#FlashbackFriday is a CREA-TOR!!!!

Come on, it’ll show you how!

But first…

Yesterday, on Throwback Thursday, we looked at a cell phone on the cusp of the millennium, and the possible future of cell phones.

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We were informed that some were ready for it, while others would follow.

I can access the internet AND make phone calls?!

Today, we backtrack into 1987 to look at what was probably the most cutting-edge way to Etch A Sketch EVER!

So we have kids.  Three very different kids.

And they are all playing with something amazing…that wasn’t Nintendo or the Sega Master System.

They’re drawing.  And the drawings…ARE COMING TO LIFE!

OMG!

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How do they make this happen?  Why, the Etch A Sketch Animator!  That’s how!

Wanna see it in action?

Click play and find out!

The Etch A Sketch Animator was introduced in 1986, and featured the knobs of your traditional Etch A Sketch, but also included buttons to manipulate your drawings, a few kilobytes (?!) of memory to save 12 frames of pictures in any combination up to 96 times, and a speaker.  The purpose of this speaker?  Static-like sounds when the knobs are moved during animation.

Oh, and it was $50.  $50 for something that delivers all the promises, but produces all the lies.

So many lies.

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That’s a simulation of your $50 disappearing.

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In 1988, the Animator got an upgrade to…Etch A Sketch Animator 2000!!

And thanks to You Tube user Pickle Deliverer, there is a commercial for that too!

I was like “Holy crap!  It talks…and it’s AGGRAVATING!!!!”

Imagine the disappointment of finding out it doesn’t talk?  That was like the Cricket commercial where the doll walked, with the disclaimer that says “Cricket doesn’t actually walk.”

I don’t have any evidence to back up the claim that the commercial exists.

1980s Childhood: Disappointment Happened.

And…that’s where we end this one, but not before I show you the original Etch A Sketch Animator commercial that made Doug Aamoth’s 2009 Tech Crunch article on disappointing gifts.  It is a stark reminder of how something can look so damn exciting in theory, yet prove to be a total disappointment.

Poor Doug.  And poor everyone who really was excited about this.  I can’t blame anyone, I got excited about it too, since I had the basic Etch A Sketch and spent many a session with it as a Frustrated “Artist.”

Oh well.  It’s Friday, so…TGIF!

 

 

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