While doing some research into music box mechanisms earlier today (holy cow, you can get a 30-note chromatic paper-roll music box mechanism for $60-ish now? Last time I looked, something like that cost over $500) I was reminded of the Fisher-Price “record player” music box I had as a kid. Cam had one too, and hers is here, so I got it down to check it out. It’s a great little toy, and completely mechanical: you wind a knob on the front to compress a spring that powers the turntable, and the music is encoded in bumps on the record which trigger a music box in the “needle” area of the tone arm. The whole case acts as a resonator for the music box, so you get a surprising amount of sound out of it. And the thing is bomb-proof. Cam’s is probably around 35 years old, and it works just fine. A little buzzy maybe, but completely usable. You can find more information at ThisOldToy.com, and there are usually a few available for sale on eBay if you want one of your own.

So, I was looking around to see if they still made these, because the mechanism’s really neat, and it looks eminently hackable with your own custom-made records — Cam proposed Still Alive as a good music box tune, and I bet she’s right; with that toy piano already in the original, I think it’s a natural. Anyway, it turns out that while Fisher-Price hadn’t made the record player music box since the early 90s, they just recently started selling a “re-issue” :

The Fisher Price Change-A-Record Music Box, more commonly known as the Fisher Price Record Player, is a favorite among those who played with it as a child. Originally introduced in 1971, this endearing classic is now available again. Complete with “playable” records that store conveniently inside the record player and a carrying handle for tunes on the go Features 10 songs on 5 records.

That’s great, I thought, I’ll pick one up for my nephew. Except that Fisher-Price is lying about what they’re selling. They aren’t selling “this endearing classic” at all.

This is a classic Fisher-Price Record Player Music Box:

It’s hard to tell, because it’s a small image, but those records have 10 grooves each (with bumps on both sides of each groove making 20 playable notes). That, in fact, is the image that illustrates the Amazon listing. And it’s the image that’s on the back of the box of the new version:

But take a look at what’s on the front of the box, and what’s inside:

“Requires 3 AA alkaline batteries, not included.” And where are the bumps on the record which trigger the tines of the music box? What’s with the weird groove spacing? What the hell? A review explains the change: :

Evidently someone realized that it was far less expensive to use a 25 cent memory chip and a speaker instead of all those mechanical parts (sturdy though they were), so the new player works as follows: The record head has four pressable buttons which line up with four ridge positions on the discs

Each disc no longer has “bumps” for notes, but instead simply has a combination of four continuous ridges

The memory chip identifies which disc is being played by the ridges depressing the buttons

The wind-up still turns the disc manually, but all it does is tell the speaker to play while turning.

This is, in a word, bullshit.

This isn’t a music box at all. It’s a cheap plastic mp3 player with a toddler-friendly interface and an extremely limited library. It’s shaped like the classic toy they’re passing it off as, but it has none of the charm or educational value of the original (well, ok, the physical appearance of the player is still kind of charming). With the original, a reasonably bright kid could be curious about how the thing worked, and by careful examination figure out that the bumps on the record corresponded to the notes being played. You could even make your own noise by running your finger under the “needle” and pulling on the read head. Cam and I both had this experience, and we both remember loving our record player. This new thing, though… it doesn’t even work very well, according to reviewers who complain about it just failing to spin, or failing to play music despite fresh batteries and a spinning record.

One reviewer claims Fisher-Price had to do this in order to bring the toy up to modern safety standards, which is a joke. I bet it’s more dangerous now that it has batteries, which can leak acid or (depending on the design) accidentally be knocked free of their compartment and swallowed. And look at that — the Amazon listing has a big safety warning: “WARNING: CHOKING HAZARD — Small parts. Not for children under 3 yrs.” Not for children under 3 years old? The box claims it’s for 18 months and up. And the original would be safe for anyone.

I can’t quite explain why this makes me so mad. It’s not just that I hate change, or even that I hate change in things about which I am nostalgic (although I will never recognize Elmo as a real resident of Sesame Street). I think it’s that it seems like such a cynical marketing ploy. The people who had these things as kids now have kids the age they were then. They obviously still have the production materials for these, or if not, they care enough to make a convincing replica. I’m sure there’s a company they could have sourced the music box mechanism from, if they couldn’t make it themselves any more. But instead they’re selling us yet another landfill-bound piece of plastic crap, under the guise of selling us the ability to give our kids an experience we had ourselves. I don’t even have kids, and it offends me.

Assholes.