I tried to demo one of my favorite toys - it is a battery powered Super 8 film loop viewer. Light enters from the side to illuminate the movie so you hold it up to a light source, and the mechanism is very simple. The film is advanced by a rotating sprocket that intermittently grabs in the sprocket holes to flip the film forward a frame. It is very noisy, as you can tell - But fun! I wish I had more film loop cartridges for it.

By Fran

14 thoughts on “Super 8 film loop toy”
  1. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Nadine Torres says:

    I want to have one. of this toys for my granddaughter

  2. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Nadine Torres says:

    hello there do you know by the chance any store that could be selling this toys thanks

  3. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars jumento asiatico pringao says:

    There's some comercial for TV about this toy on youtube???

  4. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Vyratron says:

    In the 70s I think Disney made a toy like this that played Mickey Mouse and other cartoons in film loop cartridges. In my opinion they don't make interesting toys anymore. I didn't have the film loop toy but I had a big (not pocket sized, more like speak n spell size) Mickey Math calculator with a VFD tube display.

  5. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars William Gottlieb says:

    This model of movie viewer came out in the mid-1980s. I had a solid black one with a reel that had the trailer for King Kong vs Godzilla and another with part of one of the Max Fleischer Superman cartoons. I ordered it from the Johnson Smith joke and novelty company. They sold it with two reels, one was packaged on the blister card, and the other reel was on its own card. The selection was their choice. There should be a keyring on these little viewers.

    In the late-1970s, there were at least two larger versions that were held much like a home movie camera. One of them was colored solid red and had a large round clear reel much like this mini version. It was advertised on TV showing a quick shot of the 1976 King Kong as he broke out of his cage. The other model of viewer was released by GAF, the View Master people and was a bright green. Each clear reel housing was kind of rectangular with rounded corners on opposite sides so it could be flipped to show two different movie clips. I remember seeing this one on the store shelf with one side of a reel having a clip of the 1931 Dracula movie.

  6. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Travelinmatt76 says:

    I have one of these! It has a film of a shuttle launch, I bought it a few years ago from a private NASA memorabilia museum in New Mexico. I've never been able to find any information about them.

  7. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Mark's Journey says:

    I had one of these! Very cool!

  8. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Richard Crewe says:

    How much detail is there in the cassette? Is it the sort of thing that you could run off on a 3D printer or mould in silicone then create with a resin casting? (You'd have to be quite desperate for short, looped silent movies to do either of these though.)

  9. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Sophie Lynne says:

    Works been kind of slow since cartoons went to color.

  10. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Fracture says:

    I wonder if you could use an old 8-track cartridge and retro (heh) fit a lens an motor. I'm assuming the cartridges work the same way – pull the film from the center and wrap it around the outside – or is it something simpler.

  11. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Fracture says:

    I must have had a friend that owned one of these when I was very young. I had a really strong sense of nostalgic deja-vu when you showed that, but can't place an actual memory. Boop-boop-be-doop!

  12. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Shit, I Missed. says:

    Fran, they come up on a google search for Micro Movie Viewer. (concept shamelessly stolen from donjuanzx9)

  13. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Fran Blanche says:

    Excellent! Yes indeed ๐Ÿ™‚

  14. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars donjuanzx9 says:

    Made by ; Fascinations.

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