Show 'N Tell
The Show 'N Tell is a vintage multimedia educational children's toy I imported from the US. I thought I'd hit the jackpot when it came with so many additional programmes, however it turned out that age hadn't been kind to them. I however still had a lot of fun making this video and I think you'll enjoy it too.
Comments (33)
Not sure how I missed this one, also was it just me who was gullible enough to believe there was some sort of hidden synchronisation between the deck and the slide advance - until the 15 seconds was explained. I wonder if they considered syncing and rejected it on cost grounds back in the 60s.
Pedantic muppet here.. If you get a decent 60Hz mains filter, it will remove the buzz. You need one that contains an actual bandpass filter, not just an interference suppressor with multi-layer varistors.. Great vids, very entertaining, keep up the good work
You know what'd be cool is to find some old slide film, take a load of photos (of the puppets?), then record a story. Splice the slide film into a cartridge, and send the audio off to one of those custom vinyl engravers. Nice little project, and you'd get to see the Show 'N Tell with (your own) brand new material!
It’s an interesting idea, although for me, the Show ‘N Tell has had its moment in the spotlight, it’s been packed away.
I notice the embedded YouTube video’s can’t be played full screen on my iPad anymore... Anyone noticed this?
What with me being a true geezer, the Show'N'Tell came along well after my childhood years. But what a delightful video, made even better by Mat's droll and ironic British sense of humor ("might be useful if you're having a baby ..."). Thank you for posting this one!
Oh wow - I'd totally forgot that these were a thing back in the day! Born in '67, and I remember, as a child, being both fascinated by them, and mildly disappointed that they didn't actually play real video. Imagine - putting a TV show or something on one of those little records - that would be really cool! I only had to wait a couple more decades for something like that to (sort of) actually be a real thing. Thanks for the nostalgia-inducing reminder of these!
It’s a great feeling when you’re reminded of something from your childhood that you’d totally forgotten about. All sorts of other accociated memories come flooding back, it’s as though you’ve unlocked a forgotten section of your brain. It happened the other week with something for me, which ironically I can’t remember what it was now.
I was born in 1975 and definitely do remember Show 'N Tell fondly and I used it a lot in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I especially remember the Huckleberry Finn program. My brothers and sister were all born in the 1960s so it may have been originally purchased for them.
I know, some pedantic muppet will eventually bring this up, but the reason your player doesn't work correctly on 50Hz is because it has a synchronous AC motor, not a DC motor. The discolored photos may be somewhat correctable if you scan them on a slide scanner and apply the right filters with some kind of software. But then you'd have to print them on some transparent foil and make your own cardboard or plastic frame; I understand how that would be a cumbersome.
Thanks for pointing this out, I misspoke and I’ve added a correction into the video description text box.
1961 birth date here and I DO remember these. It immediately triggered a childhood memory.
Berenstain Bears, that's that conspiracy theory gone then (shh, don't point out the How We Know The Earth Is Round title)! In all seriousness though, I really do marvel at the clever engineering of the time. Good watch this one.
I was born in 65 and don't remember this viewer. It's a nice piece of history that points to a simpler time.
I was born in '75 in the US and don't recall ever seeing anything like this growing up. I asked a couple of my friends who are a few years older than me if they had ever seen one of these and they both said no. It's always amazing to me when you find things like this that I've never seen before.
It’s funny, just like the Tefifon, I thought that it would be much more well known in its own country than its turned out to be so far.
The slides have faded in a similar way to newer (eighties) View-Master discs. Having looked a little into it, it appears that GAF, who owned View-Master in that period, switched from Kodachrome to a different film, possibly Ektachrome. Even after a few years, those newer View-Master slides started losing their vibrant colours, while the ones I have from the sixties still look pretty fresh. As mentioned, the slides can be restored using photo tools to a surprising degree, but getting them on a medium playable by the original device, that is the problem.
Erwin is correct. Ektachrome as well as GAF's own proprietary Anscochrome films did not use stable dye layer emulsions as Kodachrome did. My dad's 1940s-era Kodachrome transparencies are about as colorful as the day they were shot, but my own 1970s-era Ektachromes are faded and yellowish.
You could try scanning the slides, there is a nifty plugin for Gimp that can magically reverse that aging process: <a href="http://www.gimpusers.com/news/00237-exceptional-plugin-photo-restore" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.gimpusers.com/news/00237-exceptional-plugin-photo-restore</a> (Eat that, Photoshack! :P )
It's quite surprising that I've never heard of this form of media before. That one record you played the back of, sounded like Austin Powers. haha.
I was expecting that most of the US viewers over 30 would have encountered one of these at some point. I was imagining they were as ubiquitous as the Fisher Price Telephone that you pulled along. I suppose though, looking at the releases its heyday was the 1960s and it was dying off after the mid 70s. It’s possible you were too young for it first time around and then too old for it’s 80s version.
Great Video. I did not expect the timer you used.
Thanks for sharing it. Great video.
Life was so simple back then, didn't take much too have loads of fun. Sigh.
That superman disc was pretty worn down on the story side, whereas the exercise side was barely touched...so it seems that the slideshow was well used...I wonder how many times it was viewed by the original owner.
Maybe they shouldn’t design respirators to look a cross of Darth Vader and a spider, just wondering...
I had the 80s model pictured on the cover of the 80s sleeves you had. I really loved it (and my mom was happy that it was compatible with old slides for it she found at garage sales). Even better, it had a mechanism where you could reverse an internal mirror and project the image on a wall or screen! Unfortunately the turntable stylus was poorly designed and eventually collapsed under its own weight. Still, lots of great memories. Shame about the vinegar syndrome — common to everything using 16mm film stock from the era I’m afraid.
I can see how this was a hit in 60s and amazed it was still going in the 80s.
Speaking as an interstellar astronaut I'm disappointed to have to tell you, that exercise regime is not accurate.
Another great video! A little engineering trivia - the method used to advance the picture roll, with intermittent pauses, is the classic Geneva mechanism, seen clearly at 11:20. If you had operated the player at that point, you would see the shaft on the left spinning continuously. It has a pin that fits into the slots in the 5-pointed star shape on the right, periodically spinning the attached shaft when the pin comes around and engages. It's a beautiful motion to observe, and figures heavily in clocks and watches, hence its name.
As always my viewers are far more knowledgable about these things than I am. However now I know what a Geneva mechanism is, so thanks again for sharing.
Hard to imagine (i) how analogue everything used to be, and (ii) how the 1960s put such an emphasis on education that we've later lost.
Oh.. I'll be running every time I'm in a fire indeed... :D