Show'N Tell facts for kids
The Show 'N Tell was a special toy made by General Electric (GE) in the 1960s and 1970s. It was like a mix of a record player and a filmstrip viewer. Imagine a small TV set that could play records and show pictures at the same time!
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The Show 'N Tell: A Cool Old Toy
The Show 'N Tell was first made in October 1964 by General Electric. It was built in Utica, New York. This unique toy combined two fun things: listening to stories or music on records and watching pictures on a screen.
How It Worked
The Show 'N Tell looked a bit like a small TV. But on top, it had a record player. You could buy special "Picturesound programs" that came with both a record and a strip of slides. These slide strips were flat plastic pieces, about 11 inches long. They held tiny color film images.
To use it, you would put the slide strip into the top of the machine. As the record played, telling a story or playing a song, the pictures on the slide strip would automatically change. This helped to show what was happening in the story. The way the pictures changed was clever! It was a mechanical system linked to the record player's spinning part. You just had to spin the record player a few times by hand to get it ready.
When it first came out, a Show 'N Tell machine cost about $29.95. The special Picturesound programs were 99 cents each. You could also buy a set of five programs for $4.95.
What Programs Were Available?
When the Show 'N Tell first launched, there were 35 different programs. These were grouped into seven main collections:
- Fairy Tales and Cartoons
- Children's Favorite Classics I
- Children's Favorite Classics II
- History
- Science and Space
- The World We Live In
- Steps to Knowledge
Many popular children's stories and characters were made into programs. These included ones from Disney and Sesame Street. Old advertisements also mentioned programs for stories like Pinocchio, Peter Pan, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. There were even educational programs made by World Book Encyclopedia. By 1965, there were 140 different programs available! Each program had 15 color slides and lasted about 4 minutes.
Playing Regular Records
Besides showing pictures, the Show 'N Tell could also work as a regular record player. It could play many different types of records. This included 16, 33⅓, 45, and 78 RPM records. It had a speaker built right in, so you could listen to your favorite music or stories.
Different Versions Over Time
General Electric released a smaller, "compact" version of the Show 'N Tell in 1966. This model (called A605) was cheaper, costing $19.95.
The CBS Toys Version
In the early 1980s, the Show 'N Tell was sold again. This time, it was called the Show 'n Tell Phono-Viewer. It was made by CBS Toys under the brand name "Child Guidance." These newer machines looked very different from the original ones. They could only play two types of records: 33⅓ and 45 RPM. This meant they couldn't play the larger 12-inch records. However, the Phono-Viewer had a cool new feature. You could choose to project the pictures onto a wall or another surface, instead of just the small built-in screen.
