Online See 'N Say lets you pull lever for the sounds of Star Wars
Find out how "the Yoda goes," "the R2 unit goes," "the cantina band goes" and much more with this virtual reimagining of a classic kids toy.
When I think back on my favorite toys from my very early childhood two things come to mind. That rolling telephone thing that you may have seen in the film "Toy Story 3," and the Mattel See 'N Say.
If you weren't lucky enough to have had this miraculous talking toy, there's a video of it below (and an interesting article on how it works here). It was basically a round plastic box with a pull string -- and eventually a lever -- on the side, a dial in the middle and pictures of animals around the perimeter. You set the dial to the animal of your choice, pulled the string and heard, for example, "The pig says...oink oink oink."
Now a group of six "Star Wars" fans has reimagined the old toy, which first debuted in 1965, to pay tribute to their favorite film on a site called TheStarWarsSays, which launched in November.
Visit the page and you'll see a graphic representation of a See 'N Say, modeled after a familiar ship. Click to drag the center arrow to your favorite character or thing from the Star Wars universe, then drag down the lever on the right to hear the results.
One of the nicest touches of the site is that the track that plays after each pull has that scratchy old-record sound overlaid, which mimics the old See 'N Say perfectly.
"Basically, this was a side project that me and five other people decided to do, as we love Star Wars and believe kids nowadays need this," Nikolay Mihaylov, one of the creators of the project, told CNET's Crave blog. "We picked the most popular characters from the Star Wars universe and recorded some of their most famous lines. Every couple of pulls, the Falcon stalls, which we still find hilarious."
Mihaylov says that while this was a pure fan project, they'd love it if it became a real, corporate-approved toy. That, or a shout-out from a certain director would do just fine.
"In all honesty," Mihaylov said, "what we really want to happen is J.J. to tweet us."
How about it, Mr. Abrams? You must have a little more time on your hands now, right?