This was one of those games--like "Colorforms" and "Tickle-Bee"--which had no competitive edge, and they could be played by one person. As a "sort of" (my sister is fourteen years older than I, so she was out of the house by the time I reached actual childhood!!!!) only child, any such game was of value to me. I could spend hours by myself, playing what I want to do.
"Toon-A-Vision" was the forerunner of those toys which had a face inside a plastic covering, black ink, or smudge, at the bottom, and a magnetic pencil or pen, so you could move the smudge to make the guy have hair, moustache, beard, or whatever. "Toon-A-Vision" actually did it better, because the faces were changed by way of dials, and the images on the side could be easily recreated, or you could make up your own. It was way less messy than the other game, and the black smudge did not always stay in place.
"Toon-A-Vision" never failed.
For all the games housed in my basement, till moving out in 1980, this was one of the ones to get away, before. I do not know how; like I said, it was not until I saw the photo that I remembered I had once owned this.
Just think of the fun I could still have, owning this!
And don't tell me there were no kids out there who tried to transsexualize the faces!!!!!!!!!!!! Hell, I was probably one of them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I definitely had something like this when I was very very young (5-7 y/o).
ReplyDeleteIt was somewhat different, tho: the framing box was HUGE, almost as tall as I was. The knobs were closer to the edge than the middle, with the face area being much larger. For whatever reason, I distinctly remember it being associated somehow with the local WNEW tv weatherman, as the central face was male, and the knobs changed his hats as well as hair and expressions (in response to the daily weather reports).
One never knows what long-forgotten ephemera your blog will dredge from our pasts. I retain very few vivid memories of my life prior to age 9 or 10, loving this knob-face toy is one of them.
ReplyDeleteDarling,
I do not recall the exact toy
you mentioned. Maybe it was
updated, and we just had different
editions. Many of these games were
revised throughout our lifetimes.
I go with edition I owned as a child!