Give a Show (1959 – early 1980s)

The Give a Show projector was a toy slide projector introduced by Kenner Products, a US toy company, in 1959. It was also sold under the Chad Valley brand in the UK and Australia.

The projector had a battery-powered bulb, and used filmstrips usually containing seven images that were pulled through a slot on the side of the machine. It was simple to use, just requiring a blank wall to project onto, and it could project up to 5 feet.

Lots of content was licensed for the system including popular cartoons, Star Wars, Star Trek and Doctor Who. Unlike the View-Master or Show’N Tell the images were never live action, but were drawn artwork. For some strips, accompanying records were available on 7-inch 45rpm disc, and the strip would be manually advanced when a tone sounded.

In its time it was very successful, in the days before video recorders were widely available, and it appears to have been produced into the early 1980s.

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