Its always fascinating checking out vintage toys and cult kitsch in other countries, seeing what makes them tick when it comes to toys.
On our recent break in Bavaria Missus Moonbase and I saw lots of different bits and bobs of interest such as click TV's.
Fairy tales are hugely important and popular in Germany, where they are called Märchen. Besides the usual books, Fairy Tales pop up all over the place: as rides in theme parks, as models in glass huts in forests and as slides in small click toy TV's like these found in souvenir shops:
These 'click Fernsehen' are often called 'Guckis', pronounced cookies which means something to look into. This is a classic of German toy culture and vintage examples are still available online as well as more modern ones like the ones seen above. An older style Gucki with Märchen slides look like this one depicting Little Red Riding Hood.
Having dug around a bit I've found out that Guckis often featured pictures of towns and cities as well as world events and historical scenes. One vintage example I saw online on Blechroboter even features lunar exploration. Called Raumfarht or space voyage it features 8 colour slides like this one:
Raumfahrt also features in a different style of Gucki TV, which I found on the net on Freak Butik.
I'm pretty sure I had some click toy TV's when I was a kid. I can't recall what was pictured though. Did you have anything like this or maybe still do?
I did have at least one. We went on holiday to Belgium a lot when I was a kid and I'm sure we got some from there or pissibly Holland. They had colour photos of popular tourist attractions in them.
ReplyDeleteYep, that seems top be the standard contents of many of them Kev. I think I had one from Blackpool. I also had a cone shaped eye viewer with a single picture inside. It was a keyring.
DeleteYes, when clearing out my family home, I came across mine from the mid 1960's. It still works, and this time I've put it in a safe place.
ReplyDeleteWhat pictures doe it have Bill?
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