From an extremely early age, music speaks to us. Before a child can even grasp language they can understand the sounds of a song, tapping their feet and waving their hands to the rhythm, listening intently to the sounds that are invading their ears.
Whilst we were growing up there were a multitude of toys and gadgets available to help us develop our musical skills, and we’ve compiled the following list in an attempt to take you down a tuneful memory lane.
How many of the following 15 musical toys and gadgets did you own when you were a child? Which was your favourite? And are there any obvious omissions you can’t you believe that we haven’t included?
1. Fisher-Price Musical Television
This may have been simple, and it only played one or two songs and a handful of rotating images, but it was hypnotic, and we suspect that even as adults we could watch it for hours and hours!
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2. Tunyville Choo Choo Train
Does this bring back any distant memories from when you were a little kid?
It certainly does for us. Who can forget the plastic ‘vinyl’ records and their tiny little grooves?
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3. Stylophone
Did you (or your parents) own one of these? We’ll never forget the electronic noises you could produce with them!
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4. Frog Chorus
We had completely forgotten about this until we saw the photo.
You press the key, a note emits, and more importantly, a frog opens his mouth. Genius.
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5. Fisher-Price Portable Record Player
This fills us with so much nostalgia we almost want to cry. Our own little portable record player, just like mummy and daddy’s.
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6. Mattel ‘The Farmer Says’
We bet a number of you owned this, or at least one very similar.
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7. Fisher-Price Activity Centre
We remember this one even though we can only have been a couple of years old when we played it.
The red button that you bashed to get the bell to ring was a particular favourite.
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8. Major Morgan
Major Morgan ‘the electronic organ’ was a great piece of kit that had us composing absolute masterpieces. Did you own one?
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9. Casio Keyboard
Some of us were lucky enough to persuade our parents to buy us one of these when we were old enough.
We worked our way up to grade 8 piano in no time!
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10. Echo Microphones
Every kid loved these, and they only cost a few quid. Who needs expensive studio equipment when a bit of plastic can make your voice sound so great?
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11. Fisher-Price Mobile
Sending children to sleep for generations, Fisher-Price really know what they’re doing.
Even though we were very little when we owned this, if we heard the lullaby music it plays again now I suspect it would still send us off to the land of nod.
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12. Teddy Ruxpin
Not a musical toy as such, but Teddy Ruxpin could of course sing and talk to us with the ‘help’ of cassettes.
He was also so real that it almost a bit creepy, reminding us of those ‘Child’s Play’ films where the toy comes to life in the middle of the night.
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13. Tomy ‘Bring Along A Song’
Did anyone have this? You would probably have to have been born slightly into the 1980s to remember owning one.
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14. Fisher-Price Cassette Tape Player
This little thing gave us hours of fun; playing our story and music cassettes, recording ourselves talking or singing, making our own little stories.
The possibilities were endless.
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15. Fisher-Price Marching Band Set
Because every little kid loves to bash stuff! We remember owning some cymbals, and boy could they make a massive noise!
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