I'm surprised they still make this. Usually kids toys are modeled after what they see adults doing. Some people still have turntables, but it's rare enough that I wasn't expecting there to be much demand for this.
We have a turntable, and our 2½ year old listens to records on it. He's not putting the records on himself just yet of course, but it's nice to have some technology where the physical aspect is so prominent — records have two sides, you have to manually place the needle and stop the turntable after listening, and records hold a specific album.
He'd love a toy like that (the original that is).
On a related note: it's nice that some old records with children's content are actually really good, and often much nicer — slower, more focussed, and with better articulation — than modern content for his demographic. Although I admit that the much-loved audio play about a field mouse visiting her mousy friend who lives in the city to learn all about the sounds in a family's house is a bit… anachronistic. The shower, electrical razor, and hoover are fine, but the typewriter and landline telephone may be a tad confusing, and the baker who hawks his bread at the door hasn't shown up in reality yet (but fast-food delivery is a close-ish thing). His parents both use mechanical keyboards though, so the sound isn't too far-fetched.
People will buy this toy mostly for the nostalgic feeling. I just don't get why Fisherprice didn't just remake the battery-less original though; it would have hit just the right note nowadays. The remake just damages their brand.
Exactly. A good business always has to remember who the actual customer is. For kids, in many cases the actual customer is mom & dad, so make sure your product is aimed at them. Same with selling software to a business, the customer is management not the engineers who will actually use it.
That's a good point. lmao what a weird hauntology. the past generation bought the toy for their children because of its resemblance to everyday items in their lives, and the next generation buys a facsimile for their children for its resemblance to the toy from their childhood. i wonder how many iterations will the chain continue
In this case, it'll end with the current generation of children, because toys like the one we're discussing here have nothing in them to create lasting memories. They cut the things that made the toy special out in the redesign.
Yeah, the sad fact of baby toys is that they are fundamentally selling to the adults, not to the tots.
The tot phase is pretty fast, so parents don't really seem to get a feel for what is a "good" baby toy in time.
I really wish there would be more general study of this rather than being at the mercy of a sales market that fundamentally doesn't have the baby in mind, mostly just the parents buying the stuff.
But then again, "learning acceleration" in babies is probably bunk anyway.
My mother is a developmental psychologist specialised in babies / toddlers. According to her most research showed that behavior of the parents was a far far bigger factor in the speed of development. And on the toys side of things that it's mostly about allowing for creativity in play, meaning kids want to invent their own game with whatever you give them.
Simple wooden building blocks or a stack of cups that fit in each other already allow for that for early age, no need for more advanced toys / battery driven things.
