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Finally, the show over, the lad's proud parents are assured by departing
guests that their budding showman has a brilliant future.

In today's high-tech society a few seconds of barely discernible animation
flickering on a suspended bed sheet would hardly be considered an
evening's entertainment. However, for many of us, born in the pre-TV era
this was our first experience of movies at home.
Proof that there was a time when such simple diversions were popular is
evidenced by the hardware and software that still survives.

A wide variety of these toy projectors have been produced over the years.
They came in numerous sizes, shapes and colours even though, for the
most part, sharing basic operating principles. Most turn-of-the-century
examples were, like many other tin toys of the period, of German origin.
Made of 'Russian Iron' by the Nuremberg firm Bing, they spread
throughout the world under a variety of aliases. The light source was
usually a small kerosene lamp complete with chimney. Optics consisted
of an elementary condenser lens behind the film gate and a single meniscus
projecting lens, fitted in a sliding barrel for focusing.

These were basic requirements for both still (magic lantern) and movie
(cinematograph) projectors. Additional mechanics necessary for movie
versions consisted of the hand cranked intermittent movement, usually
toothed wheel driven by a crude 'Maltese cross'. An alternative was an
even more fundamental 'beater' movement; a rotating bent rod, which
literally bashed the film through a frame (or so) at a time.

Geared to the intermittent movement was a rotary fan type shutter (usually
single bladed). Cheaper versions dispensed with this technical nicety
thereby increasing the marginal light output at the expense of severe
'ghosting' (vertical smearing of highlights). A guide was provided for the
film loop consisting of a vertical rod with a top right-angle bend over which
the film would travel.
Film subjects were usually simple line-drawn animations in either black
and white or lithographic colour. As explained earlier, the brevity of scenes
was overcome by joining the ends to form a continuous loop.
Longer films, of 30 feet or more, were also available, but all examples I
have seen thus far consist of discarded lengths of commercial feature film.
Toyshops sold these rolls in appropriately sized cans for a few pennies
each. Being inflammable nitrate based film, most of these ended up as
'stink bombs' at the hands of schoolboys whose interests lay less with film
techniques than pyrotechnics. What remains has usually gone the way of
most nitrate silent film, shrunken and decomposed. The shorter acetate
loops have usually become too brittle to stand projection without
disintegrating.
Early Toy cine 35 mm film
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