History's Dumpster = GLORIOUS trash! Kitsch, music, fashion, food, history, ephemera, and other memorable and forgotten, famous and infamous pop culture junk and oddities of yesterday and today. Saved from the landfill of time...
Is it just me or does the girl on the box of the Ohio Art Mighty Tiny Record Player bear an eerie resemblance to comic strip character Nancy?
In 1970, Ohio Art (famous for the Etch-A-Sketch) invented a new toy phonograph, named the Mighty Tiny Record Player, hailed as the "World's Smallest Record Player".
The Mighty Tiny used tiny 2" inch records custom recorded and manufactured for the Ohio Art Company specifically for the Mighty Tiny. The records had a playing time of a few seconds each.
The records were so small, there was no room for printed or etched
information on the discs. There was only a number on them and you had to
match them to a corresponding number on the disc's sleeve.
The playing system was essentially a steel needle attached to a thin steel bar, which vibrated against a thin inverted plastic dome, which acted as the diaphragm/speaker. There was no volume control. Power was activated when the record placed on the turntable and the lid was closed. Playing acoustically with no electronic amplification, there was no earphone jack.
The unit came with three randomly selected records.
The turntable was powered by one 'AA' battery and had an adjustable speed control. But the actual speed of the cheap motor was unknown (it's believed somewhere around 100 RPM!) and it was never constant and 'fluttered'. But hey, it was a cheap toy for little kids. Not a Bang & Olufsen audiophile turntable.
Another model of the Mighty Tiny was called the Stereoper, which resembled a console stereo. Contrary to what the name may insinuate, it did not reproduce "stereo" sound. There were also little storage cases for your Mighty Tiny record collection.
The recordings themselves sold in packs of four. I believe there were somewhere around 60 titles (though the actual number is unknown.) None of these recordings have ever appeared in any other conventional format.
The Red Raven Magic Mirror Records were a children's toy of the 1950s. They used a series of specially made vinyl 78 RPM records with a very large label which reflected off an angled spinning mirror which resembled a carousel which was placed over the spindle of the player, giving the illusion of motion.
There were only around 20 known titles to the "movie record" series.
You know, it's the creepy weird crap they make for little girls these days that really makes me take back every bad thing I ever said about Holly Hobbie.
Or at least Holly Hobbie never wore outsized animal carcasses over bubble gum pink hair. And some of you also have young daughters who have begged you or Santa for this.
Now look, I know we live in edgier times. But what the hell is Kawaii Crush?
I had to investigate.
Oh dear. For those of you who just ate Christmas candy, you're probably going to need an insulin shot in 4-3-2-1.....
And who sings this soundtrack? Maroon 5? (I can't tell anymore through all the AutoTune they use in commercial pop music these days.)
Finding no answers from YouTube (and Wikipedia has no current entry on it.)
A Flash video popped up with "What is Kawaii Crush?" above the player and feeling a bit of relief, I watched my relief turn to horror as apparently, these dolls or whatever are, are supposed to be cute and they have cute crushes on cute kitties, cute pandas, cute birds and cute bunnies and cover their craniums in cute cuddly carcasses of cute critters. They live in a world where everything is cute and everyone has a crush. ("Even on candy!")
They have names like Sunny Bunny Hop Hop, Katie Cat Meow Meow, Owlena Hoot Hoot and Amanda Panda Pop.
It's enough to make Hello Kitty look like G.I. Joe.
Fortunately, the web site had a "Grown Ups" link. Unfortunately, it has the only information a parent needs to know from a toy company: Like, Follow, Subscribe and BUY!!
I stopped right here. This is about as far into Kawaii Crush cuteness as I could go without going into catastrophic diabetic shock.
Message on top "I'm Oobi. I contain a message to another human being. Please further my
journey an inch, a foot, or a mile. Add a note, if you wish. Then help
me to the next nice person like yourself!"
A strange little toy came on the market in 1971.
A little plastic thing that looked like a giant M&M with eyes. It was for kids to transport written messages to each other using the kindness of strangers. The kids would write the address of their receiving friend on the bottom of an Oobi and leave it out anyplace someone would find it. And, assuming that person had nothing else to do, would presumably take it directly to the kid who was to receive it.
That was the idea at least behind the Oobi.
They were sold in packs of three, so they were probably weren't reuseable.
"oobi is a message center for conveying your written thoughts to other human beings. oobi has no home, no owner, but is forever going somewhere, on his way, in transit, never dying. oobi counts on the kindness of strangers to journey him towards his destination, but only the person to whom oobi is addressed may open him. When he is finally broken open, it is only to free oobi's spirit.
You may buy oobi, but you never "own" oobi. You buy oobi to make him free.
oobi is love"
Parents however weren't as nice to Oobi. And this weirdo hippie 'love' babble only made them extremely nervous (or seriously pissed them off.) And you can't really blame them. They had every reason in
the world not to like them. Even in that more innocent age, the very last thing you want is some pervert or
creep knowing you and your child's address. The slits that held the
notes were also big enough and useful for making your kids unsuspecting
drug mules as well. So cops were naturally suspicious of these things as well.
It was the biggest toy failure in Parker Brother's history. And they were off the shelves within months.....
.jpg)
