Did anyone else have this growing up?

[stephenjlizard]

I just thought of something tonight while going over a couple things for next week's show, which regrettably might be a short one; I have a software conference to be at all weekend, which will eat into show prep time. What I thought of, or more correctly, remembered, while going over some things tonight, was a Muppet book I had when I was very young, maybe three or four years old.

I no longer have this object; I have no idea where I could have put it. Probably got lost among all those other things that get lost as we grow up. But if I could ever see this thing again, and even more if I could experience this thing again, I could win the lottery and not feel as rich.

What I remembered was a book, a special kind of book. I had several of them in a set, but my favorite of the books was The Muppet Show book. Now, this Muppet Show book's pages were a thick paperboard, and there was a white plastic spiral binding on the spine holding the pages together. On each page of the book were pictures, some text, and a small solid plastic round disc, which had an even smaller hole in the middle. This solid plastic disc resembled a tiny record, and in fact it was a tiny record. Each page had one of these tiny plastic records on it, and there was a special player which you set on top of the pages over the record. This player fit into the palm of your hand, and when I think about it, it resembled a rather big and clunky computer mouse in appearance. Anyway, you would align this player over the page's little record, push a button, and a small needle on the bottom of the player would spin around and essentially play the record on the page. The player even had a little speaker built into it. You would essentially repeat the process of fixating the player over each page of the book, and you could play through the story, while reading along in the text and seeing the pictures.

It was really quite a nice little setup!

There were other books I had for the player; there was a Winnie the Pooh book, I think, and I remember one other book that sang you through the alphabet song, using animals that started with certain letters and demonstrating the sound they made. The giraffe sound was just someone whispering something like "I'm a giraffe!". Silly, I know, but there you have it.

Has anyone else ever heard of these books? Do you know what they were called? I know they had a name. Does anyone have the Muppet Show book in this set? This would be quite a collector's item, I would think.

I'd be interested to know of anyone who has this. Thanks!

 

[muppetperson]

I have the book, but not the player.It is called fisher Price Talk-To-Me book-
It's The muppet show!(1979)

 

[aixia]

I had that! We had a few of them, like a Mickey Mouse one where he was in a haunted house with Goofy and Donald as well as the Muppet Show one. It was a brilliant concept, way ahead of its time when you look at the stuff like the Leap Frog products out now and other assorted books with sound.

 

[peyjenk]

I had at least one copy of the Muppet book (I think I ended up with two eventually) but not the player. I always wanted the player, but by the time I came around, they were no longer produced. In fact, the books I did have were from flea markets, junk stores, etc.

I need to dig around in my trunk to see if I still have either copy of that book. I remember loving the illustrations.