions

Does my eagle eye detect a disturbance in the Hi-Fi Force? Some new (or moved around) components?

Could have been my recording, if I would have had such a device in the 70s:-) Thanks for the video!

I had the gag at the end figured out about 10 seconds in. But, then, I've listened to old pre-recorded media that's fallen into the hands of kids. At least yours wasn't full of slurs.

Haha I thought the same! But it's sorted not sort it :)