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 Post subject: Anyway still own the Action Man turntable and coloured vinyl
PostPosted: 20 Apr 2017, 11:03 
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No I'm not joking. This really did exist but not quite in the form you envisage.

Many years ago a friend of my older brother gave him a load of Action Man toys and equipment which he no longer wanted. In amongst all this gear was one device that I will never forgot - a working vinyl turntable for Action Man!

It was actually marketed as a field radio backpack for Action Man which had a button on it which you could press to blurt out military commands! The source of the audio was a miniature battery powered stylus which played individual interchangeable coloured vinyl records. So in essence it was fully functional record player with the records about the same size for Action Man as they would be for a grown adult holding a 12" record. They were 5 different coloured records available (clear, yellow, blue, red, green) with 8 unique messages per side. It's funny to think back how much effort the manufacturers put into making this toy. It was a handheld portable audio device with interchangeable records available between 1974-76 so predates even the cassette walkman by several years.

https://actionmanhq.co.uk/figures/field ... index.html
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 Post subject: Re: Anyway still own the Action Man turntable and coloured v
PostPosted: 20 Apr 2017, 15:46 
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Aren't they the same insides are the talking figures??
I never had one but know about them, at least in the GI Joe versions but do know of Action Man also.
Bought a few space figures back in the day at a toy convention, very cool as they had the eagle eyes and were in these crazy astro suits.
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 Post subject: Re: Anyway still own the Action Man turntable and coloured v
PostPosted: 20 Apr 2017, 15:52 
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Wow - really too good to just be a kids toy!

I guess one of these in good nick with a full set of 'records' must be worth a bit!
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 Post subject: Re: Anyway still own the Action Man turntable and coloured v
PostPosted: 20 Apr 2017, 17:56 
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Yeah, I think what makes this one unique is that you can actually access and change the records, that's pretty cool and while there probably were other toys that did this I can't think of any. As far as the mech itself I think it's in tons of stuff. Before cheap digital storage and CPU based speech synthesis this is how most things talked. I think some may have used some form of tape with a grove in it, but basically the same.

There are some amazing videos on YouTube of battle DJs scratching the Fischer Price See n' Say, which also uses a tiny record.

The latest example of a toy using this scheme that I can think of was the 12" talking Mork from Ork. There were probably others though. That was like 1980.
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https://youtu.be/b3O-vHpHRpM
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 Post subject: Re: Anyway still own the Action Man turntable and coloured v
PostPosted: 21 Apr 2017, 00:05 
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audioboyz1973 wrote:
Wow - really too good to just be a kids toy!

I guess one of these in good nick with a full set of 'records' must be worth a bit!


Yeah I bet a working set with all the records and even the original box would be worth a small fortune today.
I know we never had the box but it definitely did work when we first got it but that was a long time ago.
I've also lost track of where it went. I think it may have ended up being given to a primary school along with some other toys.
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