Red Raven Animated Records

When portable CD players were relatively new, a friend of mine had a unit with a little window in the lid.  I thought that it would be really cool to create a CD that had sequential frames on it that would seem to animate through the window.  There are a number of technical reasons why that wouldn't work (the window doesn't have a shutter, every CD player has a different window, etc.), but it still seemed like a good idea.

Just like so many good ideas, mine had been done forty years before by Red Raven records.  These were cardboard children's records with the animation printed right onto the disc itself (later versions like the one above had the animation on the label of regular colored vinyl).  The Red Raven included a little mirrored device that you pop onto the turntable's spindle that reflected the animation in such a way that while the record plays you get to see a little cartoon.

The effect is rather hypnotic (the mirrored device is an ersatz praxinoscope for all of you optics junkies), and a neat addition to the typical children's fare on the record itself.  Sixteen Magic Mirror Movie records were released by Red Raven (making for 32 animations of course).

Nice video from Kempa.com of the Red Raven in action