What was this toy I remember owning (and loving) as a kid?

Cafe Society
1

It was plastic (I think) and shaped like a mini movie projector/camera, only you held it in your hand.

It was sort of like a viewmaster, only a viewmaster only shows still images.
This toy had a little crank on the side that your turned, and as you turned it, the cartoon would actually move. The cartoons (ones like Casper the Friendly Ghost and the Coyote and Roadrunner) came in these little cartridge-like forms that you slid into the back of the toy. Then, like I said, you’d just turn the crank on the side, put one eye up into the viewing hole, and watched the cartoon.

To anyone watching you play with it, it looked sort of like you were shooting a movie with a small movie camera.
Does this sound familiar to anyone? Anyone remember the name of it?

2

Was one of the cartridges a Disney short with three ghosts attacking Donald Duck? Or is that the Casper one? I remember them breaking through a door like water or something. Hmmm…

3

Was it a Fisher-Price Movie Viewer? I remember my cousin Laura had a toy on which Lonesome Ghosts could be watched, so a quick Google search brought up the linked video.

4

Yes! One was a bit from that haunted house cartoon that Mickey, Goofy, and Donald went to and that happened exactly as you described it.

5

Ninja’d by Sternvogel.

That is it, indeed. Thanks much! I’d been wondering what toy that was for awhile now.

6

Sternvogel’s link looks great. I remember slo-moing the spinning Mickey!

7

If you’re feeling that nostalgic, there are lots of them on Ebay.

8

I had one of those when I was little. Awesome toy :slight_smile:

9

I used to crank that bit backwards to watch it over and over and over… It was just so f’n funny to me. <_<

10

Oh wow, nostalgiagasm

I had this one

http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/3043/fisherpricemovieviewer.jpg

You could either watch on that little screen, or flip a switch and it turned into a projector and you could watch on a home movie screen (oh the days before we had a VCR, lol). I mostly had to watch on the little screen.

11

Best toy ever. (My next-door neighbour had the projector version, which made me a very envious five-year-old.)

Mostly I had the abridged Disney cartoons: Haunted house, going up the mountain in the trailer, but I also remember having one cartridge with clips from the Apollo missions, and a few with clips from Star Wars.

Until I was old enough to work the actual 8mm projector (and its one-reel, silent versions of movies like King Kong, ordered out of the back pages of comic books) there was no beating it.

12

I also had one of these

http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/2075/209161976726e62f46e0o.jpg

but it didn’t seem to work most of the time. In retrospect, I suspect it just needed new batteries.

13

Had one, too.

I remember watching Cinderella forwards and backwards.

14

I had one too. I wonder whatever happened to it. I think I had Snow White and the Donald Duck/Lonesome Ghosts and maybe a third one. It probably got sold at a garage sale. :frowning:

15

I still have two cartridges–Lonesome Ghost and Bear Trouble.

16

I know there was a Mary Poppins cartridge. Perhaps that was the third one?

17

I loved mine when I was little for much the same reason. I would watch the Micky, Donald, and Goofy “Ghostbusters” cartridge backwards over and over.

18

Actually after thinking about it, I believe it was Cinderella. I seem to remember making her run up the steps of the palace backward. A lot.

19

I have the Tie-Fighters shooting at the Milenium Falcon scene from A New Hope. As in, I still have it in my garage in the box along with my Darth Vader Head action figure / gun accessories case and assorted ships and toys and whatnot.