Corgi Movie Vision - A dim childhood memory revisited

"As an adult I can afford D-Cell batteries." Wow, look at Mr. Moneybags over here.

I would love to see the one minute child friendly cut of Alien

"back in my day, you had to hand-crank your gifs!"

Now this is a novelty! The closest I came as a kid was one of those slideshow binoculars that only showed still images.

I noticed you mentioned the Argos catalogue, fun fact, my father at that time was a director at Argos and 50% of the toys that were photographed for the catalogue were sold to the staff at the staff sale held just after new catalogue came out, so the Movie Vision I had was the actual one that was photographed in the Argos catalogue. The other 50% of the toys were sent directly to the local children's home.

40 years ago I was eastern European child. My toys were pistols and cars made from steel plate. When for a first time I saw Lego catalogue, I couldn't sleep. Couldn't even imagine about toys like this. I'm not complaining, just saying, that world (Europe specially) was a strange place those days.

Fun fact: the one you had when you were a kid, "Goofy going down a mountain in a caravan", is a christmas tradition in Sweden. Every christmas eve we all gather around the TV to watch it :)

I'm acutely aware of the absurdity of me watching this on a LAPTOP thinking that's the coolest shit I've ever seen. As a kid the dea of being able to record or play back audio or video to any extent was the definition of magical.

19:36 "Sometimes childhood toys are best left as fond memories because revisitng them as an adult has a habit of taking some of the magic away from those memories." Those are wise words.

When using epoxy inside cases like that, I cut pieces of dried out baby wipes, coat it in the epoxy and lay it over the cracks - it works like fiberglass and reinforces it, making a much stronger joint. I also scratch the plastic around the crack to provide a key.

The "1 minute" edit of Alien is just a loop of the scene at the end with Ripley in her mini knickers. You can tell by the look on the kid's face on the front of the box!

This just solved a mystery from my first childhood memory. As a toddler, I was in a daycare and there was one of these in the playroom. I remember being perplexed by this blue box with a plastic screen and how it did nothing, even though I was sure it should do something. I've occasionally wondered what on earth that thing was, well into my adulthood. It was definitely one of these: they also had the hand-crank viewer with the cassettes, but I never made the association. The other weird thing was it was definitely blue like the Corgi Vision rather than the white Fisher-Price version, even though this was in the United States, around 1987-88, so it might have been imported. The remote was ripped off but I remember the cable hanging off. Anyways, thanks for solving this 30+ year enigma for me.

"The Quibi of it's day" Brilliant. Though this thing will probably last longer.

Did you know that "corgi" is one of the two Welsh words which have passed into common English use ? It means "small dog". The other one is "penguin" which means "white head".

I remember back in the 80's taking one of these apart and loading my own film in. I gave it to my friend and she still has it loaded in a viewer on her shelf.

Had the Fisher Price hand-viewer here in the states. I loved that thing! "The Lonesome Ghost" with Mickey, Donald and Goofy was my favorite cartridge. Watching it forward, backward and frame-by-frame really made me want to be an animator! (Which I am and have been for 30 years now.) Great memories!

I had the Fisher Price handcrank version when I was a kid. Haven't thought about it in 30 years.

Techmoan: looks like we’re going to have to open it up after all. Viewers: yay!

In the US "Corgi" was known for diecast model toy cars (made in England), I never saw their name on any other product.

Revisiting stuff makes you appreciate just how far things have come.