When I was little, somewhere between five and seven years old, I had a toy my grandma bought me from a garage sale. The playset was a cream color, possibly originally white, made of hard plastic, and molded to look like a book. The case opened to reveal houses for Mickey and each of his friends. When wound, a story played and each house lit up as its part of the story came. I remember being enamored with this toy and making up additional stories for the Mickey characters seen through the windows of their homes. I played the story over and over, loving the magic of the automatically lit houses.
But there was just one problem. I searched for evidence of this toy for ten years off and on, and found nothing. I turned to Reddit for help five years ago after failed Google searches, and no answer was found. I searched fervently again recently, asked ChatGPT, and sought advice from a different subreddit. Still, nothing appeared.
Suddenly, in one of my Google searches, I discovered the toy may have been from the ’70s or ’80s. I narrowed the search to a couple of potential brand names, found someone else’s Reddit post, and there was finally an answer: The 1989 Mattel Disney Storyshine Theater.
So what was the problem? I had pictures of the right toy and a name to Google, but the reality did not match my memory. There are no 3D houses. The clear plastic is actually lit by a handheld flashlight, and the scene does not pop up. You have to physically set it up yourself.
I suppose this goes to show how we store our memories is not always accurate. The magic we create in our imaginations as children is often quite different from what is real.
Nevertheless, the solved mystery was not going to slip between my fingers. I bought a Disney Storyshine Theater with the “Mickey’s Birthday Surprise!” and “The Almost Perfect Picnic” sets. I was determined to rediscover this toy, this time through photography. I also had to buy a vintage cassette player to get the audio portion of the setup working.
I then also had to buy a cassette player and borrow earbuds with an aux cord from my parents.
Because the toy relies on flat, clear plastic slides, there is only so much you can do with it visually. The projected images themselves are quite soft and do not throw a very sharp picture. Instead of trying to force a look that is not there, my goal with the photography was to capture the clear plastic of the toy itself.
By focusing the lens directly on the clear plastic overlays, the illustrations come through much more clearly than they do when projected onto the background.
I made the following images and and hope to eventually make a YouTube video so that you can see how this vintage piece looks in detail, and so that no one else has to work as hard as I did to find this toy.
Over to You
Memory is a funny thing, but capturing the physical reality of these old toys is a great way to preserve them. Do you remember this specific Mattel set, or do you have a favorite vintage toy you love to photograph? Leave a comment and let’s talk shop!
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