Pocket Rockers - 1980s endless loop tapes for kids
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- čas přidán 19. 04. 2018
- In the late 1980s all the cool kids were wearing mini Genesis tapes as jewellery - well at least that's what Fisher Price hoped would happen.
NOTE 11 Seconds of audio muted due to content match.
Thanks to Databits for the tip on the hidden Pocket Rockers screw
/ databits
Pocket Rockers Commercials
• 1988 - Pocket Rockers ...
• Pocket Rockers Commercial
Pictures of the Bandai Micro Cartridge are from The Museum of Obsolete Media www.obsoletemedia.org
List of Pocket Rockers Titles: bit.ly/2EWVRW4
List of Pocket Rockers players & accessories bit.ly/2J3qpbd
HITCLIPS VIDEO NOW AVAILABLE HERE - • HitClips - The truth b...
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/ techmoan
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---------Outro Music----------
Over Time - Vibe Tracks • Over Time - Vibe Track...
-----Outro Sound Effect-----
ThatSFXGuy - • Six Million Dollar man... - Věda a technologie
*HitClips video now available here* : czcams.com/video/X8568_3amO4/video.html
Also sorry about the muted audio on this PocketRockers video. You know how it is, Auto Content Match to the artists rescue.
Figured as much 🌕
Well, no one has listened to Cutting Crew for thirty years, why would we start now?
It's kinda funny that the Pocket Rocker's speaker was so bad that Content ID didn't even recognize the song.
0:29 "put hitclips to one side"
2 years later
Of course. God I hate CZcams's copyright bot system. Remember folks, 2 strikes at once and your channel is deleted.
"Have a listen to a direct feed I have of it"
*solid 10 seconds of silence due to copyrighted music being cut out*
so that's why it sounded so absolutely clean!
"Now you might've noticed..."
Replace 10 seconds of silence with “Never gonna give you up” by Rick Ashley.
Thanks for nothing CZcams 😑
CZcams needs to grow the heck up.
I wanted one of these and then my parents got me a Walkman - I think I won out on that.
You had wise parents
You’re parents are the anti-average parents. Lol
you have great parents, i wanted a PSP and got a 1000 in one chinese knockoff
+Sergej 2 Then you have the opposite of great parents, I never got any horrible bootleg console or any lame stuff.
@@sergej2850 I see those EVERY WHERE in my yt recommended page, and there cheap so probably your parents thought that it was really 1000 games in one thing sooooooo that's probably why they got u that
tl;dr they believed there were actually 1000 games in one consol
These were huge when I was in 3rd grade. My friend had “Walk Like An Egyptian” and she was really popular at recess.
Where are you from? Ive never seen these before.
That song fucking bangs of course she was
Yare yare daze
Wayoh wayohh wayy-ay-yoh-wayohhh.. walk like an Egyptiannnn
Oh Ho! Your approaching me ? instead of Running away , Your coming right at me!
That face when youtube cuts out a ton of the song due to copyright even though this is fair use. Great company and business model!
He's allowed to use it because it's an educational video. So not only is it fair use, it's within youtubes ToS
@@Wombattlr But it appears that this has also happened to me while I was watching this video.
Yep censored here in the US...
@@paticusmaximus12 in switzerland too!
@@ddspixelrush6848 in Russia also censored
The graphics on the front of the player are 100% pure 80s
yes
Memphis Group/Milano design.
"As was the style at the time!"
lol.. searching for "Pocket Rockers" in ebay gives back mostly small "Personal Massagers" for females...
yeah... it does.
Same. Im not mad at tho.
XD
LOL
for everyone*
Wow this is a lot better than the 60 second hit clips
And it's even more older.
And it was made 20 years earlier roughly
Bit it's also twice the size
Stop cappin to yo self
So totally-I used to have this one 💚💜 I miss it my mom threw it out. I was the only kid in my area who liked these or was interested in different tape sizes
“It’s doubtful I’ll ever use this again, but at least it’s working perfectly now”.
This is the way.
I didn't even notice this quote the first time I watched, but now I'm like "Yes 😌"
He could resell it on ebay to a collector.
This looks like something you would find in the front window of that antique store in Back to the Future Part II.
Well, the song that plays at 11:05 IS "The power of love" from Back to the Future
They also did release a Pocket Rockers "Johnny B. Goode" tape by Chuck Berry (*Lip Syncing Michael J Fox Not Included)
As true as that may be, I loved these.
At first, I was thinking, "A 16 minute video about Pocket Rockers? What could he possibly talk about for that long? Eh, I'll check it out for a few seconds just for nostalgia's sake."
- ten minutes later, and I'm still glued to the screen -
"Geez, only six minutes left! What is on the other side of the tape? How long will the replacement belt last? How much are these things now? Why did I never want one of these things? Did I even know anybody who owned one? What about?.."
You must have been new to CZcams lol
They had a chance to put The Song That Never Ends on it, and they blew it.
I haven’t heard that song since I was a tween, and the damn thing is STILL in my head, tune, words and all, perfectly intact.
@@nessamillikan6247 same
Put Mana Mana on a tape loop, you'd never notice the difference.
Imagine this with vaporwave cartridges
JokeriPokeri17 id buy that
Maximum a e s t h e t i c
Y e s
Y E S
V E R Y G R O O V Y
3 minutes of tape? You could fit 5 Ramones songs on it.
300DBenz or any grindcore EP for that matter. lol
:v
See, thinking like that makes me tempted to put out a noisecore EP on pocket rocker tape.
@@noesunyoutuber7680 do it
@@danielrose3447 Well, now I have to go find one of these things. Wish me luck, people!
That always disappointed me as a kid. Ads marketing gadgets to kids always showed them enjoying them at school, on the bus, or in class. But that wasnt the reality. Most places where they werent allowed and adult staff with hands out ready to snatch them.
You couldn't use a walkman in the school bus?
Yeah man, like taking my Pokemon cards at recess. Ugh! fucking adults. I HATE THEM I HATE THEM IA HTE THEM!
@@user-ij6pp4lv4f at least you don't have any lingering bitterness 😁
I had this one teacher, if she thought you had gum, she would call you up to smell your breath (so you couldn't pull the ole sneaky swallow) she was a savage 😭
Andrew Woo: yeah they suck
Half the point of public school is to dominate children and push them around in order to instill the idea that 'authority' can do whatever it wants and there's nothing they can do about it. "Confiscating" possessions on the grounds of some arbitrary policy is an integral part of that process. After all those formative years of subjugation, you'll make a good little drone when you grow up, never questioning what your boss or the government says. Anyway rant aside, you're absolutely right. I was too old for this when it was popular, but nonetheless at my school pretty much any sort of toy or game was banned anywhere on school property, including buses which were considered part of the school. If you let a teacher see you had something like this, let alone actually have the nerve to use it, you'd have it taken away at once.
Haha. I remember that Hit Clips thing. I used to have one for "Who let the dogs out?" and drove my parents absolutely nuts with that thing.
My parents had a cookie jar shaped like a dog that would play that song every time you opened it I would open it just to listen to the song and annoy my parents they never actually kept cookies in there well at first they did
Had the same one!
Guardians Of The Galaxy but instead of a Walkman, Quill has one of these.
"You shouldn't have killed my mom, and smahsed my Pocket Rocker"
My favourite scene would be where Quill tries to listen to The Chain but it always fades out just before the guitar solo
Starlords offbrand sunking
The movie is only the first half and then it fades to Black
lol
Think that advert might be the most 80’s thing ever
In 1988, all the cool kids were into Credence Clearwater Revival
Popo Bawa Well at least the kids who saw that commercial wouldn’t have been saddened by the terrible bastardization of CCR. Oddly enough though, why weren’t kids from that era into them? I was born in ‘89 and still found my way to enjoying music that old.
Redneck Ram's Parlor - "Oddly enough though, why weren’t kids from that era into them? I was born in ‘89 and still found my way to enjoying music that old." - I was half-joking. I think that a bad CCR cover was a doubly-bad marketing move. But hailing from '72, many of my peers were into older popular music. In my region, the early 80s was when we got "oldies" (50s-60s) and "classic rock" (60s-70s) radio stations. Not to mention that some of us started out by combing through parent's record collections.
1980s - Pocket Rockers
2000s - Hit Clips
It's like poetry, every stanza kind of rhymes with the last one.
were due for a 2020's one as well lol
2010's- TikTok
For sure--Hit Clips were the later-day solid-state tapeless version of the Pocket Rockers.
Hit clips only had like 15-30 seconds if I remember correctly
So excited to find this video because I distinctly remember having one of these for a while as a kid. My tape was "Shout" and "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears. Probably the first time I ever heard those songs actually and might be why I still love them now.
"Have a listen to a direct feed of it."
*COPYRIGHT ATTACK!*
*but first, a word from our sponsors*
made me automatically fast-forward 30 seconds before I realized it wasn't an ad
It's an ad lol
@@Manuel_FM but it's part of the video
Yeah this video it's not endorsed by example Squarespace
Oh my god same XD
Haha you fucking stupid bitch
The biggest problem with these was the same problem as everything marketed towards kids.
Kids don't have money and have to get their parents to buy them.
Damn you, child labour laws!!!!
(Nah, just kidding; we shouldn't make kids do strenuous manual labour just for a quick buck.)
I doubt that's a problem considering advertisements for toys still exist.
What I said but not as well I said it.
How is that problem? Is it supposed to marketed to adults instead?
And yet, kids seem to be exceedingly effective in liberating their parents' cash.
“And first, a word from our sponsors...”
Me: Oh no
“POCKET ROCKERS”
Me: :)
RAID SHADOW LEGENDS oh wait no it's pocket rockers
Same, I thought it was an ad for square space
That was a clever segment
My dad was part of the team at fisher price that designed these, it was one of his favorite products.
The artwork on the player, that just screams 1980s, I don't think there was a single product or TV show that didn't use that design back then... :P
Real electronics brands tended to keep it classy, save for the "My First Sony" campaign, which I think steered more kids to the "It's a Sony" campaign than the goofy kids colored stuff. It did for me anyhow. My first quality Walkman and Discman were both mid-line Sonys, both black and silver.
The designers who made this style popular were from the Italian design collective Memphis Milano. Some of the original artwork will still (and increasingly) set you back quite a penny
As soon as I saw the graphics on the player I thought “ did they copy the Philips Moving Sound players or did Philips copy them? “ The Philips came with stickers so you could personalise your equipment.
Funny that the one in the commercial is so ordinary looking by comparison, black with blue over the speaker.
So THAT'S what it was called, THAT'S where it came from!!! Thank you so much. I've been looking for a name to pin on this style since forever. It's very charming, and I wish we could go back to it on some level.. But looking at some of that furniture... Yeah I couldn't live more than 2-3 months in a house styled like that... probably. It's fascinating to me how it took off, and then faded away..
Crazy how the 80s fashion and style seem like an alternative universe.
I'm not sure today is much different.
gratituous access to high quality cocain in the fashion world does that
Pink and powder-blue confetti universe.
Mohamed Alfalo I don't know where you live, but in the Netherlands there is definitely an 80's comeback with clothes, watches and shoes.
I love it
I think the appeal was in the relatively simplicity and durability of the device. You could hand one to a young child and not worry about them damaging a cassette player or a (relatively) expensive full album cassette. As for the music selection well, what eight year-old child has a taste in music beyond "that stuff mom and dad listen to?" :P
maybe 8 yo kids in the 80s were like that but nowadays....
@@HaswellCore kids are still like this. Listen to music with your children and they'll learn and love the stuff. Don't just turn them loose on TicTok, or the absolute lose gutter music on radio and they'll be fine.
I mean I have warm memories about songs that uhhh, were about suicide I think.....
In my defense, the artist really did a good job with the song and it just sounded banging.
@@ronindebeatrice Oh god nobody cares about your boomer music
@@HaswellCore I think I was age 11, 70's, bought first album, best of Beatles ( the red cover, the other one was blue, both with picture of them looking down from balcony ). My parents did not listen to rock music.
I still use mine everyday. I mean it goes so well with my denim jacket.
The non-recorded side of the tape was used by Soviet intelligence to smuggle the machine code of the Minuteman ICBM's inertial navigation system into the USSR. Each cassette had 200 bytes of that code encoded on the unused half of the tape encoded as two short bursts of data after a very short synchronization pattern and a checksum. Agents used an early American homecomputer with cassette deck interface and a modified pocket rocker drive that had it's read head replaced by with a conventional audio cassette head. The reader in Moscow is on display at the GRU's Museum along with a TTL simulator of the American Minuteman's navigation computer running the exfiltrated software. The tapes were carried on board an Aeroflot flight by the unsuspecting teenage children of a number of Russian diplomats on their way to a two week long Pioneer camp near Chelyabinsk. On the train from Moscow to Chelyabinsk agents retrieved the tapes from the children after slipping them a weak sedative.
I've got some very important work for you. I've waited so long for you to contact me in exactly this way.
I want to believe...
Пиздец
wow
BRAIN.EXE HAS STOPPED WORKING
Jesus. 35ish years ago? I never had one or saw one that I remember but I remember the ad jingle like it was yesterday. I can't remember what my first dog looked like, but I remember the Pocket Rockers theme. Thanks, brain, excellent use of neurons there.
Do you remember any adults touching you inaporoproately?
skunk12 wtf dude? what even causes you to make a comment like that? 😖
@@MichaelJOneill333 its common for vicims of trauma to mentally block out their childhood.
@@skunk12 that was a stupid question either way
I showed my mum this video and she laughed and said she remembered having one of these, she had the Cindy Lauper tape. She was given it on her 8th birthday in 1989, apparently they weren't cheap either ripp.
Damn reading this made me feel old af cuz i remember these and your saying you showed your mom this so obviously u werent around when these were created
I.a. Rodriguez lmao that’s exactly what I said!
@@Sarah-sd8pp i miss the 90s
@@i.a.rodriguez8994 hell, i miss being able to remember the 90's
@@i.a.rodriguez8994 there are currently people who weren't even born yet when 9/11 happened that graduated highschool a couple years ago and will start families in the next 5 or 6 years or so, i repeat, in 2033 your average second grade class will be full of kids saying "my dad was born in 2002", as someone born in 2003 i am just as terrified of that future as you are
Here in Australia, Fisher Price was solely associated with toys for toddlers. An eight year old kid showing off his new Pocket Rocker would have suffered everlasting humiliation.
in sweden to
Its true every where I'm pretty sure.
It's like that in America
Fisher-Price is associated to it everywhere
Quebec Canada here. Fisher Price is associated with kindergarden, toddlers and babies.
I had a Pocket Rocker with that Cutting Crew tape. by the time I got it in the 90s, the belt inside had worn and I fondly remember having to hit it to continue playing.
Never remembered what happened to it. I miss it.
5:01
Techmoan: Have a listen of the direct feed I've taken of it.
CZcams Copyright: How about no?
I had one of these as a kid and absolutely loved it! I'm sure my sister and I drove our parents crazy with Tiffany, The Bangles, and Kim Carnes playing endlessly. I do remember for the time period, the sound was really good. We didn't wear them or the cassettes anywhere. We just played the heck out of them. Thanks for the review!
Today will be a day long remembered. Wow...greatly appreciate the credit!
databits I followed u
I follow both of you already. It’s still a great thing to see.
databits I’m on my way to your channel now!
databits
Especially nice shoutout, after your mild grumble about "that guy across the pond" a while back. lol
I've been subbed to you for years, btw. Anyone who enjoys Techmoan should enjoy databits as well.
(databits was doing this stuff well before it starred puppets. :p )
databits nice
Wow! Pretty good quality for a novelty kids toy from the 80's. Way better quality than the early 2000's "HITclip" that I grew up with!
Woofer Cooker I forgot all about the hitclip.
I have the radio tuner thing for the HIT clip player somewhere, lol. Never gave those things another thought until now.
"its doubtful ill ever use this again but at least its working perfectly now" I love this mentality
It wasn't this exactly, but at some point between 98-02ish my local library used to host this thing in the summer for kids, where if you made it through their whole summer reading list, you won a little prize bag, and then they have extra books for extra prizes. One of the prizes I won was a little portable tape deck that came with 3 tapes. They weren't endless loop, but they each had 2 songs on them, and they were absolutely tiny. The player itself was worn around the neck like a necklace, and was maybe the size of a pack of cigarettes (american, if they're different in other places), of a little smaller. You got 3 tapes with it, but the only song I remember was TLC waterfalls. I had that thing for *years* it was solid blue, and only had an eject button for the tapes. No pause, no rewind, nothing else. They also had a little fm radio that clipped onto your belt loops, but I didn't get that one.
80's overdose. Feels good.
I love watching the belt-replacement-channel.
tyrgoossens Last year, one of my uncles collapsed while he was staying with us. It was tragic. The family was devastated. Everyone thought he was dead. But, after watching Techmoan for years, I just opened my uncle up and replaced the belt. He was good as new.
Even though I was born in the mid 90s, 80s tech feels so nostalgic because of how much I used it. My grandparents didn't even upgrade from VHS to DVD until like 2005.
At 11:06, if you plug in headphones and take off one ear, you hear one track, the other ear the other track. I just thought that was rather cool.
Starry Bubble woah thanks!
What are the songs that play?
😮 Thank you! I didn't even think to do that lol.
that's how stereo works yeah
That never occurred to me
I usually watch these videos on my phone and it's mono speaker
The art on the tapes is pretty cool though
metalmugen I
Wow the tape is pure 80s
BucketsAMF I think he meant this specific format.
5Rounds Rapid no, I mean the Cutting Crew tape.
leogrievous Definitely!
leogrievous pure an hero
It reeks of 80’s..... love it!!
A man in a van asked me if I wanted a pocket rocket in 1982.
are you joking? did you say no?
Hahah damn dude
@@justvaper Wise men say "Man with hands in pocket feel cocky all day".
Just asking do you still want the pocket rocket.... signed man in van
It's vampires
Looking at the list of songs featured on these, I'm impressed at the variety, it feels like they have a wider range of genres than hitclips did. More oldies, more current hits that aren't just pure pop. Also I love the custom art they've made for each cassette, it's really 80s and looks awesome
I remember listening to Walk like an Egyptian on that thing like it was yesterday. I was probably 5 and was impressed :)
Bobby M oh yeah, I had that one too. And bon jovi, Debbie Gibson and a few others
A girl at school had that tape. Due to rights issues, it was a knockoff and not The Bangles.
One of these things would have blown my mind at 5 years-old lol
8:37
"Huey Lewis has lost his sponge." - The new album, out now in Our Price.
Huey Lewis has lost his hearing sadly.
Dana W
"I'm sorry, but you're just too darn loud." (BTTF)
Yeah, I saw on the news (ironically) that he had to cancel a gig recently.
Shame, as it happens to a lot of musicians. Makes you think more about volume levels and ear protection.
It's mainly the high frequencies that damage hearing, of course. May be worth more live gigs taking a bit more off the top end?
Oddly, Huey lost is hearing due to some sort of a rare disease and not just "loud music".
Maxwelhse
Oh.
I hadn't read that part. :(
ElectronAsh not just a gig was cancelled, his entire tour was cancelled.
I freakin love the artwork on those things and their packaging.
agreed
Are you sure it's from the '80s? I couldn't tell from the case.
It's late 80s.
r/whoosh
@@peter-william You suck at the sarcasm, not to mention that print could also be early 90s.
@@peter-william haha, wooooshed! also: r/ihavereddit, r/itswoooshwithfouros, r/im14andthisiswoosh and any number of subreddits that apply to your absolutely fucking stupid comment.
The hair styles of the kids clues you in that it is the 80s .
Insanity made as a toy. Nothing says musical pleasure like hearing some 80's pop rock song *overandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverand*
You forget how much children like to listen to the same sound over and over again.
Heaven
80's radios stations in a nutshell
*overandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandiLiKECHEESEoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverand* .....
^ this guy has never had a depressive episode consisting of playing Africa 118 times at two in the morning.
I want a Pocket Rocker.
It’s so effin cute.
You know you can edit your comment right
You do have it, just with a screen now a days🤣
Just select “repeat one song” in your iPod settings, then select a song. Boom, pocket rocker.
@@Exhaustedhighlighter Mee too
The ad music was so drummed into my head it might as well been a radio hit. Nostalgia power!
Never had this but I did have hit clips and this is so much cooler and that sound of inserting the mini cassette is SO satisfying
I'm 38 and remember these...they were quite the novelty but music selection was limited and they didn't have the hip-hop acts of the day like run- dmc or eric B and rakim it was pretty much jus pop...it was hot for the summer and that fall for school, but after that xmas it was pretty much forgotten..
Thanks for the review! 👍🔥
John Smith dude Im 38 as well and don't recall these at all. I had spent some Birthday money to buy a cheap walkman knockoff like he showed in the picture. I used to make mixed tapes by listen to the radio and hitting record whenever a new song came on.
Oneofdazzz
Yeah man i mean honestly this only stuck out due to my younger sister. I mean i wasn't rocking it on the recess yard...lol. 😁
pocket rockers did have the fat boys available. Kind of pop or kid friendly act, but no question they were hip-hop.
It’s night time and I’m learning about 80’s toys.
Help
How old are ya?
benjamin orostica I said night time because I meant 3am but it being 3am I couldn’t think
No that's right, carry on.
You're doing the right thing
Same 1 am
I still have my pink and black one, I got it and a case to carry extra tapes for Christmas one year. I'll be 44 in March. My kids had hit clips.
I remember playing with a couple hit clips when i was little and wondering how they worked internally... I have no idea how I ended up with them in the first place however as I was very young at the time... To this day that tiny toy boombox is still what i associate the company with...
This reminds me of the Mini DVDs and Game Boy Advance video, two other products for kids from the early 2000s that didn't last long.
Josh I
Don't forget the UMD movies on PSP.
maxie fuqua
I don't think UMD movies were strictly for kids, as there plenty of films and shows for adults released on that format. However, it's still an interesting forgotten format.
Josh I
I really meant more that it failed because it didn't know who it was martketing itself to.
Movies that can only be played on a video game system. makes no sense.
and VideoNow
OH MY IM 12 AND I HAVE A GAME BOY ADVANCE SP 001 WITH A JIMMY NEUTRON VIDEO THINGY AND A MARIO KART SUPER CIRCUIT. i think you can guess which one i use more
I had one of these. I remember having a Bangles tape with "Manic Monday" on it.
I grew up in the 80's (I was 10 years old in 1987) here in the States and at my school, we were all listening to Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, older albums of Van Halen, RATT, etc... and that style of rock was very popular from ages eight on up to folks in their 20's. The reason why kids in my area liked music intended for older audiences and teen clothing styles was that we were the kind of kids that wanted to be cooler and act older. That was a thing in my area so allot of that music was actually a good choice for kids back then because of it. However, we all had conventional walkmans/tape decks at the time, so I never knew of anyone who had a Pocket Rocker. But I do remember the commercials when I was 11 (I think).
I've never seen one of these. I've watched several of your videos, enjoyed them all, and am always amazed that these ancient devices actually work. Thank you for all you do.
How can people give these videos dislikes? How??? The money, time, and effort invested are a labor of love and informative. What's wrong with people?
joe beastyg Maybe some people watch CZcams standing on their heads.
The money, time, and effort invested and than 3 sec. sample of playing..
Just when you think you've seen all the different tape formats out there, Techmoan comes along with a new one I've never seen!
Wish I had one of these when I was a kid. I'm one of those people who listens to the same song over, and over, and over. Great video!
Wow, that direct audio feed sounds so high quality! So much so that CZcams ContentID thought so as well!
Older commercials are way better than the ones today.
Yeah. Stumbled upon some neat Dodge Dakota and Viper commercials yesterday from 2000.
Absolutely not true at all. Take off your rose colored glasses. Commercials have always sucked but at least nowadays they actually TRY to be entertaining sometimes. In the 80s and 90s every fucking commercials was just loud noisy edgy and obnoxious or boring as fuck.
@@kevinbissinger I have to agree with the rest and disregard that opinion as your own tonedeaf subjectivity. Commercials these days are far more obnoxious because (much like many modern fixtures of entertainment) they try way too hard and come from the same old cookie-cutter attempts at over stimulation: absurd humor and hype mentality, the kind that marketing huddles have beaten to the point of utter banality.
This is the age of zero intellect.
Is anyone else reminded of the Action Replay toys?
They were small battery powered things that you held up to one eye and played about 20 to 30 seconds of film from a circular cartridge.
I remember owning one with the Terminator 2 cart and loving it. Dunno why really.
Interesting concept but really limited.
Ever seen one Techmoan?
I thought Action Replay was a brand of video game cheat devices
Fisher-Price sold a hand-cranked thing like that in the 1970s. I don't think I ever encountered the battery-powered version.
(I vividly remember the Sears Christmas catalog pushing a film loop for it from... Alien! It's amazing how much kid marketing there was for that R-rated horror film.)
correction: That was apparently for Kenner's competing model...
You could say
Pocket Rockers in the house tonight.
Tracks gonna loop over and over all night.
this just makes me appreciate my walkman even more
Too bad they didn't make these stereo or used all 4 tracks to hold 4 songs. I was a radio DJ in the 80's and there were plenty of grade school kids who called me all the time that loved Huey Lewis and Genesis thanks to MTV. "Can you play the Power of Love? I want to record it on my boombox".
I would agree on this, getting the system to be slower and reading 4 tracks would have been a better system to get at least part of an album onto the set.
I was baffled it used only half the tape. Double-side heads were common, an doubling capacity is not to be scoffed at.
With a little ingenuity it could even seamlessly switch side to double duration.
"How many kids that age were really into Genesis and how many of them could correctly answer trivia questions about Boston?"
*raises hand*
Matthew Eargle - AirborneSurfer you could ask me anything about Rush, Genesis or Creedence Clearwater and I could answer it at that time.
Same. I was a MASSIVE Genesis fan when I was about 7. Played the hell out of Invisible Touch.
Probably a lot in 1988.
I will guess that you weren't around back then, men now im old, in my times you had to walk though snow and mud in order to get old, anyways I had a folder that played music, it was loud and pretty noisy you could barely distinguish the words still I loved it until the battery ran out, back then I didn't know how to change a clock battery.
Genesis is the one big classic prog band I haven't got into yet. Should definitely get on it.
My sister had a Hit Clip. Nothing I listened to had a cart for it and even if it did it only played 90 second clips of songs. I was a kid right in the tail end of the cassette days and the start of the CD revolution. I don’t think I had a proper CD and player until I was like twelve, until then I had blank cassettes and a boom box. Kids today will never know the true struggle of creating a mixtape from the radio.
Can't lie, I like the sound of that commercial's cover of "Down on the Corner".
It was a great commercial in its day and even now. However, marketing that to 8 year olds doomed it. Had it played whole songs, been slightly bigger, and been marketed to kids a bit older, it would have been the poor teen's Walkman. Walkmsm was still the better choice.
Unbelievable! I can't believe I ran across this by accident on CZcams. I remembered this toy from my past, but couldn't recall the name. So I'd given up tracking it down. Then boom. Here it is. This is it. Awesome. This one's identical to the one I had when I was very young. I had different tapes, but I never thought I'd see one again. They weren't that popular with other kids, but I liked it, and that's all that mattered. Memories🙄.
Should have thrown your own tracks on a one of those tapes and let it run. Like a custom pocket rocker tape.
I forgot about these. It's so interesting how quickly 35 years can melt away around me just by watching stuff like this or a few ads or shows I remember as a much younger kid.
10:31 "Hail Satan, he has come."
Pocket Rockers is trying to indoctrinate the kids.
The artwork on the front is radical and totally 80s. Excellent!
I have Trout Mask Replica on my smart watch. Can't stop progress.
0:35 I wanna go back in time to the '80s! It seemed like so much fun!
Lord Sandwich No joke, it actually kind of was
It was so much simpler. Earlier generations said that to us, but this time it’s really true.
I was 18 in 1988. I'll take 2018, thanks.
Pook365 Internet? Did you have internet in the 80s? I sure didn’t...
That’s all I was thinking, I just wish I got to experience all that fun. The 21st century is honestly terrible.
Lol I had one & it played that song that goes “Heaven is a place on Earth...”. Thank you for this video I completely forgot about these...
czcams.com/video/NOGEyBeoBGM/video.html
You just have to put on smooth.fm these days in australia, they play it like twice a day 😂
Belinda Carlisle, ex of the GoGos!
“What kind of kid would’ve been into Genesis?”
A cool kid with excellent tastes, that’s who!! 😎
I knew my Mobius loop had a place in life😍
Trekky On some cars the serpentine belt is s Möbius strip.
I remember seeing these in the stores. I had been making my own dubs of LP's for years. Other than seeing them in the store, about all else I can remember is the genuinely annoying commercials making a shambles of CCR's Down on The Corner. Still, I do very much enjoy your videos. Thank you!
I don't remember ever actively buying a portable tape player, but it seems like I always had a couple floating around. I think I may have got them as prizes at events, or maybe even gifts.... I just remember they'd kind of show up here and there. I don't think I ever had a Walkman or brand name player.
I had a real Discman though... I miss the days of walking around holding my Discman level so it wouldn't skip... my friend had a newer one where you could actually take the disc out for a while and it'd keep playing because of the fancy shock protection, but mine was a pretty early skipping model. The skipping wasn't that bad but it definitely happened if you weren't careful.
This also unlocks memories of wishing I had a Sega CDX (Genesis + Sega CD combo in the form factor of a Discman) so I could carry it around to play audio cds and still be able to play games... of course you'd have to haul a case of games and cables and controllers and all that around to do so..............
Never had a CDX. I did used to take my Sega CD around to friends houses quite a bit though since I was the only one that had one. Maybe that's what made me want a portable one.
still waiting for that hit clips video...
Your wait is over. It came out today!
Techmoan day is the best day. Thank you for your insightful, informative, funny and entertaining videos.
I remember those. Only stupid kids had them because owning this was an intelligence test. Why would you want a device that had half songs and only a few albums when a nice walkman would do so much more? As you can tell from my punctuation I had a Pocket Rocker.
KiloOhm 😄
Last sentence needs a comma
As long as you don't buy Apple products you are ok
@@Wokculture69 I think you mis typed and put Apple in instead of PC (of shit)
Matt Nes'heim Oh yes I love owning products with no usb ports and laptops that cost over 2000. Let's not forget the utter lack of gaming potential
I got one of these as a hand me down from my aunt. It was awesome because she had a lot of the tapes lol I was too young to appreciate it but it was still fun
i can't overlook the fact that it loads like an M1 Garand, even ejects lol. Would be my favorite fidget toy
Pocket Rockers... I choose You!!
Speaking of which, there’s a “Don’t Say You Love Me” Hit Clips if I recall correctly.
Poket Rockers: Unite!
Cylume Pokerok???
Cylume
true
1980s corporate office" lets rewrite CCR!" classic lol
Willy and the Poorboys and their Pocket Rockers
I find it kinda funny how despite being decades older, these are 3x the length, 2x the songs, and way higher quality than hitclips
I checked on wikipedia what songs were avaiable on this format and honestly it's quite a banger playlist!
In the east coast U.S. we were bombarded with these ads.
6:07 It's like a cute baby 8-track!
1970, I was in the US Army, at a training center, learning how to climb telephone poles and string wire through the jungle, with the goal of going to Vietnam and hooking up commo wire to phones or carrying a radio through the jungle, both of which I did a bit later on. I was the kid fresh off the farm with little knowledge of what "real" folks owned, we were dirt poor and the closest I had to a hifi was a little transistor radio my uncle gave me when he returned from the Army. One of my fellow soldiers in the same barracks had this little music player that looked like a half an 8 track but smaller. It came with several cartridges, each with a couple songs on them and played rather well. I became intrigued and eventually purchased it from him. I really liked it, but never figured out what the hell it was called, and by the time I returned from Vietnam, my wife had given it to her brother, who had taken it to college where he traded it off for a bag of weed or some such shit. Still, I wonder what that thing was. I am quite sure of the year (Who wouldn't remember the year you wen't to war?) and the place, only the name of the device has been changed to protect my brain cells. Any thoughts?
1:28 i realized that Genesis released much of their catalogue on weird formats, that's why i knew the Pocket Rocket, Laser Disc and Audio Blu-Ray.