Today we took the children to Children's Fairyland, in Oakland. My wife and I both remember going there when we were children, and the place hasn't changed much in the last 30 years. (Michael Lewis has a hilarious account of the place.)
One of the things I remembered most vividly about the place were these talking storybooks. You would buy a key, insert it in the storybook (in about the same place a diary might have a lock), and it would tell a story. As a child, I thought this was an amazing, captivating technology: a book that talks! Of course, there's a long tradition in children's literature and film of talking books, or books that come alive (how many Disney movies start with a book opening, then the pages morphing into animation?); but I didn't know that when I was three.
When we got back I decided to check out their history. According to the San Francisco Zoo (which also has talking storybooks),
The original Talking Storybook was invented in the early 1950’s by a well-known Bay Area children’s entertainer and puppeteer named Bruce Sedley. One of Sedley’s popular stints at the time was as a storyteller at the Oakland Fairyland. He eventually grew tired of repeating his stories and came up with a tape-and-speaker mechanism to replace himself. By combining his skills as a storyteller, tinkerer and amateur locksmith, Sedley created the original Talking Storybook and Key.
Sedley himself describes their genesis thus:
In 1957, the Oakland Park Department was building a Theme Park called Children's Fairyland" in beautiful Lake Merritt Park. The genius behind the project was William Penn Mott, the Director of the Oakland Park Department.... To get the children's interest he had installed record playing machines operated by 5 cent coins at the sets to play musical nursery rhymes but the units were always breaking down. As I was familiar with Tape Playback Message Repeaters, I was called in and suggested that they use them and that instead of a coin, sell the children a Lifetime "Magic Key to Fairyland", a gold plated ornamental plastic key that could be inserted into a keyhole in post mounted "Talking Storybooks" at each set. Bill Mott accepted the proposal, a contract was signed, and the Park Department made and installed the first "Talking Storybooks" in the fall of 1958.
I like how they say "Patent Pending" on the side.
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